IDNO

N.13141.GIJ

Description

Ifogu Nkporo masquerade depicting five masquerade characters, Two are wearing European style shirts and shorts, and are wearing cross-over neck and chest ornament?.; one is holding a staff? They are wearing small face masks, painted in dark and light colours clearly delineating the eyes and nose, and each with a different carved protrusion at the top. The other three characters (one of whom is only partially visible at the left of the frame), wear loose raffia costumes. One also wears a shirt, and a two-toned netted raffia head, shoulder and face covering under a plant fibre hat. Crowd and trees in the background.

Physical Condition: Slight yellowing of negative.

Place

W Africa; Nigeria; Eastern Nigeria; Cross River; Obobia 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 on John McCall’s G.I. Jones website with the following information: [Source: www.siu.edu/~anthro/mccall/jones/, AF ]Jones website, www.siu.edu/~anthro/mccall/jones/, under,
1. Index to Nkporo Igbo
2. A group of masks, Boys initiation, Obohia (5th image).

Context: Jones writes about the Ifogu Nkporo masquerade and describes the performance and the various masquerade characters. In Unwana the costumes were made of local materials and none of the players’ bodies except the hands and feet were exposed. Nkporo players wore part native and part European dress, and reduced the size of the masks till they covered part of the face only, leaving the lower jaw and chin exposed. Over their faces they wore the same raffia bags as the band. One corner of the bags hung down in front of their faces with drooping snout of a tapir, and when they wanted to see where they were going they stroked their snouts with their hands and drew out in front of them, then came two announcers, creatures with similar snouts and covered from top to toe in loose raffia till they looked like perambulating hayricks. The carried staffs in their hands and wandered about making announcements which nobody listened to.” Jones. 1939, pp.119-120.

Bibliographical References:
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)

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

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]