Idiophone/Staff (ahianmwẹn-ọrọ) (possibly 1800s): Art, History and Details

Idiophone/Staff (ahianmwẹn-ọrọ) (possibly 1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the 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.

Object facts

• Title: Idiophone/Staff (ahianmwẹn-ọrọ)
• Date: possibly 1800s
• Culture: Nigeria, Benin Kingdom, Ẹdo peoples, members of the Igun Eronmwon (royal brasscasters) guild
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: Copper alloy
• Dimensions: Overall: 36.2 x 9.9 cm (14 1/4 x 3 7/8 in.)
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 1938.5

A detail from the museum

An image of the ahianmwẹn-ọrọ (bird of prophecy) once sat atop the roof of the palace in the Benin Kingdom.

Collection credit

James Albert Ford Memorial Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Foote, Helen S. "Two Bronzes from Benin." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 25, no. 3 (1938): 48-50.
• CMA 1938: Bulletin (March 1938)
• Lane, James W. "Current Exhibitions." Parnassus Vol. 7, no. VII (December 1935): 26-31, 35.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.