Antique West African OMANI Tribe Slave Currency BRACELET Jewelry

Description

THIS IS AN ESTATE FOUND ITEM THAT I HAVE SPENT A LONG TIME RESEARCHING TO DETERMINE ITS USE.  IT IS BRONZE, VERY HEAVY AND BEAUTIFULLY INTRICATE with a moroccan style.  IT COMES APART IN TWO HALVES AND THE PINS THAT CONNECT THE HALVES ARE MISSING THE BINDING PIN, WHICH WAS MOST LIKELY SAUTERED TO MAKE THE BRACELET UNREMOVABLE.  WITH THE PINS IN, THE TWO HALVES STAY CONNECTED IF THE BRACELET IS STATIONARY (AS A DISPLAY ITEM) BUT WOULD HAVE TO BE REPAIRED IF IT WAS TO BE WORN.
I found an interesting article online that gives the history of such an item and have included an excerpt below (https://www.notorious-mag.com/article/the-story-behind-the-slave-bracelets-2):
FROM SLAVE TRADE MONEY TO SYMBOL OF FREEDOM
Slave bracelets are bangles in copper, silver or gold. They have been worn for centuries around the world, usually several at the same time. Besides being beautiful and making a lovely clinging sound when you move, they are also a symbol of wealth and status, which is quite ironic, considering the story behind the origin of the slave bracelets.
WEST AFRICAN SLAVE BANGLES
As you may imagine because of the name, the use of these bangles is closely linked to the trade of slaves to the Americas. Women in the West African coast used to wear the horseshoe-shaped bracelets in copper. These jewels, called “manillas”, came usually embellished with balls on each end. The Portuguese slave merchants began producing these bangles to use them as a form of currency. This is when the bracelets became known as “slave trade money”.
Europeans
took the slave bracelets they’d created to Africa. They used them to purchase the captive people they would take as slaves to the Americas and Europe. The West Africans, on the other hand, used the slave bangles to
buy food
or pay for the “bride money” or burials.
With abolition, the
British
prohibited the slave trade money, which was a reminder of the terrible times of slavery. They introduced the British West African currency to replace the bangles. Also, they melted most of the slave bracelets to turn them into useful things. The Africans who had been captured by their fellows and sold to Europeans in exchange of slave bracelets, once free and prospering, started buying bangles to give to their loved ones on special occasions such as baptisms, engagements and weddings, as a reminder that they were never to be sold again. So, these bracelets became a symbol of something
even more
valuable than their acquired wealth; it symbolised their freedom!