IDNO

N.13124.GIJ

Description

The Okpa masquerade showing several (five) members of the band and three Ogu masqueraders seated on the ground. The band members are playing slit gongs and membrane drums and they are wearing raffia headdresses, striped net face masks, palm frond skirts, short sleeved shirts, twine or rope criss-crossed around the chest, and ankle-ornaments. The three Ogu masqueraders are sitting with the band and they are wearing carved wooden face masks which are abstract in shape, with a vertical row of three cylinders and a knife-like or horn protrusion. The face masks are painted in light and dark pigments and the slits for the eyes are highly visible. Placed on top of the masks are hats. A group of spectators are gathered behind the group. There is a thatched building and trees in the 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.

Publication: Same Image published in Jones, G.I. 1984, p.216, Plate 119, with caption “Ifogu band”, however the inscription on the back of the print suggests this it part of the Okpa masquerade.

Context: Jones provides a detailed description of the band and masqueraders in the Okpa Masquerade. He writes, “The band came first, with sweeping palm-leaf skirts, cotton singlets, and great raffia headdresses which made them look like enormous maned baboons. Their faces were hidden behind black and white raffia bags, and they played on slit drums, large and small, on wooden and iron gongs, and on a small membrane drum.” and he continues to write, ”Then came the two main dancers, a pair of strange creatures with scarlet jackets, black velvet hats with a white ribbon round them, and terrifying masks with human eyes, a sword coming out of the forehead and three conical projections beneath it, the whole suggesting vaguely the prow of a Melanesian war canoe. ... When they were not dancing they rested on two chairs beside the band.” (Jones,1939, p.120.) In addition, he also describes the abstract Ogu masks as a white, red, and black arrangement of an oval face with the features reduced to a vertical row of three projecting cylinders surmounted by a knifelike crest and suggestive of the prow of Venetian gondola. (Jones, 1984, p.211)

Bibliographical Reference: Jones, G.I. 1939 ‘Ifogu Nkporo’, Nigerian Field, Vol.VIII, pp.119-121; Jones, G.I., 1984. The Art of Eastern Nigeria (Cambridge University Press)

MAA Exhibition: This image is included in the G.I. Jones' slide show in the Nigerian case, Maudslay Gallery, with the following caption:
"Band members playing slit drums and gongs during the Okpa (Boys’ Initiation) masquerade.
The band came first, with sweeping palm-leaf skirts, cotton singlets, their faces hidden behind black and white bags, and great raffia headdresses which made them look like enormous maned baboons.” [JD 5/8/2014]

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]

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Alicia Fentiman 24/10/2007]