Oromo Copper Pilgrimage Staff

Walk far enough and you start to want something to lean on. And something to say who you are.

The Oromo of Ethiopia made this forked staff in the mid 19th century, and it is catalogued as a pilgrimage staff. Staffs went on long journeys and to holy places, as support and as personal emblem. A slender wooden shaft splits at the top into a Y, the arms flaring outward. Copper wire is wrapped at intervals along shaft and arms, raising small knobbed nodes.

The wood is a warm reddish-brown. Nearly five feet tall. Light, linear, ready to go.