Figs. 66 to 72.—The historic mace of office of Duboar, late King of Benin; 5 feet 4 inches long, and made of brass. This was found by an officer of the expedition in the state apartment of the palaver house, and was evidently left behind by the king’s people on account of its heavy weight, in their hurried exodus from Benin city; the king is said to have since recognized this staff, and stated that it had been handed down for many hundreds of years from king to king. It has the representation of “Overami,” or reigning monarch, on the summit, dressed in the usual manner of Benin warriors. He is standing on an elephant which has a proboscis terminating in a human hand. This peculiarity is represented very often in the bronze antiquities of the Benin country, and especially on the carved tusk, Figs. 167 and 168, Plate XXVI, and must probably represent some great fetish; the present race, on enquiries being made, could not elucidate this matter, so its history must date back many ages. This elephant is in turn supported by the usual two royal leopards. The monarch holds in his right hand his chief ju-ju, which never leaves him night or day; in his left hand he holds a neolithic or stone axe head, edge upwards, which are looked up to by the natives even now with great awe and superstition. The interior of the upper part of the mace is hollow, having a piece of metal inside, formed like a long crotal, and was used as a bell to keep order. The broad leaf-shaped swords and the execution swords are depicted in several places over the mace. It is ornamented with guilloche pattern of two and three bands with intervening pellets. Part of the mace is ornamented in imitation of twine binding. Near the foot of the staff is the figure of another elephant with proboscis terminating in a human hand, holding a plant like a prickly-pear. Beneath the elephant are two human figures, with Maltese crosses on breasts, axes in left hands, and sticks in right. Below this are two axes hafted in serpents’ heads, which have human hands in their mouths and sinuous bodies. Crocodile, head downwards, and two interlaced mud-fish.

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