Gan Bracelet Currency with Lizard Motif

Twisted ring with a pointed bud at one end and a flat disc at the other.

This bracelet currency with lizard motif is Gan, from Burkina Faso, West Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is copper. Many peoples of Burkina Faso have regarded snakes as sacred, forbidding anyone to kill or eat them and treating the shedding of their skin as a symbol of rebirth. Open coiled bracelet in a golden-brown metal, with one end shaped like a leaf-like pointed head with knobs and the other ending in a thin flat disc. Rope-like binding and small buds break up the slim band. It is 4.5 inches wide, 7.25 deep and 4.25 high.

A coil that clearly never had anything to prove.