IDNO

N.13121.GIJ

Description

Part of the Nkporo Ifogu masquerade.

Full length view of a masked character wearing a tight raffia sack costume, feather headdress with circular cowrie detail, a striped netted two-toned raffia hood which tapers to extended points, a tight raffia cloth ‘shirt’/’tights’ and woven cloths tied around the waist. Dancing in an open space. Audience and buildings in background.

Physical Condition: Slight yellowing of negative.

Place

W Africa; Nigeria; Eastern Nigeria; Cross River; Etitiama village

Cultural Affliation

Igbo [historically Ibo]; Nkporo

Named Person

Photographer

Jones, Gwilliam Iwan (known as G.I.)

Collector / Expedition

Date

1932 - 1938

Collection Name

Jones Collection

Source

Jones, Gwilliam Iwan (known as G.I.)

Format

Film Negative Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

This negative was kept in a film storage album labelled “Masks & Plays - Nkporo.” by G. I. Jones, and numbered “C11/” by the cataloguer.

Context: Jones describes the various characters of the Ifogu Nkporo masquerade. In a similar photograph the caption reads, “Ifogu masquerade, Nkporo tribe, Cross River Ibo. Hooded character with headdress of birds’ feathers and a rosette of cowrie shells, attached to a netted bag with streamer ends that can be pulled out in front in order to see the way. He has to be sewn into his costume of raffia sacking for each performance.” (1989, p. 63) In addition, he writes, the characters in this masquerade consisted of two clowns with masks worn over their faces and a principal dancer called Otiri with a mask worn on top of his head and stuck full of long feathers, his face shrouded in a raffia bag, and wearing a shirt of raffia sacking and a grass skirt.(Jones, 1989, p.62)

Bibliographical Reference:
Jones, G.I., 1984. The Art of Eastern Nigeria (Cambridge University Press); Jones, G.I. 1989, Ibo Art (Shire); Jones, G.I. ‘Ifogu Nkporo’, Nigerian Field, Vol. VIII, pp. 119-121.

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Alicia Fentiman 30/10/2007]

Publication: The photograph has been digitised for the European Collected Library of Artistic Performance (ECLAP) and is accessible on the portal http://www.eclap.eu/drupal/. [SG 30/10/2012]