Nigeria
Yoruba

Copper alloy
19th century or earlier
Height: 15cm, Width 7cm
Idiophone-Struck Directly – Metal Bell

This Yoruba Bell made for the Ogboni Society was used in rituals, possibly to make connections with their ancestors.  The Ogboni Society is a fraternal institution indigenous to the Oruba language-speaking polities of Nigeria, Republic of Benin, Togo, and among the Edo people. 

Ethnomusicologists believe that bells with a blade or knife handle, have a different function than bells with figural handles. This bell is closely related to a published example in “Der Ogboni-Geheimbund, by Dr. Th.A.H.M.Dobblemann, (1976), which suggests this may be by the same artist.