 ——”~ 
CAST-METAL WORK FROM BENIN. 59 
raised edges), which have here and there corroded through. These pits were 
afterwards filled in with a yellow porcellaneous glass, or enamel, still occupying 
most of them, which must have been made on the spot, and applied ina fused 
condition, for the discs have no appearance of having been ent out and stuck 
on. The province of Nupe, some few hundred miles to the north east, was 
long noted, as Mr. Bowen relates, for its glass manufacture, of which it. was 
the only seat in West Africa, the secret being there known to only a few 
craftsmen. According to Lieut. Vandeleur* the people of Bida, the capital 
of Nupe, are still workers in glass. 
Commander Bacon informs me that he saw also in Benin figures of 
leopards made of ivory, with “looking glass spots.” 
Our figure itself was apparently put to some use, for there is on the crown 
of the head a round opening, the diameter of two or three fingers, on the 
hinder margin of which a broken hinge indicates that it had a lid, which it 
now lacks; in any case, it was probably the powerful protecting fetish of the 
house in which it was found. Commander Forbes, in his “Dahomey,” tells us 
that “the Fetish of Abomey is the leopard, and of Wydah, the snake.” Both 
animals appear to have been powerful fetishes in Benin also, where they, no 
doubt, are, or were, as in Dahomey, sacred and protected against capture, 
except by leave of the priests. 
The extreme length of this figure is 550 mm. ; its height from ground, at 
the root of tail, 233; from the crown of the head to the ground, 292, and 
across the head, 95. 
VII. The four following solid-cast statuettes (of each of which a front, a 
side, and a back view, are given in Figs. 10, 11, 12, 13), though very similar 
to each other in general appearance, all differ considerably 1 size and in 
numerous other small details ; so that for each the artist had to make a new 
model, and the artificer a fresh mold. In all of them, the head-dress, the 
robe, and the objects carried in the hands, are elaborately ornamented with 
raised designs and delicate pierced work which must have presented great 
difficulties to the founders. 
The head-dress, seen in b, Fig. 10 (Register number : 7.10.97.1), is very 
similar to that in the Tusk-holder (Figs. 7, and 8), except that it has, projecting 
from both the side rosettes, a stitt cockade of woven cotton, or, perhaps, 
of bead-work, with an ornamental margin of beads and coral; a large 
feather is stuck behind the left cockade. The crown of this head-dress 
terminates in an erect circular spike of fine bead-work, overarched by a dis- 
proportionately large twisted loop of copper (Fig. 10, 0) with a chiselled 
floral pattern upon it. From the lower edge of this wonderful helmet, depend, 
along the side of the face, a large stiff curved elephant-tusk like liorn, a cord 
of coral beads reaching right down to the hem of the robe, and a plait of 
the only hair his shaven head presents, succeeded by more strings of coral 
round the back of the head. The neck is encircled, and the chest, shoulders 
and back, are enveloped, in a royal panoply of coral beads. From under 
these coverings there emerges, on the shoulders, a netted sleeve, perhaps a 
sort of mail, reaching half way to the elbow. ‘The rest of the arms are bare, 
except for the wide bracelets of coral, which, however, are narrow when 
compared with the chain-like anklets that enrope the legs. All this coral 
display bespeaks a person of no mean dignity ; for, to quote again from 
Burton, who, speaking of «“Qkalla, the guide and entertainer” allotted to 
his party by the Captain of War, remarks that he was “a man of conse- 
quence, as is proved by his wearing anklets as well as a necklace of coral ; 


* Journ, R.G.S., Vol. x. p- 362 (1897). 
