page_title: Benin ivory mask
section_title: Trade symbolism
hierarchical_section_title: Benin ivory mask / Description and interpretation / Trade symbolism
caption_attribution_description: Bone/Ivory-Sculpture
context_page_description: The Benin ivory mask is a miniature sculptural portrait in ivory of Idia, the first Iyoba - or Queen Mother - of the 16th century Benin Empire, taking the form of a traditional African mask.
  Two almost identical masks are kept at the British Museum in London and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Both feature a serene face of the Queen Mother wearing a beaded headdress, a beaded choker at her neck, scarification highlighted by iron inlay on the forehead, and all framed by the flange of an openwork tiara and collar of symbolic beings, as well as double loops at each side for attachment of the pendant.
  There are also examples on the same theme at the Seattle Art Museum and the Linden Museum, and one in a private collection, all taken during the British Benin Expedition of 1897.
  The British Museum example in particular has also become a cultural emblem of modern Nigeria since FESTAC 77, a major pan-African cultural festival held in 1977, which chose as is official emblem a replica of the mask crafted by Erhabor Emokpae.
context_section_description: Ivory, both then and now, connotes royal wealth, power, and purity. Ivory, already a luxury commodity in Africa, became increasingly coveted with the growth of the European ivory trade. When an elephant was killed in Benin, the Oba received one tusk as a gift and was offered the other in sale. Thus, the Oba had many tusks and controlled the ivory trade. Ivory is associated with the Edo orisha of the sea, Olokun. As this orisha gives wealth and fertility, it the spirit world's equivalent of the Benin Oba. Ivory gave wealth similar to Olokun, as it enticed the Portuguese merchants who, in turn, returned wealth to Benin. The Portuguese belonged to Olokun, having arrived from the sea. The whiteness of ivory also reflects the symbolism of white chalk, whose ritual purity is associated with Olokun.
  The openwork of the tiara and collar represent tiny heads of Portuguese men in the tiara of both the Met and the British Museum examples, with eleven figures in the British Museum mask, and in the Met mask seven figures of Portuguese men alternating with six representations of mudfish, the West African lungfish.  The Portuguese, who had only recently arrived in the area, were a symbol of power and affluence to the royal court. Their iconography is identifiable by their long hair, hanging mustaches (often described as bearded), and domed hats. Benin art historian Barbara Blackmun interprets these crown adornments as a reference to Idia's ability to conduct the Portuguese power to her son's favor. Mudfish were a common theme in Benin royal arts, and reflected the divinity of the Oba. Edo cosmology believed that spirits crossed the ocean to reach the afterlife, where their leaders lived like gods. As creatures who could live on land and sea, the mudfish symbolized the duality needed for the leader's final journey, and this duality represents the seafaring Portuguese as well.  The mudfish also appear in a pattern on the Linden Museum mask's crown, while the private collection mask's crown has bird elements, also formerly present on the similar Seattle Art Museum mask.  The masks also differ in pattern along their bottom, collar edges. The collar of the Met example is similarly decorated with eleven Portuguese men (with damage on its proper right side), while the collar of the British Museum mask is instead an abstract guilloché latticework.
caption: Detail of Portuguese merchant head and mudfish
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