Idiophone/Staff (ahianmwẹn-ọrọ)
possibly 1800s
- Medium
- Copper alloy
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- Overall: 36.2 x 9.9 cm (14 1/4 x 3 7/8 in.)
- Culture
- Nigeria, Benin Kingdom, Ẹdo peoples, members of the Igun Eronmwon (royal brasscasters) guild
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, African Art
- Credit line
- James Albert Ford Memorial Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Courtiers, priests, and senior chiefs strike instruments like this during the Ugie Ọrọ festival. The long-legged metal bird refers to the 16th-century ruler Ọba Ẹsigie. Wings outstretched with long, textured feathers, it is the ahianmwẹn-ọrọ (bird of prophecy). It stares outward, a likely magical substance clenched in its beak. Such a bird prophesied Ẹsigie’s defeat and death during the Idah War (about 1515–17), leading his people to resist fighting for him. When Ẹsigie triumphed, bronze bird effigies were beaten for days on end throughout the year. This punished the false avian prophet and shamed the cowardly men.
