This is Umwekhen. In Benin Kingdom, it is called Umwekhen. Its English name is ‘pumpkin’. The botanical name is Telfairia occidentalis. The Benin people use this fruit as one of their sacrificial fruits because it symbolises fertility and purity. Among the items used in different ritual ceremonies is this Umwekhen fruit when you go to most Olokun worshippers’ shrines. Just as we also have it for those during the propitiation at the Emota Shrine, Kings Square, Benin City, you find a lot of these fruits there. This is because the Benin people believe that naturally, the sacrificial fruit has a white chalk that comes with it. You can see this white pigmentation, and this is the purity of the way that God created. Also the major reason for using this fruit as an item, or one of the objects or items, for sacrifice is because it symbolises fertility and productivity, which we can see when we open the fruit. (Starts cutting into the fruit with a knife.) This sacrificial fruit contains a lot of seeds … And so, the Benin people, in the course of worship, believe that particularly for women, when they offer this fruit as a type of sacrifice, they are making a propitiation for fertility. You can see this, these are the fruits … It is filled up … So what we find in the bronze objects of the sacrificial fruit is a replica of this as one of the items for daily worship, ancestor worship, and ritual propitiation in Benin Kingdom.