The short staff was used in ritual contexts and shows significant symbolic animals on the upper part. The coiling snake stands as a "rainbow snake" for the connection between the upper world on the other side and the earth on this side. To show this vertical axis was an essential form criterion of art; to establish this connection the most important task of religious ceremonies. The chameleon embodies a religious specialist who, like this animal, can transform and take on different manifestations. Text: Dietmar Neitzke.