No one ever expects an umbrella to be adorned with jawbones, do they? (Or maybe, just maybe, accuracy wasn't the main goal for this book.)

<<The Jaw Umbrella, Gelelé's Stool, Guns, Sticks, Swords, etc.>>
Illustration from the 1874 European book "Dahomey as it is; Being A Narrative of Eight Months' Residence in that Country with a full account of the notorious annual customs, and the social and religious institutions of the Ffons"

Yale University Library, https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.36729854

#libraries #umbrella #dahomey #Benin #africanhistory #WestAfrica #history #weird