Dancing staff
- Museum number:
- 5-15218
- Permalink:
- ark:/21549/hm21050015218
- Alternate number:
- 6 (original number)
- Accession number:
- Acc.4428
- Description:
- dancing staff, reddish brown wood; kneeling female w/ separately carved double axe blades attached w/ iron spike above head; necklace of tiny brown beads and 2 larger red beads; 2 leather thong wrist straps attached through perforation at base; l. 31.7 cm.
- Donor:
- Joan Wescott
- Collection place:
- Nigeria
- Verbatim coll. place:
- Africa; Nigeria; Yoruba
- Culture or time period:
- Yoruba
- Collector:
- Joan Wescott
- Collection date:
- unknown
- Materials:
- Iron (metal), Leather, and Wood (plant material)
- Object type:
- ethnography
- Object class:
- Carvings (visual works)
- Function:
- 5.1 Religion and Divination: Objects and garb associated with practices reflecting submission, devotion, obedience, and service to supernatural agencies
- Accession date:
- July 25, 1989
- Context of use:
- see info. for 5-15217. Shango staff for 'orish oko'. these staffs are sacred symbols of the deity (orisha) Oko, whose cult center and pilgrimage place is the village of Irawo in the northwest Oyo Province. Irawo smiths produce the cult staffs from hoe blades taken there by both male and female devotees of Oko.
- Department:
- Africa (except Ancient Egypt)
- Dimensions:
- length 31.7 centimeters
- Images:
- Legacy documentation: