A Mossi staff

the long slender wooden shaft, delicately incised with linear motifs, and leading to the female bust with pendant breasts, long neck and helmet-shaped head with abbreviated features, the sides of the jaw pierced for attachment, the tip encircled by two brass bands and the whole surmounted by a brass slingshot with two birds on the tips; fine blackened patina.

The presence of a brass finial on top of a staff is exceptionally rare. Brass was highly valued amongst the Mossi. See Roy (1987: 177, 178) for other figurative Mossi staffs.