Yoruba Eshu Dance Staff, Nigeriaoshogbo overall height including cowrie shells 23in (58.4cm)overall height of figure 16 3/4in (42.5cm)ProvenanceHelen and Mace Neufeld Collection, Beverly Hills, CaliforniaSotheby's, New York, 14 November 1989, Lot 167American Private CollectionPublishedChemeche, George, Eshu, The Divine Trickster, Antique Collectors Club, 2013, pg. 174R.F. Thompson calls such freestanding images without a handle also "ogo Elegba", lit. "club" or "cudgel" for Elegba and translates it in that case as "dance image for the trickster". In fact almost all shrine figures of the different Yoruba cults are used to dance with them in the streets during the festival of the deity. (Black Gods and Kings: Yoruba Art at UCLA, Los Angeles, 1971, Ch. 4, fig. 11)