Beautiful old dance wand "oshe shango" ·  Nigeria, Yoruba · ID: 3041750

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Description

wood, strongly encrusted blackish brown patina, miniature glass beads, crowned by a kneeling female figure with double axe symbol, carved with neck rings, bracelets and sash across the chest, unusual: surface structure of the coiffure reminding of a fir cone, sacrificial traces, dam., insect caused missing parts backside (above all at the double axe), handle replaced in most parts, plate;
“shango” staffs are held during processions and dances in honour of the thunder god. When not in use they are kept in large wooden or calabash bowls in the deity’s shrines, together with the thunderstones “shango” supposedly flings down from the sky.

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Publications

Schädler, Karl-Ferdinand, Afrikanische Kunst in Deutschen Privatsammlungen, München 1973, p. 166, ill. 222; Schädler, Karl-Ferdinand, Afrikanische Kunst, München 1975, p. 117. Fig. 164

AHDRC: 0104681

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