C-shaped bracelet. Open ends are flattened into large circles. Elongated shape. Ribbed and ball decoration at ends.
The donor, Dr. Kaplan, says that these manillas (referring to all of the manillas in this accession, E434824 - 434849) were collected while she was carrying out research on Benin bronze casting in Benin City, Nigeria between 1984 and 1999. She purchased them from the master caster, Osaize Omodamwen, with whom she was working. The “manillas” were sold by traders from the “north” of Nigeria as scrap metal to the casters. A few of them are true “manilla” which were metal bracelets cast in Liverpool and were still being used as currency in Nigeria up into the 1960s. Others are bracelets and anklets, once worn by either men or women as ritual or prestige items and which may have also functioned as currency.
