Manillas

Manillas are a form of money, usually made of 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 used as decorative objects in some contexts. In the popular consciousness, they are particularly associated with the Atlantic slave trade.

The name manilla is said to derive from the Spanish for a 'bracelet' manella, 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 tooth for one copper manila

Manillas bear some resemblance to torcs or torques in being rigid and circular and open-ended at the front. (The word 'torc' comes from Latin 'torquere', 'to twist', because of the twisted shape of the collar, an occasional feature of manillas.) Although torcs were most often neck-rings, there were also bracelets with this shape. Torcs were made from gold or bronze, less often silver.

We know from various sources, such as grave goods, that torcs were worn by various European peoples from the Bronze Age, about 1000 BC, until about 300 AD, including the Galatians (Anatolian Celts), various Germanic tribes, the Scythians and the Persians. Although some of the most elaborate specimens were uncovered at Phanagoria and Pereshchepina in the Pontic steppe, this type of necklace is still popularly associated with Celtic people, especially Britons, Gauls, Ligures and Iberians.

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