The Bronze That Told a Joke

A playful plaque remembers the joke its maker carved into a busy scene — and helps a new generation learn how humor lives in history. Written to be enjoyed by readers from about eight to one hundred and beyond, with teacher notes and activities.

By Edwin Ogie Library — story, context, classroom activities.

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Benin Bronzes history African storytelling & humour Oral history activities

Opening — how a bronze can keep a secret and a smile

This is a story about a bronze plaque that lives inside a picture. On its surface people are busy — riders, market scenes, a small child pointing at a bird — and if you look closely there is a little carved figure hiding in the corner with a wide, secret grin. That grin was not an accident. The plaque’s maker carved it as a joke, a small wink to friends who understood. Over many years, the plaque keeps that grin like a seed that waits for rain.

The plaque will be our teacher. It will show how humor can be made of small things: a wink in the corner, a face turned slightly wrong, an animal doing something odd. The plaque will also teach us how jokes travel — how they mean different things in different places — and how learning to notice them helps us understand people who lived long ago. This is a gentle story: playful, respectful, and curious.

In a warm workshop — where the joke began

There was a workshop under the shade of a large iroko tree. Metal scorched softly; hammers sang a steady rhythm. The master caster — the one who understood how heat, sand, and brass become pictures — had a small apprentice named Efe. Efe watched the master with eyes like lanterns, learning where to strike and where to breathe.

On a bright morning, the master received an order from the palace: “A plaque to tell the story of a harvest feast, with dancers and the Oba’s procession.” He sketched the scene, marked places for faces, for spears, for a messenger riding fast. But as his hand moved, something else happened — a memory of a small joke from the market. Once, a market woman had slipped a pepper into a merchant’s basket and he sneezed in a way the whole stall remembered for a month. The master smiled at the memory. It was a gentle, private memory — the kind that asks for a small hiding place in art.

So he carved one figure with a face that did not match the seriousness of the procession: a tiny figure tucked in the corner, looking as if it had just told a private joke and was waiting to see who would laugh. The apprentice saw and asked, “Why does that face smile?” The master tapped the design and said, “People need small things to remind them that not everything is grave. Even kings and ceremonies know a hidden humor.”

The plaque was cast with care; molten brass took the design, and the tiny grin held even after the metal cooled. The maker had given the plaque a small companion: a joke carved in brass, meant for eyes sharp enough to notice. For some time, the joke lived where all jokes do first — among the people who made it. Craftsmen passed nods, kids pointed, elders chuckled softly. It was a shared secret.

Life in the palace — jokes in public places

The plaque was mounted in the palace hall where many eyes passed: messengers, cooks, children being taught, elders tasting the year’s palm wine. It served three purposes at once. It was a record of an event; it was an example of the artisans’ skill; and, quietly, it was a place where people smiled when they needed to. A joke carved into a plaque does not shout. It winks. It tests who is paying attention.

One afternoon a young prince lingered near the plaque and nudged his cousin. The two saw the little figure and tried, under their breaths, to make a soundless laugh. The cooks in the courtyard heard and smiled; the master carver, watching from a doorway, folded his hands and said nothing. The plaza held laughter like rain: it soaked the day for a moment and then the sun came back out.

Remember: humor in communities is a way of teaching ease. It reminds people that while life asks for dignity, it also asks for lightness. The plaque carried its small joke like a seed curled under the bark of a tree — waiting for anyone who remembered the market sneeze, the mischievous basket, or simply the right time to laugh.

A change in the wind — when the scene moved

Years passed. Things that live in one place sometimes move to another — by choice or by force. The plaque’s small grin did not ask to move, but life pressed it into a new story. A season of conflict and outside pressure arrived, and objects from the palace were gathered for safekeeping or were taken by visitors who did not understand that jokes, like prayers, belong to people not things.

One morning, hands with different rhythms carried many plaques into crates. The joke was strapped into wood; the world got smaller for it. People who packed the crate counted by the weight of metal, by the expense of art, and by the practicality of storage. They wrote numbers on tags and labels that would be useful to those who saw objects as things to file away on maps. There was no tag for "secret grin" or "laugh that should be taught." The joke traveled silently.

In the dark of travel and in the bright rooms of faraway halls the joke waited. It did not disappear. It lay under dust and light, still made of the same metal, still catching a beam of sun and reflecting a small, private smile. The seeds of the joke slept in places where different people might see them later — if they knew how to look. That is the important part: some jokes require the right listeners.

Museum rooms — learning to listen again

The plaque arrived in a building with tall windows and rooms that smelled faintly of books. A careful hand cleaned its surface, and a placard was placed nearby that explained the date and some facts: the scene, the date, the material. Scholars admired the composition, teachers brought classes, and visitors read the placard and moved along.

For a long time the little grin was just a face behind glass. People appreciated technique and pattern, but they often missed the tiny joke. This is not a fault of museums; it is a reminder that context matters. Without the story that the maker held in his mind and the songs the palace sang, the grin could look like a chance detail rather than an invitation to laugh.

Some children visiting the museum noticed the grin right away. A girl tugged her mother and pointed, and the mother smiled and told the child to whisper a story. The child’s whisper was small but it traveled back to the plaque like a new wind. It was a beginning of listening. Over the years, educators at the museum began to include small prompts on some labels: “Look for the secret face in the corner. What do you think it is doing?” This changed how people looked. Instead of moving in straight lines past the glass, some visitors slowed down and discovered the hidden grin.

Young minds — how children learn humour from history

Children have a special talent for finding jokes in quiet places. They are tuned to detail and to surprise. When a teacher brought a class to the museum and asked them to look for the grin, the children found it quickly. They made up stories: maybe the figure had eaten too much of the festival yam; maybe the figure was telling the bird a secret; maybe the figure was hiding a laugh at the Oba’s serious hat.

One child, named Kemi, wrote a short play about the little grin. She imagined the plaque as a storyteller who whispered punchlines into the ears of dancers. The class performed Kemi’s play for elder visitors. Elders laughed — not loud, but with the kind of sound that loosens a face and smooths a forehead. The plaque’s grin had found a new audience.

Through playful exercises like these children learn several things at once: how to look carefully at art, how humour connects people across years, and how small acts of attention—like pointing at a hidden face—can change a museum’s story. Humor becomes a tool for connection, not only amusement.

Oral history — teaching the joke its name

One day, a community elder came to the museum with a woven cloth and a small notebook. He had grown up where plaques like this were made and remembered market pranks and the names of makers. He watched the children perform Kemi’s play. After the laughter, he stepped forward and told a short story about a master carver who loved to put a playful face into serious pictures so that future viewers would smile and remember that life is not only solemn.

Hearing the elder’s voice gave the grin a name and a reason. He explained the market prank that inspired the palate of that small grin: a merchant once swapped a sweet yam with a pepper yam and the whole stall laughed for a week. The elder said the maker had tucked that memory into the plaque. Suddenly the grin had a reference point. The museum updated the placard to include a short note: “A small, carved figure hides a grin — likely a maker’s private joke.”

This is how oral history repairs a missing line. Museums and communities began to work together, and small acts of listening changed the way visitors saw the plaque. The joke no longer belonged only to the maker’s memory; it had been taught again, like a song returned to a choir.

Conversation — how museums and communities learn together

As the elder’s story spread, museum staff invited more elders, carvers, and storytellers to share traditions. They staged small events where a plaque could be shown with song and explanation. Instead of a single placard, the label now included a line: “Hidden humour — ask an elder.” This simple change made space for laughter and for permission — permission for a community to retell and reclaim context.

Conversations like these teach two practical lessons: first, objects are not only art; they are part of living systems of knowledge. Second, listening requires infrastructure — a place to hear stories, a way to record them, and a willingness to change museum displays when new information arrives. The grin was an early, small success: an example of how history can be playful and how museums can adapt.

For children, the lesson was immediate: history includes jokes. For elders, the lesson was warm: younger people could be taught to slow down and look. For curators, the lesson was humbling: a line of text about dates is not the only way to explain a plaque. The makers’ gestures matter.

Activities — playful ways to teach looking and listening

Below are classroom-friendly activities inspired by the plaque’s grin. These exercises teach observation, oral history, and how to make respectful, playful connections across time.

Activity — Spot the Wink

1. Bring an image of a decorated artwork (it can be a printout or a classroom poster). Ask students to look quietly for one minute and then share anything small they noticed.
2. Discuss why small details matter. What could a hidden face or odd animal mean?
3. Invite students to invent a short explanation — a joke, a secret, or a small story — and perform it for the class.

Activity — Maker’s Note

Have students imagine they are apprentice carvers. Give them clay, cardboard, or soft metal foil to model a small plaque scene. Ask them to hide one small playful detail — a wink, a secret animal, a funny hat. Then have them write a short “maker’s note” explaining the joke (one or two sentences). Share the maker notes anonymously and let others guess which detail matches which note.

Activity — Oral History Hunt

1. Ask students to interview a family member about a small family joke or secret. (Keep it light and respectful — nothing private.)
2. Record the story (audio or written) and draw a simple picture of the moment.
3. Discuss how the joke travels — did the family member laugh right away? Was it written down? Who in the family knows the punchline?

These exercises help children learn that details in art can be invitations, and that listening and asking gentle questions are ways to reconnect objects with their meanings.

A deeper reflection — humour, meaning, and care

Playfulness in objects reminds us that people who made art were full, complicated human beings: they had ceremonies, jobs, obligations, and small rebellions. The carved grin is not frivolous; it is humanizing. It tells us that despite the grandeur of ceremony, people made room for lightness.

When objects travel, jokes may feel lost. But jokes can also be rediscovered when communities are asked to share their memories. Reconnecting humor is a gentle act of restoration. It does not fix every wrong, but it helps heal small, important parts: the names of makers, the reasons behind a carved face, the laughter that once filled a hall.

For young readers: remember that history is not only things. It is people who laugh, who teach, and who remember. A wink in the corner is a way for the past to poke the present. Our job is to look and listen — and to pass the laugh on when it is good and kind to do so.

Guided questions — for families and classrooms

Use these questions to encourage curiosity and empathy:

• What small detail stood out to you in the plaque? Why do you think the maker put it there?
• How do jokes help people in difficult or serious times?
• Who should be asked to explain an object’s meaning? Why is it important to include elders and makers?
• Is it ever wrong to make a joke about serious events in history? When might it be okay and when might it be hurtful?

Encourage open conversation. Different families will have different answers — that variety is part of learning.

Resources & activities for further learning

Suggested further reading and classroom resources (for grown-ups preparing lessons):

• Search: Benin Bronzes humour & symbolism
• Search: oral history teaching resources
• Search: museum workshop ideas for children

Reply with "Lesson pack", "Audio script", or "Poster" and I’ll prepare it next.

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