When the King of Benin (oba) Ozolua died in AD 1514, he left two warring sons who disputed the succession. One, Esigie, controlled Benin City and its immediate environs, the metropolitan heartland of the Benin Empire. The other, Arhuaran, had his base in the regional city of Udo. Adding to the already febrile atmosphere engulfing the Kingdom, the Igala people, tribute-paying vassals of the Benin Empire, took advantage of the weakness the Kingdom’s heart, beginning a lengthy and destructive revolt. In this acute moment of crisis, Esigie turned not to his advisers, but to his mother, Idia – counsellor, priestess, sorceress and general – for advice. It was largely down to her wisdom that Esigie defeated first his brother, and then the Igala. In commemoration of her assistance, Esigie bestowed upon Idia the newly-created title of iyoba, loosely translated as ‘Queen-Mother’, and gave her power greater than even the most senior chiefs in his advisory council. So goes the legend. In fact, numerous African Kingdoms possessed Queen-Mothers of various types from the most ancient of times – and still do, in the case of the ‘Great She-Elephant’ (Ndlovukati) of Eswatini – and there is no reason to believe that the Kingdom of Benin was any different.

The principal function of the iyoba was to give birth to the next oba. She was expected to have one child and one child only. If she had multiple children, worst of all if her first child was a girl, she resigned her position as Chief Wife to the then-reigning oba by default. If she birthed a single son at the right time, she was then expected to conduct sorcery aimed at ensuring him a long and prosperous reign. Once her son succeeded to thr throne, the iyoba was invested with the symbols of her office – which included a latticework coral-bead crown known as ukpe-okhue – and was moved to the city of Uselu, some ten kilometres (six miles) from the oba’s own residence. There, she was never allowed to see the oba, her son, again. Nonetheless, she was expected to be his closest advisor. As a result, a constant stream of messengers flowed between the two palaces, conducting the oba’s questions and the Queen-Mother’s advice. Despite her position of extreme prominence, there was no immediate access to the oba, and no participation in major state occasions, like the King’s annual appearance at the igue festival. Following her death, the iyoba became a kind of patron goddess to the reigning oba, and was the only female in the Empire to be commemorated with a bronze head at the important altars in the palace complex.

During her time married to the previous oba, the Queen was (and still is) known as eson ogoro madagba (‘the cockerel that crows at the head of the harem’). This is part of a peculiar play on gender politics at the apex of the Benin state. The Queen was in a position of power which far outranked most men, and this could not be tolerated by the centuries-old system of male predominance. So the Queen was frequently assimilated to a male, without any insinuations about the sexuality of the King. For example, the handmaidens who attended the Queen were often considered to be her own harem, equivalent to those of the leading Benin elites. The image of the cockerel, at the head of a harem of chickens, with baby chicks in tow, thus became closely associated with the Queen and, therefore, the Queen-Mother.

This figure of a cockerel is of a well-known type, of which some eight examples spanning the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century AD are known in museum collections. This figure is not as early; the body of the cockerel has been cast separately from the base, and affixed to it by means of soldering. It is possible, given the disjuncture in the patina, that the base and the feet of the cockerel somewhat predate the cockerel’s body. The figure is most likely a Twentieth Century AD piece, produced in a time of renaissance, when the Benin monarchy was recovering following the British punitive expedition of AD 1897. This cockerel may perhaps have been made to ensure continuity on one of the altars of a Queen-Mother, which had been denuded by the expedition. For this was the original purpose of these cockerels (eson); they were the symbols of the iyoba accompanying her bust which was also placed on the altar. This cockerel bears many similarities to one formerly kept in Jesus College, Cambridge, now returned to the reigning oba, as well as an example now in the Metropolitan Museum (50.145.47). Like both examples, it indulges the love of dense inscribed designs which were favoured by the Benin, and depicts this stately bird in an upright position. However, while the spurs of the Metropolitan and Cambridge examples are horizontal, this example sports hooked spurs. Similarly, the eyes which are often round and alert are depicted here as almond-shaped and half-closed, so as to assimilate this rooster with the deceased iyoba to whom it was dedicated. To enhance the status of this piece, various heads of Portuguese soldiers – at one time the only European contact the Benin had, and the height of exoticism and sophistication in Benin arts – and a ram, the ultimate Benin symbol of masculinity, and the primary sacrificial animal of the igue ceremony, thereby a symbol of the oba himself.

References: a similar, earlier, example is known in New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art 50.145.47).