Staff (Recade): Bird
The kingdom of Dahomey (in present-day Republic of Benin) began participating in the transatlantic slave trade in the seventeenth century. The enslaved protagonist of Lucille Clifton's 1969 poem "ca'lines prayer" recalls this history and makes a plea to Temanja, orisha of the sea, to whom some captives called out for protection before jumping from slave ships: "remember me from wydah / remember the child / running across Dahomey / ... / and set me in the rivers of your glory." While many captives longed for spiritual flight back home, Dahomean royals often bore accoutrements such as this bird staff to symbolize a different kind of ascension: their increasing power over the region's people.
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