Image courtesy of AfricanMasks.info
Originally posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2014
One of the themes for the Akan gold counterweights is the electric mudfish.
Spark From The Deep by William Turkel has this to say about the fish upon which this counterweight is modeled:
The electric catfish also played an important role in the west African kingdom of Benin, which flourished in what is now southern Nigeria between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries CE. Animals were frequently depicted in the sculpture of Benin, where they were used to represent the overlapping boundaries of the human, nonhuman, and supernatural. The “mudfish” had a prominent part in this iconography. The attributes of different African catfish were combined into a chimera or composite that could variously discharge electric shocks, sting with venomous spines, and breathe and “walk” on land. In its latter capacity it served to exemplify utility to humankind. The “mudfish” is the freshest, most robust and most delicious of all fish and is considered very attractive and desirable,” the anthropologist Paula Ben-Amos wrote. “It represents prosperity, peace, well-being and fertility through its association with the water, the realm of the sea go, Olokun.” Some catfish aestivate in the mud of dry streams, breathing air until the rains seem to bring them back to life. This aspect of the mudfish made it a symbol of power and transformation.
One need not lean on superstitious or pre-modern thought to appreciate how apt was the use of the image of a mudfish to serve as the model of a counterweight for gold. History shows that the gold standard, too, recurrently has brought prosperity, peace, and well-being to humanity.
Gold, empirically, has done so better than any other currency systems tried from time to time. And, to wax slightly rhapsodic, there are many signs that the gold standard’s own period of estivation now may be coming to an end.
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