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⁶ Nicole Lambert, ‘Exploitation minière et métallurgie protohistorique du cuivre au Sahara occidentale’, paper presented at the Joint Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association of the United States and the Committee on African Studies in Canada, Montreal, Oct. 1969. Production at Akjoujt is currently being reopened.Google Scholar

⁷ See, e.g. Barth, Heinrich, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, 1849–55, 5 vols. (London, 1857–1858), 11, 141;Google ScholarNewbury, C. W., ‘North African and Western Sudan trade in the nineteenth century: a re-evaluation’, J. Afr. Hist. VII (1966), 237, 242. My forthcoming book will provide a fuller study of the copper trade itself.Google Scholar

⁸ Shaw, Thurstan, Igbo-Ukwu, 2 vols. (London, 1969), 1, 205–6.Google Scholar

⁹ Lebeuf, J.-P., La Civilisation du Tchad (Paris, 1950), 144, 155, 177–8,Google Scholar and History and Archaeology in Africa, report of the Second Conference held in London, 07 1957, ed. Jones, D. H. (London, 1959), 31.Google ScholarHowever Lebeuf has not yet published a systematic analysis of Sao ‘bronzes’ nor is his dating clear: Cf. Shaw, 1, 277.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Op. cit. p. 325.Google Scholar

¹¹ See especially the extensive documentation provided by Sundströrn, Lans, The Trade of Guinea (Uppsala, 1965), 74–5, 80, 86–93, 233–46, 262;Google Scholar also Einzig, Paul, Primitive Money in its Ethnological, Historical and Economic Aspects (Oxford, 1966), 110, 130–1, 141–2, 151–2;Google ScholarRyder, A. F. C., Benin and the Europeans, 1485–1897 (London, 1969), 95–6, 295 ff.;Google ScholarKirk-Greene, A. H. M., ‘The Major Currencies in Nigerian History’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, 11 (1960), 132–50;Google ScholarBarbot, J., A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea in Awnsham Churchill, A Collection of Voyages and Travels, 6 vols. (London, 1732), V, 117, 382, 465.Google ScholarCf. Dapper, Olfert, Description de l'Afrique (Amsterdam, 1686), 315–16.Google Scholar See also Crow, Hugh, Memoirs of the late Captain Hugh Crow of Liverpool (London, 1830), 251–2,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Barth, 11, 310.Google Scholar

¹² Gabus, Jean, Art Nègre (Neuchâtel, 1967), 67.Google Scholar

¹³ Pereira, Duarte Pacheco, Esmeraldo do Situ Orbis, trans. and ed. Kimble, G. H. T. (London, 1937), 132.Google Scholar

¹⁴ In Blake, J. W., ed., Europeans in West Africa, 2 vols. (London, 1942), 11, 343.Google Scholar Between 1 May 1505‐30 and Sept. 1506 the Portuguese factor at Axim received 67,095 common manillas of brass: Ibid. I, 97.

¹⁵ See, e.g. Mauny, ‘Histoire’, 569–72Google Scholar and Tableau Géographique, 95–106, 113;Google ScholarBessac, H., Notes Africaines, No. 57 (1953), 2;Google Scholar G. Szumoski, Ibid. No. 67 (1955), 69; Connah, G., J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, IV (1968), 313–14Google Scholar and Ibid. III (1967), 741; de Beauchêne, G., West Afr. Arch. Newsletter, V (1966). 7;Google Scholar H. Hugot, Ibid. V (1966), 36; Ozanne, P.,. V (1966), 10, 33;Google Scholar D. Hartle, Ibid. V (1966), 26–7; D. A. Breternitz, Ibid. X (1963), 39. Robert, Denise S., ‘Les Fouilles de Tegdaoust’, J. Afr. Hist. XI (1970), 490; Shaw, passim.Google Scholar

¹⁶ See, e.g. Barbot, V, 125–6;Google ScholarBéart, Ch., ‘Sur les Bassari de Haute-Gambie’, Notes Africaines No. 35 (1947), 1–7,Google ScholarNeher, G., ‘Brasscasting in Northeast Nigeria’, Nigerian Field, XXIX (1964), 17,Google ScholarPairault, C., ‘Boum Kabir en présence de la mort’, J. Société des Africanistes, XXXIV (1964), 149;Google ScholarGrey, R. and George, S., Manillas’, Nigerian Field, XVI (1951),63–5;Google ScholarEkejiuba, F. I., ‘Preliminary Notes on Brasswork of Eastern Nigeria’, African Notes, IV (1967), 11–15;Google ScholarTalbot, P. A., Life in Southern Nigeria (London, 1967), 139–40, 199. Most of the graves excavated in West Africa have yielded copper and brass jewellery or figurines.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Ekejiuba, 12.Google ScholarCf. Forde, Daryll, Efik Traders of Old Calabar (N.Y., 1956), 62.Google Scholar

¹⁸ de Marees, P., Description of Guinea in Purchas His Pilgrimes, 20 vols. (Glasgow, 1905), VI, 269–70.Google Scholar

¹⁹ ‘Contribution à l'étude des marques de propriété du bétail chez les pasteurs peuls’, J. Société des Africanistes, XXIV (1954), 129.Google ScholarCf.Binger, L. G., Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée par le Pays de Kong et le Mossi … 1887–1889, 2 vols. (Paris, 1892), 1, 50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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²¹ Simmons, W. S., ‘The Supernatural World of the Badyaranke of Tonghia (Senegal)’, J. Société des Afrisanistes, XXVII (1967), 57–8.Google Scholar

²² Cissé, Y., ‘Notes sur les sociétés des chasseurs malinke’, J. Société des Africanistes, XXXIV (1964), 203;Google ScholarClamens, G., ‘Le Serpent en pays senoufo’, Notes Africaines, No. 6 (1956), 119Google ScholarPaulme, Denise, Les Sculptures de l'Afrique Noire (Paris, 1956), 41;Google ScholarNeher, 17.Google Scholar

²³ Gabus, Jean, Au Sahara, 2 vols. (Neuchâtel, 1955–1958), II, 45, 95.Google Scholar

²⁴ Anon., ‘Some Yoruba Customs’, Nigerian Field, XIV (1949), 78, 114–15.Google ScholarCf. Sir Frazer, James, The Golden Bough, 12 vols. (New York, 1935), III, 314–15. Robert F. Thompson has observed (personal communication) that copper bracelets worn on the right wrist by Akan priests have a similarly protective function.Google Scholar

²⁵ Anon., ‘Nri Traditions’, Nigeria, 54 (1957), 284;Google ScholarShaw, I, 270.Google ScholarCf. Boston, J. S., The Igala Kingdom (Ibadan, 1968), 200.Google Scholar

²⁶ See especially the extensive collection of amulets and charms from Ghana and Nigeria in the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford.Google Scholar

²⁷ Morel, M.-H., ‘Essai sur l'épée Touareg de l'Ahaggar (takouba)’, Travaux de l'Institut de Reeherthes Sahariennes, II (1943), 153.Google Scholar

²⁸ Gabus, Au Sahara, II, 45, 48, 92–6, 240–54. See the fine collection of Tuareg tools and utensils at the Musée d'Ethnographie, Neuchâtel (Switzerland).Google ScholarCf.Kühnel, Ernest, Islamische Kleinkunst (Braunschweig, 1963), 134.Google Scholar

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³¹ Robinson, K. R., Khami Ruins (Cambridge, 1959), 153–4. An iron axe-head in crescentric form was also found with a copper disk in the centre of the blade; many modem swords and axes from the Congo have similar copper insets as well as inlaid patterns of copper and brass.Google Scholar

³² Copper and brass bindings are common on ritual knives in the Ubangi-Upper Congo region, for example, especially those used as symbols of power and for ritual execution: Pat McNaughton, personal communication.Google Scholar

³³ Where copper or brass wire is wound around the handle of a weapon, it can be argued that it made it easier to grasp; however, raphia and leather would also have accomplished this same purpose and were more readily available, so that one may infer other reasons for the choice of copper. In throwing spears, on the other hand, account was certainly taken of benefits of copper or brass bands in improving the balance of the weapon.Google Scholar

³⁴ Quoted in Ryder, A. F. C., ‘A reconsideration of the Ife-Benin Relationship’, J. Afr. Hist. VI (1965), 26.Google Scholar

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⁴⁰ Willett, 130.Google ScholarWilliam Fagg has proposed a chronology of Benin art and discussed its iconography in Nigerian Images (London, 1963), 30 ff. Although brass-casting was a royal prerogative in a number of West African states (in Dahomey a descendant of the royal line is currently the master of the brass-casters'p guild: Thompson, pers. comm.), it was also a highly developed art among people without monarchical traditions, such as the Senoufo, Hobo, Lobi and Tiv.Google Scholar

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