Decorated staff or stave with female figure at top. The base of the staff is shaped like stacked cones, the central section is a rattle carved with geometric patterns and there is a female figure standing at the top. There are insect casings present in the carving.
Decorated staff or stave with female figure at top. The base of the staff is shaped like stacked cones, the central section is a rattle carved with geometric patterns and there is a female figure standing at the top.
During the collections-based phase of the Museum Affordances Project 2018, photographs of some of these rattle staffs were shared on the project Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/reentanglements/).
In a comment on 01/10/2018, Adenike Cosgrove wrote: ' This looks to be an Edo ukhurhe rattle staff. You can read more about them here: https://www.imodara.com/.../nigeria-edo-ukhurhe-rattle.../'
These staffs (Z 20317 - Z 20342) appear to have been carved by the same hand, or in the same workshop and were collected by N.W. Thomas as a group. They are listed in Thomas' 1st catalogue (Doc.413) as entries 308-335, which are situated at the very back of the catalogue.