Studio: international art (15.1899)

Primitive Art from Benin

"When new this brass necklace must have en-
riched the effect of the carving in no small de-
gree. Animals, such as cat-fishes, snakes, &c,
are continually met with as decorative adjuncts
apparently quite apart from their fetish or sym-
bolic value ; but it is rarer to meet with human
heads tending to evolve into scroll work, and
their appearance here may point to development

FIG. 25.—CARVED COCOA-NUT

FROM MR. H. L. ROTH'S COLLECTION

after the advent of the Portuguese. The pupils
of the eyes of the masks are let in with metal,
and the foreheads are disfigured by the two
coarse grooves once occupied with strips of
metal. It has been suggested that the latter
insertions are tatu marks, but such cannot be
the case, as similar insets are met with in widely
different objects, as, for instance, metal caskets
and boxes. The beards of the masks have at
some period been adorned with strips of metal
similar to those on the ivory staff. The arrange-
ment of the hair over the forehead is curious. This
may be intended to represent a mail cap, or it
may be meant to show curly hair pressed like
honeycomb or basalt into hexagons.

FIG. 26. BOTTOM OF CARVED COCOA-NUT

The armless ivory statuette (Fig. 31) is charac-
teristically Bini and appears to be of considerable
age judging by the perished state of the ivory.
The loin cloth is ornamented with what look to
be masks, and as some of the bronze horsemen

FIG. 27.—CARVED COCOA-NUT

FROM MR. H. L. ROTH'S COLLECTION
179