Context (Related Documents)
"Aguku" has been added in different handwriting.
In this same handwriting on the rear of the card, a note reads "Face white with bold black markings -hair black except for tips of crest and the two projections which are now a dull red"
Pencil drawing on rear of card.

Event Date
Author: maa

Description (Physical description)
Mask painted red, white and black, top is like cocks comb; patterns painted on face (Isi agboefi)
Event Date
Author: maa

Description (Labels & Markings)
Thomas label adhered to inside of mask reads: '757 | 3[broken edge] / Mask, painted red, white and black, patterns on face. / Aguku'
Event Date
Author: Katrina Dring

Context (Related Documents)
There is uncertainty regarding the ethnic groups from Thomas Numbers 390-399. There is a loose note in the Thomas Collection 2nd catalogue p.15, " that no's 390-399 are filed under Nibo in the card catalogue." 'Aguku' on page 15 of the Thomas catalogue is crossed out. " They have been attributed to Nibo by R.M.Blanch on the basis of the card catalogue" . [R.Hand]

Event Date 11/5/2000
Author: Katrina Dring

Context (Related Documents)
See E 1910.118 and E 1913.3 records for further details about the Thomas Collection from Nigeria. [T.Cotterill]
Event Date 7/5/2001
Author: Katrina Dring

Description (Physical description)
Exhibition caption, World Anthropology Gallery, MAA (from May 2012): "Mask. Painted wooden helmet mask representing a maiden spirit, used in Ibo masquerades where male performers portray the feminine ideal. Northcote Thomas, a student of James Frazer, was the first government anthropologist in Nigeria from 1910. He recorded detailed ethnographic and linguistic information, took hundreds of photographs and made an extensive collection of objects, which he presented to the Museum.
Eastern Nigeria, c. & d. Northcote Thomas, 1910s. Z 13690"

Event Date 5/5/2012
Author: Mark Elliott

Context (Display)
Exhibited: On display in Nigeria case, (case 27) Maudslay Hall, CUMAA, from 1989- 2011'
Event Date 11/5/2014
Author: Rachel Hand

Context (Amendments / updates)
Awauku is noted by GI Jones next to this mask's photo not Aguku. Nibo town is now know as Niibo. From notes by Misty Bastian from uncatalogued photos in the GI Jones MAA archive, given by his widow Ursula.
Event Date 6/7/2017
Author: Remke Velden

Description (Physical description)
Helmet mask with white face and elaborately decorated hair in black and red. The face has extensive scarification, some patterns carved in relief and painted black, others simply painted on to the surface. There is a large comb of spikes running from the hairline at the forehead to the rear - the spikes having red tips. The rest of the hair is painted black and carved with spiral patterns, and there are two representations of combs on either side of the head.
Event Date 13/8/2018
Author: Katrina Dring

Context (References)
Illustrated in David Abulafia's article on the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford and gendered restricted access to Igbo marks and their images. In 'Why won’t this museum let women see its Igbo mask?', The Spectator, 19 June 2024.

Abulafia notes: 'The museum is pursuing a policy described as ‘cultural safety’ which means that an African mask, made by the people in what is now Nigeria, cannot be seen by women, in accordance with Igbo ceremonial practices. Therefore, not just the mask but online photos have been removed from public view. We might wonder how, as a woman, the Professor Doctor copes with this. She cannot inspect an object in the collection she has been appointed to curate. ....But museums are increasingly losing touch with the truth. In the process they are losing their identity as custodians of the past and present experience of mankind.'
Event Date 19/6/2024
Author: Rachel Hand