Manillas are a form of commodity money, usually made of brass, bronze, or copper, which were used in West Africa. They were produced in large numbers in a wide range of designs, sizes, and weights. Originating before the colonial period, perhaps as the result of trade with the Portuguese Empire, manillas continued to serve as money and decorative objects until the late 1940s and are still sometimes used as decoration on arms, legs and around the neck. In popular culture, they are particularly associated with the Atlantic slave trade.
Origins and etymology The name manilla is said to derive from the Spanish for a 'bracelet' manilla, the Portuguese for 'hand-ring' manilha, or after the Latin manus (hand) or from monilia, plural of monile (necklace). They are usually horseshoe-shaped, with terminations that face each other and are roughly lozenge-shaped. The earliest use of manillas was in West Africa. As a means of exchange they originated in Calabar. Calabar was the chief city of the ancient southeast Nigerian coastal kingdom of that name. It was here in 1505 that a slave could be bought for 8–10 manillas, and an elephant's tusk for one copper manila. Manillas bear some resemblance to torcs in being rigid and circular and open-ended at the front.
Types
Africans of each region had names for each variety of manilla, probably varying locally. They valued them differently, and were very particular about the types they would accept. Manillas were partly differentiated and valued by the sound they made when struck. A report by the British Consul of Fernando Po in 1856 listed five different patterns of manillas in use in Nigeria. The Antony Manilla was good in all interior markets; the Congo Simgolo or 'bottle-necked' was good only at Opungo market; the Onadoo was best for Old Calabar, Igbo country between Bonny New Kalabari and the kingdom of Okrika; the Finniman Fawfinna was passable in Juju Town and Qua Market, but only half the worth of the Antony; and the Cutta Antony was valued by the people at Umballa. The proliferation of African names is probably due more to regional customs than actual manufacturing specialization. The 'Mkporo' is likely a Dutch or British manilla and the 'Popo' is French, but the rest are examples of a single evolving Birmingham product. An important hoard had a group of 72 pieces with similar patination and soil crusting, suggesting common burial. There were 7 Mkporo; 19 Nkobnkob-round foot; 9 Nkobnkob-oval foot; and 37 Popo-square foot. The lightest 'Nkobnkobs' in the hoard were 108 gm and 114 gm, while they are routinely found (called Onoudu) under 80 gm, this implies that the group was buried at a certain point in the size devolution of the manilla. Mkporo are made of brass. The weight correspondence of the oval-foot Nkobnkob with the high end of the round-foot range suggests that it is either the earlier variety, or contemporary with the earliest round-foots. The exclusive presence of the 'square-foot' variety of French Popo, normally scarce among circulation groups of Popos, suggests that this is the earliest variety. The earliest French manillas as likely to be contemporaries of the earliest British pieces. Sometimes distinguished from manillas mainly by their wearability are a large number of regional types called 'Bracelet' monies and 'Legband' monies. Some are fairly uniform in size and weight and served as monies of account like manillas, but others were actually worn as wealth display. The less well off would mimic the movements of the 'better off' who were so encumbered by the weight of manillas that they moved in a very characteristic way. The larger manillas had a much more open shape.
History
Origins
Some sources attribute their introduction to the ancient Phoenicians who traded along the west coast of Africa or even early Carthaginian explorers and traders. The Egyptians have also been suggested as they used penannular money. One suggestion is that Nigerian fishermen brought them up in their nets from the shipwrecks of European wrecks or made them from the copper 'pins' used in wooden sailing ships wrecked in the Bight of Benin. One theory is that if indigenous, they copied a splayed-end Raffia cloth bracelet worn by women, another that the Yoruba mondua with its bulbous ends inspired the manilla shape. Metal bracelets and leg bands were the principal 'money' and they were usually worn by women to display their husband's wealth. Early Portuguese traders thus found a preexisting and very convenient willingness to accept unlimited numbers of these 'bracelets', and they are referred to by Duarte Pacheco Pereira who made voyages in the 1490s to buy ivory tusks, slaves, and pepper. Describing the exchange, with the Kingdom of Benin, in his, 1508, Esmeraldo de situ orbis:
The houses are built of sun-dried bricks covered with palm leaves. Benin, which is 80 leagues (sic) long by 40 leagues (sic) broad, is always at war with its neighbours from whom it obtains captives, whom we buy at from 12 to 15 brass or copper manillas. By 1522 in Benin a female slave 16 years of age cost 50 manillas; the King of Portugal put a limit of 40 manillas per slave to stop this inflation. Earliest report on the use of Manillas in Africa points to its origin in Calabar the capital city of the Cross River State of coastal Southeastern Nigeria. It has been documented that in 1505 at Calabar, (Nigeria) Manillas were being used as a medium of exchange, one manilla being worth a big elephant tooth, and a slave cost between eight and ten manillas. They were also in use on the Benin river in 1589 and again in Calabar in 1688, where Dutch traders bought slaves against payment in rough grey copper armlets which had to be very well made or they would be quickly rejected. In addition to the earliest report, the origin of manillas from Calabar for use in Africa and particularly Nigeria is also confirmed by the African and universal other name for Manillas as Òkpòhò, which is an (Efik) word for money which is used throughout this report and in the titles of images in this report.
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