THE DATING OF THE DWARF It is often the practice of extant texts on the looted arts of the kingdom of Benin to merely assume that the history of the kingdom and its empire began in the 15th century. Often, this indifference to properly date the art and objects stolen from the kingdom serves the European or white supremacist idea that the arts of Benin are due the Portuguese arrival — a bold face error that to date continues to be the practice by the museums. The accompanying texts are lazily repeated, in a style no different from cut and paste. The dwarf here is a case in point. According to the Art Institute of Chicago , "Dwarfs have functioned as court jesters in Benin since the 15th century." (Italics ours) But this preposition cannot be true. Dwarfs have been a staple of Benin Arts from the Ogiso era and became more universally popular as art subjects during the expansion of the kingdom in the 1300s, i.e. Oba Ewuare's reign proper and earlier, ie before the fixated