Ewua is the title of a priest belonging to the Holy Aruosa Church, also referred to as the church of the Ọba of Benin. The church was first established by Portuguese missionaries in the fifteenth century. Each morning, noon and evening, the Ewua priest goes to the Ọba to lead prayers or devotion (this is an indication of the Catholic culture of the Angelus at 6:00 am, noon and 6:00 pm). The bronze casters today say that the figure holds an Avan, a small axe, in their left hand, though European literature refers to it as a hammer. He is also depicted wearing the equal-armed or Maltese cross on his chest.
Ewua messenger figures refer to cast sculptures of men with cross-shaped pendants worn around their necks and so-called cat’s whiskers scarification on both cheeks, which is thought to denote ‘foreigners’ or non-Edo peoples, and the round-topped cap or hat with open areas.
Purchases by the Nigerian Government at the Sale by Messrs. Sotheby & Co. Bond Street, London on April 26th 1954, M. B. E. B. Fagg, assistant surveyor of antiquities, acted for the Nigerian Government at the Sale in negotiations. The property of Mrs. Dorothy Hemingway. (From the collection of Dr. R. Allman, Principal Medical Officer of Southern Nigeria during the Benin Punitive Expeditionof 1897. Bronze standing figures of a man from Benin called a “Cross bearer” from the cross hanging around the neck. No.121 in the sale catalogue where it is described as follows: “ A superb Benin bronze helmet, three radiating lines branching from the conners of the mouth, around his neck tow strings of coral and a pendant cross denoting his rank, the draped skirt caught up at one side and superbly engraved with masks and stylish motifs, his arms raised and bent at the elbows and holding in his left hand an axe-like implement, his feet turned slightly outwards, 241/2” high, fine patination.