Description (Physical description)
Mask made of string/rope, painted dark red round the bottom, white round the middle, and black round the top. There are cowrie shells round both eyes and the mouth, a wooden nose and a cuved crest/comb on the top of the head with small black seeds(?) attached to it.
Event Date
Author: maa

---

Context (Related Documents)
There is pencil drawing of front and rear views on the rear of the catalogue card.
Event Date
Author: maa

---

Context (Other)
Object seen and photographed by Jean Borgatti in 1969.
Event Date 8/1969
Author: Katrina Dring

---

Context (Amendments / updates)
Part of the 'Discover and Encounter' session as part of the 'Archaeology and heritage of Africa: Building links and capacity through Thurstan Shaw's legacy', Keyser workroom, 8 May 2014.
Event Date 8/5/2014
Author: rachel hand

---

Context ()
Borgatti, Jean; Adejumoh, Wendy Emmanuel (2018) Ibillo’s Ugolo mask, Guest blog.
Available athttps://re-entanglements.net/ibillo-masquerade/?fbclid=IwAR3u6fxKJxqgLywM1MdVLK3fxu3O-Iu8-uRwvfrPU35kFdrq97a-uTOCDsc
Event Date 2018
Author: Katrina Dring

---

Conservation (Assessment Only)
CON.2018.4199 | Assessment Only
Event Date 19/10/2018
Author: Kirstie Williams

---

Loan (Analysis)
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 23/11/2018 to 31/07/2020, Conservation of artefacts from the Northcote Thomas (West Africa) collection to be carried out by students on the MSc. In Conservation for Archaeology & Museums, in preparation for an exhibition in SOAS and MAA in 2020/2021.
Event Date 23/11/2018
Author: rachel hand

---

Context (Amendments / updates)
This mask was previously documented with unknown provenance, however, it has now been identified as a Thomas collection object and the record has been updated to reflect this. A very similar mask is shown in Thomas' field photograph, P.30111.NWT.

Event Date 31/8/2018
Author: Katrina Dring

---

Description (Physical description)
Helmet mask with scarification marks and a large crest, made from knotted fibre, wood, cane, cowries and seeds. The eye holes and mouth are surrounded by rings of cowries, held in place with decorative threads in blue and red. The nose is a triangle of wood which has been sewn on to the front of the mask. The black comb is constructed from a wood support covered in knotted fibre and topped with a band of small seeds. The face is white, with red triangles rising from the bottom and black triangles descending from the top
Event Date 31/8/2018
Author: Katrina Dring

---

Context (Amendments / updates)
Cultural Group has been updated from '?Ibo' to 'Ibillo' and 'South Edo. The town of 'Ibillo' has been added to the Place fields. The place of collection means that it would have been collected during Thomas' 1st Tour, among the Edo-speaking people, 1909-10.
[Information provided by Paul Basu, SOAS, London as part of the Museum Affordances project 2018-2020]
Event Date 31/8/2018
Author: Katrina Dring

---

Context (References)
This mask is discussed in a blog post connected to the Museum Affordances Project 2018-2020, 'Ibillo’s Ugolo mask, Guest blog' by Jean Borgatti and Wendy Emmanuel Adejumoh,21 September 2018.

'Ibillo, one of the Okpameri groups in what is now Akoko-Edo Local Government Area of Edo State (then part of what was called Kukuruku), continues to use this type of mask in its age-grade festival called Ikpishionua, held approximately every 7 years. At the Ikpishionua festival the mask appears under the name of Ugolo, while during smaller annual festivals it appears as Uvbono.'

When Jean Borgatti showed a photograph of the mask in 2015 'to an elder and group of age-grade members, they cautioned me not to show it to women since it was in the ‘production’ stage: that is, without costume and without the line of feathers inserted into the sagittal crest... Subsequently, an art history student from the Department of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Benin and an Ibillo indigene, Wendy Emmanuel Adejumo, wrote his honors thesis on the masquerades (Adejumo 2017). This blog entry draws on our shared findings...

Although Professor Ogunnubi identified the mask collected by Thomas as ‘Ugolo’, Northcote Thomas recorded its name as ‘Ofuno’. This appears to be a misspelling. The proper spelling should be ‘Ubvono’ or ‘Uvono’. Ubvono is only celebrated in the interval between Ikpishionua festivals, suggesting that Thomas was not in Ibillo during a year when an age company was formed. Local respondents suggested that the mask was likely to have been made in Ekuya quarter, a community known for the thick weaving of the Ugolo mask form. The Ugolo, Ubvono and other woven masks are essentially the same, differentiated only by their context of use and the ‘finishing’ or decoration of the mask. For Uvbono, the Ugolo mask would have its feathers fixed differently from when it performs during Ikpishionua, and it does not perform fully in Ubvono because Uvbono is not a ‘serious’ festival, but more entertainment oriented. A nine-day festival, its function is to keep the community busy and engaged.

A description of the mask may be found in Thomas’s typed-up fieldnotes... Many of the characteristics Thomas described can still be found in the Ugolo masks that are made in Ibillo today...In 1910, Thomas also photographed a similar mask at rest in the masquerade stockade (ukpala or uyala).[NWT 1733. Royal Anthropological Institute 400.17686.]'
See https://re-entanglements.net/ibillo-masquerade/ [Accessed: 21 Sepetmber 2018]
Event Date 21/9/2018
Author: Katrina Dring

---

Loan (Analysis)
Department of Conservation, UCL Institute of Archaeology, 31-4 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0TY for conservation before exhibition as part of the Museum Affordances Project, 19/2/2019, 19/02/2019 to 29/02/2020, Museum Affordances project
Event Date 19/2/2019
Author: rachel hand

---

Loan (Exhibition)
Brunei Gallery, SOAS, London, 14/10/2020 to 19/12/2020, [Re:]Entanglements
[Loan cancelled]
Event Date 14/10/2020
Author: Katrina Dring

---

Description (Physical description)
Ubvono or Uvono. A knotted plant fibre helmet mask with wooden nose and facial scarification marks and a large curved crest topped with seed cases secured with 2-ply twisted plant fibre. Surface covered in earthen pigments, possibly red ochre and white lime. The eye holes and mouth are surrounded by rings of cowrie shells, possibly cut at the rear, securede with decorative threads in blue and red cotton thread. Wooden nose decorated with burnt designs.
Crest is wrapped around vertical wooden struts.

Despite the shedding surface pigments the mask is in excellent condition and shows no signs of having been danced and may have been commissioned by Thomas. R. Hand 25/11/2021
Event Date 24/11/2021
Author: rachel hand