Rattle Staff (ukhuhre)
1900s
- Medium
- Wood, paint, cowrie shells, and plant fiber
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- Overall: 149.5 x 7.5 x 8 cm (58 7/8 x 2 15/16 x 3 1/8 in.)
- Culture
- Nigeria, Benin Kingdom, Ẹdo peoples, member(s) of the Igbesanmwan (wood and ivory carvers) guild
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, African Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Phyllis Sloane in memory of Rose White
- 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
Rattle staffs (ukhuhrẹ) are instruments of memory and sound. Though this staff represented a single elite man, it evokes the individuals in his lineage. Inspired by bamboo, it is divided into segments that link three carved men dressed in coral-beaded finery. Benin courtiers still carry these staffs during celebrations and rituals. By banging the staff on the ground, a rattling sound emanates from its open center, where a wooden cylinder rolls freely. The noise alerts ancestral spirits to prayers offered on their behalf. When not in use, they are stored on ancestral altars.
