64 BULLETIN OF THE LIVERPOOL MUSEUMS. 
the latter may be compared with the insignia of the C.B., the former with 
those of the G.C.B. They are always the gift of the King, who keeps them 
in his possession, and punishes any counterfeiting with death. According to 
Bosman, a man losing his coral collar, loses his life. Coral is the favourite 
ornament in this part of the world ; not in beads, but in pieces like bits of 
‘churchwarden’-stem. A string of this article is a regal present.” 
To a stout girdle, strung with small bells, is hung his kilt-like robe, with 
two embroidered bars, in a sennit pattern similar to that to be seen on many 
Anglo-Saxon objects. Between these bars, the robe is ‘figured’ with long- 
haired human heads, and the fish-slice like knife (?), held in the right hand of 
the statue. The ends of the robe meet, on the left side, ina tasselled knot, or 
bow, to which are chatelained a bearded mask and a series of small bells, and 
from which an ornamental plate of metal, or a stiff cotton-woven, or beaded, 
disk, or, perhaps, it may be the stiffened end of the garment itself, stands up 
behind the arm, reaching nearly to the shoulder, its edge bound with “ church- 
warden pipe-stalk ” pieces of coral, alternating with button like beads. 
In the right hand is held a fish-slice like knife (Fig. 10, «) with a short 
handle, ending in a loose ring, its blade ornamented with miniatures of itself. 
These have been supposed, by some, to represent executioners’ swords, but 
Commander Bacon, in his letter to me, says: ‘ We found many of them [the 
fish-knife so often recurring on the plaques] brass and electro-plated. One 
thing they were not, and that is, executioners’ swords, which were of quite a 
different shape.” Burton also mentions, among the things seen in the Fetish- 
house visited by him in 1862, “plates of thin iron, perforated and shaped 
like a large fish-slicer, with a shank and a terminating ring—mysterious 
articles used for ‘making play ’ at festivals.” 
The left hand of the statuette holds a still more elaborate object 
(Fig. 10, «), what I believe to be a long-handled goblet. From the underside 
of the bowl radiate four cruciform spokes, in which the handle terminates. 
Up each quadrant of the handle crawls a serpent, while two others ascend by 
the sides of the bowl, each as if attacking a negro’s head, resting on the lip 
of the cup, above it. On the front and back of the goblet is depicted a 
man wearing about his loins a skirt, similar to that ia the statuette, but with 
a striped garment over the upper part of his body, and with a necklace, 
instead of a collar, of coral about his neck. He holds a key-like implement in 
his right hand, and a staff in his left. 
The tribal marks on the face of the statue are the same as on the face of 
the Tusk holder (Fig. 7), except that the perpendicular lines over the inner 
corner of the eyes are absent, while the longitudinal scorings, characteristic 
of Benin natives, are present down the sides of the abdomen. 
The spirally twisted loop of copper, overarching the head, would appear 
not to have been cast with the rest of the figure, but to have been inde- 
pendently made and chased, and then, if not attached to the mold, to have 
had its free ends inserted into the metal before it had cooled; for it can 
be seen that some of the molten metal ran up for a short distance on the 
sides of the loop, taking the impress of the pattern chased upon it. 
All four figures have been most accurately finished with the punch and 
chaser, and their surface finally very carefully smoothed. 
From the centre of the body, in all the statuettes, a strong copper prong 
or spike, 175 mm. long (broken off in two of the figures), protrudes from 
between the legs, for fixing it either into the ground or into some wooden 
or other support. 
The height of Fig. 10. from the tip of the spike of the helmet to the feet, 
is 465 mm. ; from the top of the overarching loop to the feet, 580 mm. ; and 
from the top of the helmet-crest to the lower border of the robe, 410 mm. 
The officer, who looted these statuettes, tells me that he was informed by 
a Juju man, through an interpreter, that they represented four generations 
