IDNO

LS.52044.GIJ

Description

An Ekpe (Ibo) head representing an elephant. The head-piece is round with large leather ears and two protruding tusks. The face consists of raised arched eyebrows, four square marks in the centre of the forehead, protruding peg-like eyes, triangular nose, and a slit mouth with two tusks painted in stripes, carved incisions on the cheeks. The head rests on a carved pedestal. On top of the head is knitted yarn? or cotton thread?. The face is painted white and a darker colour The leather ears are dark with white spots. The mask has holes on the bottom with a piece of twine attached; it is placed on a wooden crate. In the background are thatched houses and trees.

Place

W Africa; ?Nigeria

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Photographer

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

Collector / Expedition

Date

circa 1930 - 1939

Collection Name

Jones Collection

Source

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

Format

Lantern Slide Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

LS.51100.GIJ, and LS.52042.GIJ to LS.52048.GIJ were found with the piece of paper now numbered C247/2/ which was in wooden box formerly numbered 22. It has now been renumbered C247/ by the cataloguer.

The inscription on the box as well as a descriptive list of slides pasted on the inside lid of the box indicates that it originally contained lantern slides from the Fens and belonged to D.G. Reid.

However, the lantern slides are attributed to G.I. Jones because the handwriting on the papers found inside wooden box C246/ is similar to the handwriting on the papers found inside wooden box C247/.

Publication: Same image in Jones, 1984, p. 173, p.80 with the caption, "Polychrome Head".

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 Ekpe Masquerades
2. Ekpe (Igbo) head representing an elephant (Ndokki) (2nd image).

Context: Jones discusses this particular mask in his book, and he notes that, "Heads carved in this style were to confined to the Ekpeya and Southern Ikwerri Ibo tribes. They extended to the Oba and Egbema Okorosia masquerades and to the Ohuhu/Ngwa and Ndokki Ibo ara bordering the Imo River. In this area they formed one of the more striking of the heads in their Ekpe (Ibo) type of masquerades. In some of these they were worn by two characters, the Elephant and his wife. The former was represented by a large human head furnished with great leather ears and two tusks projecting forward and upward from his human mouth. His wife was represented by a smaller head in the same style but without these atributes." (Jones, 1984, p. 172)

Context: In his article, "Sculpture from the Umuahia Area of Nigeria, Jones writes about the style. "The form which I refer to as the Delta head, is purely Delta in style and has a wide distribution. In the Ekpe (Ibo) maskerades, it represents an elephant spirit (hence the ears and tusks); in the Ogbukele maskerades of the Ekpeya Ibo of there Sombreiro River, it represents a water sprit. The head is absent from the maskerades of the Kalabari and Central Ijo but reappears in the more rounded mode in the Igbilie maskerades of the Benin River. If one moves up the Cross River and beyond, one can recognize the same form and style as an intrusive element in the Cameroon Grassfields, for example in some of the Night masks of the Bangwa". (Jones, 1973, p.63)

Context: Jones writes about the Ohuhu/Ngwa and their sculpture. He also explains the meaning of Ekpe. "This territory was peopled by the Ibo moving across the Imo river and absorbing the small Northern Ibibio settlements which they encountered in the north and centre, and eventually meeting and establishing a fighting frontier with the Anang Ibibio expanding northward and westward. The Ndokki tribe in the extreme south had Ijo connections and the founders of the Ijo trading state of Bonny are said to have come from one of their villages. Most of the Ohuhu or northern sector had the Ekpe (Egbo) type of secret society under the name Ekpe, Akang, Okonko together with their masquerades and their Egbo runner and other types of net costumes, and they borrowed and copied freely from the masks and masquerades of their Anang neighbours including the Cross River Ikem and its heads. I saw very few skin-covered heads in the 1930s, though I was told that they were more numerous in the past but had gone out of fashion. In some of the Ekpe (Egbo) masquerades the only characters which I saw were in the faceless tight-fitting or flowing net costumes in which the face of the actor was concealed beneath the net. In others these types of costume were combined with Traditional Anang (Ibibio) face masks. The masks were referred to as Isi Ekpo (Ekpo head) but the name of the masquerade was Ekpe. In other masquerades which were called Ekpo, the masks were Anang or local copies of Anang Ekpo masks, but the costumes were of imported cotton cloths and not the traditional raffia fringes and skirts of the Anang Ekpo. Thought they had masquerades called Ekpo they did not have any Ekpo secret societies and the masked characters behaved in a relatively benign fashion. They also copied the Anang dramatic masquerades of the Ekong and Ofiong types...The most impressive surviving examples of sculpture from this area, however, were the heads produced for their Ekpe (Ibo) play and the figures from their trophy or fertility dance called Ugbom."

In relation to the Ekpe (Ibo) sculpture Jones says that, "This masquerade had been fashionable ‘a long time ago’ according to Uhuhu informants. It had become defunct in this sector in the early part of the century and no one could tell Murray or myself much about it. Further south amongst the Ngwa there were said to be a few villages still playing it in 1920s. The masquerade consisted of the usual parade of a number of stately and fierce characters wearing heads which were carved in a remarkable number of different forms and styles. There were several styles:

1. Small heads, occasionally single, more usually with two or more faces or heads, sometimes surmounted with a bird or other embellishment and carved in the Lower Niger style.
2. Small to medium heads carved in a naturalistic mode .which emphasised the cheek-bones and chin but omitted the eyes and only indicated eyelids. Many of these were in pairs on a bar or bracket. This type was confined to Oboro and Olokoro tribes and to some of the Northern Ngwa.
3. Single heads carved in a stylised angular mode and in the Delta style. The eyes were either projecting cones, or were omitted and replaced by slitlike eyelids. The mouth was a rectangular box, the lower jaw was framed with a conventionaised beard and lines of keloids were represented vertically on the forehead and on each temple and diagonally across each cheek.
4. Single heads, medium to large in size in the Delta style.
5. Small to medium female heads with hair tied up in bunches or horns in a naturalistic Modern Anang Ibibio style found in Ibeku Ohuhu
6. Small to medium white faced female heads with crested or horned head-dresses and carved in the Lower Niger style (Jones, 1984, pp. 199-200.).

Context: Cole and Aniakor also write about the distinctive Ekpe masquerades. In their section on Ekpe (Ohuhu, Ngwa, Asa) They note that "The Ekpe dancers of the Ohuhu and Ngwa, largely defunct even in the 1930s when Jones and Murray conducted their surveys, employed a variety of headpieces (as distinct from face covering masks). The Ekpe festivals were usaully year-end harvest celebrations thanking ancestors and Earth for abundant crops and children and honoring great warriors of the past...In the Asa Ndoki version of Ekpe, several pairs of headdresses appear- one a maiden-spirit with delicate features, the other a masculine elephant-spirit, considered her husband, wearing a large headdress with enlarged features an big circular leather ears." (Cole and Aniakor, 1984, p.176.)

Bibliographical Reference: Jones, G.I., 1984. The Art of Eastern Nigeria (Cambridge University Press)
Jones, G.I. 1973. "Sculpture of the Umuahia Area of Nigeria", African Arts, Vl, No.4, pp.58-63.
Cole, H. & C. Aniakor, 1984. Igbo Arts: Community and Cosmos (Museum of Cultural History, University of California)
This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Alicia Fentiman 17/12/2007]