IDNO

P.71428.GIJ

Description

Alose (spirit) with its Ikenga and other ritual objects. The Alose spirit is standing in front of her shrine with two Ikenga. The Alose is quite stylised, tall and straight, and her head has a curved crescent on the top, her hair is incised, the eyes are painted white, square nose, and small mouth. There are painted designs (uli?) on her cheeks. The neck is coiled and adorned with a necklace made of leopard’s teeth. Her torso is fairly square with two pointed breasts and a protruding umbilicus. She has a cloth tied around the waist. There are two Ikenga figures. One figure is leaning on the Alose and consists of a carved wooden figure with horns, humanised face and sitting with a skull on one side. The other Ikenga is more abstract but has two horns with sacrificial feathers adorning it. There is a ritual water pot behind the Ikenga. There is a small boy in the background, the shrine and vegetation.

Place

W Africa; Nigeria; South Eastern Nigeria

Cultural Affliation

Igbo [historically Ibo]; Orsu

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

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.71400.GIJ to P.71498.GIJ were kept in box 5, now numbered C302/.
P.71424 to P.71438 were found wrapped in paper, now numbered C302/6/.

Publication: Same image published in Jones, 1989, plate 31, p. 39. The caption under the photograph reads, “ Village tutelary deity, Orsu tribe. Isuama Ibo, standing in front of her shrine with her two Ikenga and a water pot used in rituals associated with her. Note her necklace made of leopard’s teeth.”

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 Igbo music, shrines, architecture and other cultural artifacts
2. Alusi or Arunsi (shrines)
3. Alusi With Ikenga and other ritual objects (12th image).

Context: Jones writes that “ cult figures of tutelary deities were made principally among the Northern and Isuama Ibo.” In reference to Ikenga figures, he writes, “ The best known Ibo personal cult and the one that has given rise to the greatest number of carvings is that of Ikenga, a Lower Niger cult of a man’s right arm and of success associated with it, which the Edo shared with the Western, Northern, most of the Southern Ibo and with Igala groups. The Ohuhu-Ngwa, Cross River and Northeastern Ibo did not participate in it. Most Ibo and Edo had a small cylindrical object with some geometrical carving on it and ending in a pair of pointed horns. Some Western Ibo increased the size so that it looked more like a circular stool . Other Ibo and edo added a head and some carved a whole figure. The Nri-Akwa Ibo produced the most elaborate cult objects and in the greatest number. Older examples carved by them elaborated the horns and the head, which was shown smoking a pipe. Later ones consisted of complete figures which were shown standing or more usually seated on a circular stool with a cutlass in one hand and a human head in the other or, alternatively, holding a tusk horn and an ornamental staff (Jones, 1989, p.40).

Context: Cole and Aniakor write in detail about Ikenga (see Chapter Two). They show that the concept of Ikenga reverberates throughout much of Igbo life . These images are found in the shrines of individual diviners and corporate tutelary cults and as representatives of age-grades and communities. ...They continue to describe that the basic Igbo Ikenga image is a human with horns, sometimes rendered very simply as an abstract head and horns base. Larger, more elaborate examples include fully realized males seated on stools, holding and wearing various symbols, and with more or less complex headdresses determined in part by horns and often including several other motifs (Cole and Anikaor, 1984, p.24).

Context: In relation to the Alusi figures, Cole and Aniakor write that, “the dead are conceived as part of the everyday world, and just as clearly, their presence can hold a positive or negative valence for the living; exactly the same is true of the tutelary deities, alusi. These forces, however, are neither personal (chi or ancestors) nor universal (Chineke, Chukwu). Rather, they are in part specific, usually tangible phenomena such as: Earth, the Niger or Imo river, Eke, Afo, Orie/Oye, or Nkwo market, an extraordinary tree, a binding oath at a particular shrine, or the canyon of erosion in Agulu. The preeminence of Ala/Ani does not eclipse the vitality of these other deities, especially those associated with water, or of Amadioha, god of thunder and lightening and, by extension, rain. These anthropomorphic male and female deities have priests and often elaborate cult apparatus, symbolic works of art, and finely decorated compounds. Each has general and specific powers, and although their priesthoods may be held by certain lineages, the more commanding of these cults have constituencies cutting across lines of kinship and stressing communal worship. Such tutelary deities are close to people, fast-acting (for good or ill), and often capricious, thus requiring frequent attention and sacrifice. ...(Cole and Aniakor, 1984, p.16).

Context: Jones also writes about the carved wooden Aluse figures, he notes that, “A statue was associated for the most part with a religious or magical cult. The statue represented, stood for, a deity or spirit and it did not really matter what the object looked like provided the symbolism was accepted by the participants it the ritual”. (Jones, 1984, p.54)

Bibliographical Reference: Cole, H. & C. Aniakor, 1984. Igbo Arts: Community and Cosmos (Museum of Cultural History, University of California)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 12/11/2007]