explores a collection of 72 (small ritual objects) and 74 bells produced in southern Nigeria by Igala, Igbo, Edo, Yorùbá, and other neighboring peoples, which was gifted to the Fowler Museum by Mark Clayton. The use of bronze , dynamic symbols of one’s relationship with the ancestors, dates back to at least the fifteenth century. likely derive from wire-wrapped bundles of twigs from a tree venerated in southern Nigeria. Bells—largely made in the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries—were cast in copper alloys of bronze or brass, using the lost-wax technique. Many were rung to invoke ancestors or nature spirits, and some announced the presence of important members of the living world, such as priests or local rulers. Richly illustrated, highlights the remarkable degree of variation possible even in such modest artistic genres.