IDNO

LS.52075.GIJ

Description

Isiji masquerade portraying a group of young males initiates (junior age grade members), dancing in single file in a circle. The Isiji are wearing similar tall conical headdresses made of fresh Thaumatococcus leaves and raffia sacking on a stick frame, a palm frond costume, adorned with wrist-ornaments. Within the circle of initiates is a man wearing shorts, shirt and a cap (resembling an authority figure?). In the background is a crowd of adult males standing around the initiates, watching the masquerade, wearing shorts, cloths, head-gear and shirts. There are trees and thatched buildings in the back.

Place

Africa; Nigeria

Cultural Affliation

Igbo[Ibo]; Nkporo

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.52067.GIJ to LS.52076.GIJ were found inside a cardboard box now numbered C247/6/1/. This box was inside a paper bag now numbered C247/6/ 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/.

Context: In the Ada Ibo area there were specific styles of masks which were used in initiation masquerades. The style resembled the Lower Niger but the particular forms used were their own, and in the case of the abstract ones, unique. The masquerades were performed by the initiates at the close of their period of seclusion before their return to the community. The junior grade called Isiji appeared in a masquerade in which all the characters wore similar masks, each consisting of a very tall conical head-dress made of fresh Thaumatococcus leaves and raffia sacking on a stick frame and ending in a calabash which fitted over the wearer’s face." [Jones 1984. pp.209-210]

He remarks further, In Ngusu, the senior Ada town, the junior grade was divided into subgrades of small boys (Umuerima), Isiji and Isiugo. The first two had their Egede and Isiji masquerades, which they were entitled to perform after they had passed their initiation. In these they all wore the same type of mask made out of a calabash, which in Isiji was given a tall superstructure of leaves and raffia.[Jones, 1989, p.64-65] In a plate which shows the Isiji masquerade Jones describes the belief of magical powers, "Initiates all have similar masks of coloured strips of raffia stretched over a cane frame and attached to a calabash face mask. They are draped in young palm fronds which are thought to carry magical powers." (Jones, p.63)

Bibliographical References:
Jones, G.I., 1984. The Art of Eastern Nigeria (Cambridge University Press); Jones, G.I. 1989. Ibo Art, (Shire).
Guha, S., Herle, A., and Boast,R. 200? Collected Sights. (Cambridge)

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Alicia Fentiman 18/3/2008]