Yoruba Oshe Shango Wood Dance Wand with Trade Beads & Aluminum Band

West Africa, Nigeria, Yoruba. A carved wood oshe Shango, the dance wand held by devotees of the Yoruba thunder deity. Its finial is the double thunder axe, two flaring blades that rise like a forked bolt from a compact head with a domed coiffure, heavy-lidded eyes, and a firm mouth. Traces of blue pigment still cling around the face. The slender shaft is incised with crosshatched lozenges that keep traces of a red ground. It is bound with many strands of glass trade beads in orange, coral, yellow, green, and blue, packed among coils of dark wood disc beads, with a single aluminum band looped among them. A ribbed collar and an open loop finish the grip. The layered adornments were likely added over years of devotional use, so the wand grew richer each time it was honored. Shango (Ṣàngó) is the orisha of thunder and lightning. Yoruba oral tradition remembers him as an early king (Alafin) of the Oyo empire who was deified after his death. His emblem is the double-bladed axe, called edun ara or "thunderstones". It refers to the stone celts that Yoruba communities found in the earth and took to be bolts Shango had hurled down in storms. On an oshe the axe is usually carved above a human head, as here. The pairing suggests that the thunder god's power rests on the head of his devotee, the seat of a person's destiny (ori) in Yoruba thought. Oshe Shango are carried by priests and initiates at Shango festivals and in possession dances, where the wand is brandished as the god's own weapon. Between ceremonies they stay on the Shango shrine. Red and white are the god's colors, and devotees often adorn the wands with strands of beads and bands. Over time this builds up the accumulated surface seen on this example. Blue pigment was also commonly applied to Yoruba sculpture in the twentieth century, often to the coiffure and the face. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids. Item # 205855

Estimate:£223.71

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