Kissi Iron Currency

• Title Kissi Iron Currency
• Category Utilitarian
• Medium Iron
• Dimensions 10"h
• Year Completed 1880s
• Description Popularly called Kissi pennies, this iron currency was first made in Sierra Leone. It has since circulated widely in western Liberia and southern Guinea. Although high quality iron has been produced in Sierra Leone and Liberia since ca. 600 BCE and iron was used as a medium of exchange, the so-called Kissi penny was first manufactured around 1880. Smiths who made the Kissi currency formed slender rods with a T shape at one end and the shape of a blade or hoe at the other. Because each rod had a relatively low value, they were often tied together in bundles of twenty pieces. In the early 1900s, the cost of a cow was 100 bundles while the price of a dowry might have been as high as 200 bundles. Besides their use as currency, the Kissi iron rods were used in Sande and Poro rituals and were sometimes placed on graves.
• Artist The Kissi People Liberian
• Credit John and Janet Yoder Collection
• Location Library Art Storage H8
• Accession Number 2022.0203.a-t
• Status Available Request this art work
  
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