For your consideration is an Antique Carved Bone Handle Horse Hair Whisk, 19th century. Bone handle has a carved bird head with ebony inlays. Fly-whisks are in use in parts of the Middle East, such as Egypt, by some classes of society, e.g., outdoor merchants and shop keepers, especially in summer when flies become bothersome. Those have a wooden handle and plant fibers attached to them. The more expensive ones are made from horse hair. In the eastern parts of the Indian subcontinent, it is made from the tail-hairs of the yak. Yakut people from Siberia use fly-whisk called deybiir made of horse tail both for swating mosquitoes and as a sacred tool for shamanistic rituals. Fly-whisks appear frequently in the traditional regales of monarchs and nobility in many parts of the African continent. Fly whisks were used by Yoruba monarchs and chiefs as a symbol of power and respect. The fly-whisk is one of the traditional symbols of Taoist and Buddhist monastic hierarchy in China and Japan. The whiskmeasures approximately 22"l, weight is U6oz.