Rattle Staff (ukhuhre) (1900s): Art, History and Details

Rattle Staff (ukhuhre) (1900s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the 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.

Object facts

• Title: Rattle Staff (ukhuhre)
• Date: 1900s
• Culture: Nigeria, Benin Kingdom, Ẹdo peoples, member(s) of the Igbesanmwan (wood and ivory carvers) guild
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: Wood, paint, cowrie shells, and plant fiber
• Dimensions: Overall: 149.5 x 7.5 x 8 cm (58 7/8 x 2 15/16 x 3 1/8 in.)
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 1998.85

A detail from the museum

Rattle staffs (ukhuhrẹ) like this are still used in the Benin Kingdom today.

Collection credit

Gift of Phyllis Sloane in memory of Rose White

Further reading listed by the museum

• Windmuller-Luna, Kristen. “Art from the Benin Kingdom.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 61, no. 1 (Winter 2021): 34-35.
• Digital Benin, Markk Museum Am Rothenbaum Kulturen und Kunste der Welt, (Last Updated: 2021-02-13)

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.