Manillas - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Manillas are penannular armlets, mostly in bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...

or copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

, very rarely gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

, which served as a form of money

Money

Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...

or barter

Barter

Barter is a method of exchange by which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. It is usually bilateral, but may be multilateral, and usually exists parallel to monetary systems in most developed countries, though to a...

coinage and to a degree, ornamentation, amongst certain West African peoples (Aro Confederacy

Aro Confederacy

The Aro Confederacy was a political union orchestrated by the Igbo subgroup, the Aro people, centered in Arochukwu in present day Southeastern Nigeria. Their influence and presence was across Eastern Nigeria into parts of the Niger Delta and Southern Igala during the 18th and 19th centuries...

, Guinea Coast, Gold Coast

Gold Coast (region)

The Gold Coast was the region of West Africa which is now the nation of Ghana. Early uses of the term refer literally to the coast and not the interior. It was not until the 19th century that the term came to refer to areas that are far from the coast...

, Calabar

Calabar

Calabar is a city in Cross River State, southeastern Nigeria. The original name for Calabar was Atakpa, from the Jukun language....

and other parts of Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

, etc.). This form of African currency

African currency

African currency was originally formed from basic items, materials, animals and even people available in the locality to create a medium of exchange. This started to change from the 17th century onwards , as European colonial powers introduced their own monetary system into the countries they...

also became known as "slave trade money" after the Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

ans started using them to acquire slaves

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

for the slave trade into the Americas

Americas

The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

(as well as England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

prior to 1807).

Introduction

The name manilla is said to derive from the Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

for a bracelet manella, the Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

for hand-ring, or after the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

manus (hand) or from monilia, plural of monile (necklace). They are usually horseshoe

Horseshoe

A horseshoe, is a fabricated product, normally made of metal, although sometimes made partially or wholly of modern synthetic materials, designed to protect a horse's hoof from wear and tear. Shoes are attached on the palmar surface of the hooves, usually nailed through the insensitive hoof wall...

-shaped, with terminations that face each other and are roughly lozenge-shaped.
The most popular African name for manillas, Okpoho, comes from the Igbo language.

Types of Manillas

The Africans of each region had names for each variety of manilla, probably varying locally. They valued them differently, and were notoriously particular about the types they would accept. Manillas were partly differentiated and valued by the sound they made when struck.

A report by the British Consul of Fernando Po

Bioko

Bioko is an island 32 km off the west coast of Africa, specifically Cameroon, in the Gulf of Guinea. It is the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea with a population of 124,000 and an area of . It is volcanic with its highest peak the Pico Basile at .-Geography:Bioko has a total area of...

in 1856 lists five different patterns of manillas in use in Nigeria

Nigeria

. The Antony Manilla is good in all interior markets; the Congo Simgolo or 'bottle-necked' is good only at Opungo market; the Onadoo is best for Old Calabar, Igbo

Igbo people

Igbo people, also referred to as the Ibo, Ebo, Eboans or Heebo are an ethnic group living chiefly in southeastern Nigeria. They speak Igbo, which includes various Igboid languages and dialects; today, a majority of them speak English alongside Igbo as a result of British colonialism...

country between Bonny

Kingdom of Bonny

The Kingdom of Bonny is a traditional state based on the town of Bonny in Rivers State, Nigeria. Founded in the 14th century AD, it became an important slave trading port, later trading palm oil products. During the 19th century the British became increasingly involved in the internal affairs of...

and New Kalabari; the Finniman Fawfinna is passable in Juju

Juju

A Juju is a supernatural power ascribed to an object.Juju may also refer to:-Geography:* Juju , one of seven districts on the island of Rotuma in Fiji* Juju , a village in the district of Juju on the island of Rotuma-Albums:...

Town and Qua market; but is only half the worth of the Antony; and the Cutta Antony is valued by the people at Umballa.

The proliferation of African names is probably due more to regional customs than actual manufacturing specialization. The 'Mkporo' is likely a Dutch or British manilla and the 'Popo' is French, but the rest are examples of a single evolving Birmingham product.

An important hoard had a group of 72 pieces with similar patination and soil crusting, suggesting common burial. There were 7 Mkporo; 19 Nkobnkob-round foot; 9 Nkobnkob-oval foot; and 37 Popo-square foot. The lightest 'Nkobnkobs' in the hoard are 108 and 114gm, while they are routinely found (called Onoudu) under 80gm, this implies that the group was buried at a certain point in the size devolution of the manilla. Mkporo are made of brass. The weight correspondence of the oval-foot Nkobnkob with the high end of the round-foot range suggests that it is either the earlier variety, or contemporary with the earliest round-foots. The exclusive presence of the 'square-foot' variety of French Popo, normally scarce among circulation groups of Popos, suggests that this is the earliest variety. The earliest French manillas as likely to be contemporaries of the earliest British (or Dutch?) pieces.

Sometimes distinguished from manillas mainly by their wearability are a large number of regional types called 'Bracelet' monies and 'Legband' monies. Some are fairly uniform in size and weight and served as monies of account like manillas, but others were actually worn as wealth display. The less well off would mimic the movements of the 'better off' who were so encumbered by the weight of manillas that they moved in a very characteristic way. The larger manillas had a much more open shape.

The various uses of Manillas

Internally, manillas were the first true general-purpose currency known in West Africa, being used for ordinary market purchases, bride price, payment of fines, compensation of diviners, and for the needs of the next world, as burial money. Cowrie shells, imported from Melanesia and valued at a small fraction of a manilla, were used for small purchases. In regions outside coastal west Africa and the Niger

Niger

Niger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...

river a variety of other currencies, such as bracelets of more complex native design, iron units often derived from tools, copper rods, themselves often bent into bracelets, and the well-known Handa (Katanga cross

Katanga Cross

A Katanga cross, also called a handa, is a cast copper cross which was once used as a form of currency in parts of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Katanga crosses were made in various sizes, typically about 20 cm across, and weighing about 1...

) all served as special-purpose monies. As the slave trade wound down in the 19th century so did manilla production, which was already becoming unprofitable. By the 1890s their use in the export economy centered around the palm-oil trade. Many manillas were melted down by African craftsmen to produce artworks. Manillas were often hung over a grave to show the wealth of the deceased and in the Degema area of Benin

Benin

Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...

some women still wear large manillas around their necks at funerals, which are later laid on the family shrine. Gold manillas are said to have been made for the very important and powerful, such as King Jaja of Opobo in 1891.

Origins

Some sources attribute their introduction to the ancient Phoenicia

Phoenicia

Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...

ns who traded along the west coast of Africa or even early Carthaginian

Carthage

Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...

explorers and traders. The Egyptians have also been suggested as they used penannular money. One interesting suggestion is that Nigerian fishermen brought them up in their nets from the shipwrecks of European wrecks or made them from the copper 'pins' used in wooden sailing ships wrecked in the Bight of Benin. One theory is that if indigenous, they copied a splayed-end Raffia cloth bracelet worn by women, another that the well-known Yoruba

Yoruba people

The Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language...

Mondua with its bulbous ends inspired the manilla shape.

Copper bracelets and legbands were the principal 'money' and they were usually worn by women to display their husband's wealth. Early Portuguese traders thus found a pre-existing and very convenient willingness to accept unlimited numbers of these 'bracelets' and they are referred to by Duarte Pacheco Pereira who made voyages in the 1490s to buy ivory

Ivory

Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...

tusks, slaves, and pepper. He paid 12 to 15 manillas of brass for a slave, less if they were of copper. By 1522 in Benin a female slave of 16 cost 50 manillas and King Miguel of Portugal put a limit of 40 manillas per slave to stop this inflation.

Earliest report on the use of Manillas in Africa points to its origin in Calabar

Calabar

Calabar is a city in Cross River State, southeastern Nigeria. The original name for Calabar was Atakpa, from the Jukun language....

the capital city of the Akwa Akpa

Akwa Akpa

Akwa Akpa, known to colonialists as Old Calabar or Duke Town was an Efik city-state that flourished in the 19th century in what is now southeastern Nigeria.Although absorbed into Nigeria, traditional rulers of the state are still recognized....

state of coastal Southeastern Nigeria. It has been documented that in 1505 at Calabar, (Nigeria

Nigeria

) Manillas were being used as a medium of exchange, one manilla being worth a big elephant tooth, and a slave cost between eight and ten manillas. They were also in use on the Benin

Benin

river in 1589 and again in Calabar in 1688, where Dutch

Dutch people

The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

traders bought slaves against payment in rough grey copper armlets which had to be very well made or they would be quickly rejected.

In addition to the earliest report, the origin of Manillas from Calabar for use in Africa and particularly Nigeria is also confirmed by the African and universal other name for Manillas as Okpoho, which is an (Efik

Efik language

Efik , also known as Riverain Ibibio, is the native language of the Efik people of Nigeria, where it is a national language. It is the official language of the Cross River State in Nigeria.The name Efik is also used for Ibibio-Efik....

/Annang

Annang

The Annang is a cultural and ethnic group that lives in the Coastal Southeast Nigeria...

/Ibibio) word for money which is used throughout this report and in the titles of images in this report.

European and other ethnographic parallels

Manillas bear some resemblance to torc

Torc

A torc, also spelled torq or torque, is a large, usually rigid, neck ring typically made from strands of metal twisted together. The great majority are open-ended at the front, although many seem designed for near-permanent wear and would have been difficult to remove. Smaller torcs worn around...

s or torques in being rigid and circular and open-ended at the front. (The word 'torc' comes from Latin 'torquere', 'to twist', because of the twisted shape of the collar, an occasional feature of manillas). Although torcs were most often neck-rings, there were also bracelets with this shape. Torcs were made from gold or bronze, less often silver. "Torc" is the ancient Irish for "boar",and a relationship could be made with the monetary and sacred value of the animal in Celtic mythology

Celtic mythology

Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...

suggesting a sort of equivalence between the item and the animal symbol of death and revival.

We know from various sources, such as grave goods, that torcs were worn by various European peoples from the Bronze Age, about 1000 BC, until about 300 AD, including the Galatians (or Anatolian Celts), various Germanic tribes, the Scythians and the Persians. Although some of the most elaborate specimens were uncovered at Phanagoria and Pereshchepina in the Pontic

Pontic-Caspian steppe

The Pontic-Caspian steppe is the vast steppeland stretching from the north of the Black Sea as far as the east of the Caspian Sea, from western Ukraine across the Southern Federal District and the Volga Federal District of Russia to western Kazakhstan,...

steppe, this type of necklace is still popularly associated with Celt

Celt

The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....

ic people, especially Britons, Gauls, Ligures and Iberians.

Slave trading

Although gold was the primary and abiding merchandise sought by the Portuguese, by the early 16th century they were participating in the slave trade for bearers to carry manillas to Africa's interior, and gradually manillas became the principal money of this trade. The Portuguese were soon shouldered aside by the British, French, and Dutch, all of whom had labor-intensive plantations in the West Indies, and later by the Americans whose southern states were tied to a cotton economy . A typical voyage took manillas and utilitarian brass objects such as pans and basins to West Africa, then slaves to America, and cotton back to the mills of Europe. The price of a slave, expressed in manillas, varied considerably according to time, place, and the specific type of manilla offered.

Manufacture

Copper

was the "red gold" of Africa and had been both mined there and traded across the Sahara

Sahara

The Sahara is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean...

by Italian and Arab merchants.

It is not known for certain what the Portuguese or the Dutch manillas looked like. From contemporary records, we know the earliest Portuguese were made in Antwerp for the monarch and possibly other places, and are about 240mm long, about 13mm gauge, weighing 600g in 1529, though by 1548 the dimensions and weight were reduced to about 250-280g. In many places brass, which is cheaper and easier to cast, was preferred to copper, so the Portuguese introduced smaller, yellow manillas made of copper and lead with traces of zinc and other metals. In Benin, Royal Art of Africa, by Armand Duchateau, is a massive manilla of 25 cm across and 4.5 cm gauge, crudely cast with scoop-faceted sides, and well worn. It could be the heaviest (no weight given) and earliest manilla known. However, in the same book is a plaque with a European holding two pieces of very different form, crescent-shaped without flared ends, though apparently heavy if the proportions are correct. Today, pieces of this size and blunt form are associated with the Congo

Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...

.

Portuguese traders between 1504 and 1507 imported 287,813 manillas from Portugal into Guinea

Guinea

Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...

via the trading station of San Jorge da Mina.
As the Dutch came to dominate the Africa trade, they are likely to have switched manufacture from Antwerp to Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, continuing the "brass" manillas, although, as stated, we have as yet no way to positively identify Dutch manillas. Trader and traveler accounts are both plentiful and specific as to names and relative values, but no drawings or detailed descriptions seem to have survived which could link these accounts to specific manilla types found today. The metals preferred were originally copper, then brass at about the end of the 15th century and finally bronze in about 1630.

Early in the 18th century, Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

, with companies such as R. & W. King (one of the companies later incorporated into the United African Company), and then Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, became the most significant European brass manufacturing city. It is likely that most types of brass manillas were made there, including the "middle period" Nkobnkob-Onoudu whose weight apparently decreased over time, and the still lighter "late period" types such as Okpoho (from the Efik word for brass) and those salvaged from the Duoro wreck of 1843. Among the late period types, specimen weights overlap type distinctions suggesting contemporary manufacture rather than a progression of types. The Popos, whose weight distribution places them at the transition point between Nkobnkob and Onoudu, were made in Nantes, France, possibly Birmingham as well and were too small to be worn. They are wider than the Birmingham types and have a gradual, rather than sudden, flare to the ends. Though apparently rare in Nigeria, it is today the type found in the former French territories, and generally as common as the British. Many British pieces were withdrawn in the 1940s, so the French Popo may have been relatively scarcer at the time.

Manillas were made in Africa as well, though very little is known about these pieces. A recent discovery which can be called a "horseshoe manilla" is similar in form and size to European manillas, but appears to be African made. Although they are not as common in bulk manilla hoards as one might expect, low-weight "counterfeit" pieces could have been made in Africa or Europe.

A class of heavier, more elongated pieces, probably produced in Africa, are often labelled by collectors as 'King' or 'Queen' manillas. Usually with flared ends and more often copper than brass, they show a wide range of faceting and design patterns. Plainer types were apparently bullion monies, but the fancier ones were owned by royalty and used as bride price and in a pre-funeral "dying ceremony." Unlike the smaller money-manillas, their range was not confined to west Africa. A distinctive brass type with four flat facets and slightly bulging square ends, ranging from about 50-150 oz., was produced by the Jonga of Zaire

Zaire

The Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...

and called 'Onganda', or 'onglese', phonetic French for "English.". Other types which are often called manillas include early twisted heavy-gauge wire pieces (with and without "knots") of probable Calabar

Calabar

Calabar is a city in Cross River State, southeastern Nigeria. The original name for Calabar was Atakpa, from the Jukun language....

origin, and heavy, multi-coil copper pieces with bulging ends from Nigeria

Nigeria

Demise

The Native Currency Proclamation of 1902 in Nigeria prohibited the import of manillas except with the High Commissioner's permit. This was done to encourage the use of coined money. They were still in regular use however and constituted an administrative problem in the late 1940s. The Ibo tribe still used them prior to this and at Wukai a deep bowl of corn was considered equal to one large manilla and a cup-shaped receptacle filled with salt was worth one small manilla. Although manillas were legal tender, they floated against British and French West African currencies and the palm-oil trading companies manipulated their value to advantage during the market season.

The British undertook a major recall dubbed "operation manilla" in 1948 to replace them with British West African currency. The campaign was largely successful and over 32 million pieces were bought up and resold as scrap. The manilla, a lingering reminder of the slave trade, ceased to be legal tender in British West Africa on April 1, 1949 after a six month period of withdrawal. People were permitted to keep a maximum of 200 for ceremonies such as marriages and burials. Only Okpoho, Okombo and abi were officially recognised and they were 'bought in' at 3d., 1d. and a halfpenny respectively. 32.5 million Okpoho, 250,000 okombo, and 50,000 abi were handed in and exchanged. A metal dealer in Europe purchased 2,460 tons of manillas, but the exercise still cost the taxpayer somewhere in the region of £284,000.

Resurgence

As curios for the tourist trade and internal 'non-monetary' uses they are still made, often of more modern metals such as aluminium, but the designs are still largely traditional ones.

Miscellany

Brass rods formed an important element in the early currency system of Nigeria and some sources suggest that they originated from the straightening out of manillas. These rods had a fixed price of 3d.

Copper rods were also used as currency and gave rise to the phrase "a few coppers" meaning a low price

Manillas may be occasionally still used in a few remote villages in Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso – also known by its short-form name Burkina – is a landlocked country in west Africa. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d'Ivoire to the southwest.Its size is with an estimated...

(2000).

Coiled wire objects such as the Nigerian Mondua are all often called "manillas" by collectors.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.