Chameleon? Antique Animal Shaped West African Ashanti Weight hand-sewn I really like the graphic

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

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

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

and I must admit I am wary of taken more than a few pieces apart for fear of not being able to put it back together

or just purring

Chameleon? Antique Animal Shaped West African Ashanti Weight hand-sewn I really like the graphicTiny, 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.