Chameleon? Antique Animal Shaped West African Ashanti Weight hand-sewn which also reminds me of

which also reminds me of those old mystery boxes where one sticks one's hand inside and feels around at some unknown thing

With beautifully aged red white and blue paint

I really like the graphic quality of the big red EGLANTINE across one side of this old wooden box

where the Knowles Steam Pump factory operated in the last quarter of the 1800s

though it appears to have been a pretty contemporary one--though Lucy's version takes some license (in the placement of the label for Nigretia

Chameleon? Antique Animal Shaped West African Ashanti Weight hand-sewn which also reminds me ofTiny, but really wonderful, I believe this is a Akan (now Ghana) West African Ashnati weigh, used to for measuring out gold and gold dust, usually for trade. These weights, frequently figural and often in the shape of animals, were typically made of brass, as I believe this one is, cast using the lost wax method. I am tempted to say, with its large eye and coiled tail, that this one is meant to represent a chameleon, but I am not completely certain.