Yoruba Wood Medicine Box

Figures crowd around this lid as if waiting to be told what is inside.

This medicine box is Yoruba, from Nigeria in West Africa, in carved wood. Yoruba carvers made lidded containers like this for healers, diviners and households, who kept medicines and other potent substances inside. On this one, a round lid rises to a flat central knob. Relief figures kneel and stand around its sloping sides, one holding a round object to the chest, another beside a long upright form. A band of zigzag and rope carving marks the join. The surface is dark, with reddish brown showing through.

Its contents, as usual, are not discussed.