San Antonio College Library

Long, long, ago, three great hunters came upon a termitary from which emerged a nine-headed genie. A city was built on this spot, beside a pond named Abomiressa Adjaga after the god of the hunters. The Portuguese traders who arrived around 1600 called the city Porto-Novo (Newport). Teagmani, son of Pokbon, was king at that time, one of a long line of kings whose heritage is preserved in the Museum of Porto-Novo. Here we can see the richly embroidered...

Among the many ethnic groups of Benin, two in particular stand out as practitioners of the ancient rites of voodoo. This program explains who the voodoo practitioners are as well as the mythical origins of their cult; it also shows the music and dance of these two groups-wild and furious, acrobatic and physically demanding, beautiful and harmonious, rhythmically infectious.

For more than 500 years, the artists of the West African kingdom of Benin created objects in brass, ivory, terracotta, and wood for use in divine kingship rituals, to adorn the royal palaces, and to identify the king, chiefs, warriors, and other officials at court. This volume presents a recent gift to The Metropolitan Museum of Art of over 150 works of Benin sculpture, making the Museum's collection of sixteenth- to nineteenth-century Benin art one...

In this documentary, Lonnie James, a young British man of Trinidadian descent, journeys to the ancient African kingdom of Benin, located in present-day Nigeria, to discover the origins of a carved mask purchased in London. He uncovers a tale of early African civilization, the looting of treasures and suppression of traditions by colonial powers, and the amazing persistence of an African artistic vision within a colonial culture. His mission becomes...