Palm nuts with blue cloth bag, Nigeria, 1880-1920
- maker:
- Yoruba people
Palm nuts with blue cloth bag, Yoruba people, Nigeria, 1880-1920
A set of palm nuts usually kept in the blue cloth bag. Diviners of the Yoruba people of Nigeria pass sixteen palm nuts from hand to hand eight times. Each time, one or two nuts are kept in the hand and this is marked on a board. The diviner reads the pattern of these marks and matches it to one of 256 odu (signs or messages).
Details
- Category:
- Ethnography and Folk Medicine
- Collection:
- Sir Henry Wellcome's Museum Collection
- Object Number:
- A234414
- Materials:
- kernels, pine and cloth
- Measurements:
-
overall: 0.154 kg
overall (bag only): 60 mm x 155 mm x 400 mm, .032 kg
- type:
- divination set
- credit:
- Glendining