Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/460

440 collection contains examples of every sort of work obtained at Benin. Of pottery there was hardly any—one small Negro's head being specially noted as exceptional; bronze was the usual material for bas-reliefs and weapons alike. Many specimens of carved ivory were also found, varying from armlets to trumpets carved out of a whole elephant's tusk. One leopard's mask (No. 153) is especially old. These masks, usually cast in bronze, are a great feature of Benin art. They are too small to have been worn on the face, and animal masks are as common as human. Many of the figures are represented as wearing heads slung round the waist, kiltwise, as an ornament. Necklaces, varying from beautifully finished casts of shells to a solid curved necklet representing vultures pecking at skeletons; elaborate four-sided bells, hanging lamps, stools, bowls, coffers and jugs, flasks (large and small), cast in bronze or carved out of cocoanut shells; the list is as interesting as it is long and varied.

Specially noteworthy are the dancing swords or wands of the virgins (Plate 29, No. 330), the sceptre decorated (amongst other things) with agricultural implements; and the elaborate royal mace—No. 66-72, where the enthroned king is holding a stone axe. The sacrificial blocks, Nos. 259-60, and 333-5, and the method of sacrificing an animal shown in the bas-relief on Plate 47 are also interesting, as are the few examples of attempted realism. After the human figure it was in birds that the Benin artists were most successful; their animals show want of observation. That Portuguese influence produced this special phase of West African art seems pretty certain. General Pitt-Rivers both held so himself, and quotes the similar opinion of Nyendaeel in the eighteenth century. That the men represented are intended for Portuguese is clear from Nos. 84, 289, to take no other instances. Of the earliest Portuguese expedition there would seem to be little trace, as all the European figures that have survived are in sixteenth century costume, and the greatest artistic activity should probably be ascribed to that period. Nyendaeel speaks of the actual production of casts as going on whilst he was in Benin, but later writers do not mention the art, which must therefore have died out during the eighteenth century. Space prevents us from giving a more detailed account, but General Pitt-Rivers' name is in itself a sufficient guarantee for the value and interest of the volume.