benda

A West African unit of mass, the principal unit in the trade in gold dust along the coast of West Africa from the Tano River to Accra , 15^th – 19^th century, = 2 ounces, but the kind of ounce varied with time and location. The pronunciation benda is Fanti, an Akan dialect found along the coast. Farther inland, the word was bennaa. asuasa ne suru

two Dutch troy ounces (61.50 grams), reported by J. A. de Marree, 17th century.
two Portuguese troy ounces (57.4 grams), reported by Muller von Herrburgh in 1673.
in Accra two Islamic ounces of the standard of Djenné in present-day Mali (about 53.8 grams), that is, the standard of the trans-Saharan traders.
By the 19th century, on the coast the benda was 2 English troy ounces (about 62.2 grams).

The Akan and other groups made balance weights, a number of which survive, to all those standards. For trade among themselves, however, they appear to have continued to use the benda based on either the Portuguese or Islamic standard.

Traditionally, the benda was a quantity of gold dust with a value of 7 monetary pounds.

The term great benda or large benda used by the Europeans has nothing to do with the benda and is actually the pereguan or ta, a unit based on an Islamic rather than European standard (it = 16 mitkals).

For a full discussion of the benda, see Forien de Rochesnard and especially Garrard (1980), from whom most of the above information is taken.