IDNO

N.13136.GIJ

Description

Nkporo Ifogu masquerade.

Profile portrait of a masquerader wearing a crested feather headdress with circular cowrie detail, netted raffia hood which tapers to extended points, a tight raffia cloth ‘shirt’, and a woven cloth tied around his waist. In the background is a crowd at the left and a building at the right.

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: Publication: Same image published on John McCall’s G.I. Jones website with the following information: [Source: www.siu.edu/~anthro/mccall/jones/, AF ]
1. Index to Nkporo Igbo
2. Ofogu? mask Boys initiation, Etiti Ama (25th image).

Reproduced in Jones.G.I. 1989: 62, as plate 54. The caption for this image 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.”

Context: G. I. Jones describes this specific masquerade in his article ‘Ifogu Nkporo’: “... Following [the two main dancers] were two apparitions that seemed to have made rather an unsuccessful raid on a repertoire company’s property chest and come away with some acrobatic tights and Hiawatha headdresses. Over their faces they wore the same raffia bags as the band. One corner of the bags hung down in front of their faces like the drooping snout of a tapir, and when they wanted to see where they were going they stroked their snouts with their hands and drew them out in front of them. How they managed to get into their tights, which were of woven raffia, was an unsolved mystery.” (Jones.G.I. 1939a: 120).

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); Jones, G.I. 1989,
Ibo Art, (Shire).

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Alicia Fentiman 23/10/2007]

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]