01/05/2026
https://youtu.be/5WxtKMtBROk
The Benin Carvers: How Africans used arts and crafts to document history and events.
Poetry Reading Online
Poem Title: The Benin Carvers
About the motive of this poem written by Okechukwu Okugo:
The Benin Carvers is a poem that highlights how a people used a group of talented artisans to preserve their history and culture. People with extraordinary craftsmanship were selected and organized into a technically skilled guild, the Igbesanmwan, and their skilled descendants continue to perform the same function. These are carvers who produce ivory and wood sculptures. They are also brass casters who produced ancient, famous bronzes, artifacts, and works that were looted and are now on display in museums across Britain. The Benin Carvers can write on ivory, wood, bronze, and brass, using knives, adzes, and abrasive materials. Patronized by the kings of the ancient Benin Kingdom in present-day Nigeria, they work to validate and glorify their kings. But this poem focuses on their deliberate, specific use of technical skills to record their history and document the reality of their day. For example, they carved Portuguese figures they had seen, preserving that aspect of their history. Leopard figures in their works depict the animals they observed and likely hunted. You can find in the British Museum their elaborately carved tusks bearing marks of their rich culture. Thus, they functioned as traditional African historians and scribes, demonstrating that Africans preserved history not only orally but also in writing and through art. Even though the ancient cultural heritage they made before colonizers came to their land had been looted and kept in British reserved places, their mark on African history cannot be erased, including the Igbo Ukwu arts of sophisticated bronze and copper alloy made by Igbos as early as the 9th century, which showed a special lost-wax casting of the Igbos. They made vessels and etched their complex trade routes and networks on them. These works demonstrate that ancient African ancestors were technologically advanced, capable of mining metals and forming alloys by mixing different metals, which their artisans used to produce artworks. These metals were forged to create tools and other objects. Today, where are the African inventors who did things for themselves and did not wait for foreigners? Had their ancestors waited only to use what others had produced and advanced, would they have made sophisticated artifacts that mystify the world and be worth looting and preserving, as theirs are? Today, are there people preserving their present-day reality and history for the unborn with their crafts? Today, who preserves animals and other natural beauty through their art and skills? This work by Okechukwu Okugo aims to promote talent and the arts and to showcase how they can be used to document important aspects of a people's life and culture, and to preserve positive values and heritage, not vices.
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https://youtu.be/5WxtKMtBROk
https://youtu.be/5WxtKMtBROk
Poetry Reading Online: Poem Title: The Benin CarversAbout the motive of this poem written by Okechukwu Okugo:The Benin Carvers is a poem that highlights how ...
