IDNO

P.71440.GIJ

Description

A rectangular house consisting of mud walls, two open doors in the front, a mud threshold and a thatched roof. There are four carved panels; the panel on the left depicts a figure in a wrapper holding a tool?; the second panel shows a snake like scroll in the centre with animals and geometric patterns on either side; the third panel shows a figure with knees bent holding a tool?; and the fourth panel carving (leaning on the house) depicts a snake like or zig zag design in the centre flanked by lizards or geckos, birds and geometric patterns. The right side of the house is incised with geometric designs. In the background are houses and vegetation.

Place

W Africa; Nigeria; South Eastern Nigeria; Onitsha province; Nri Awka

Cultural Affliation

Igbo [historically Ibo]; Nri Akwa

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.71440.GIJ was presumed to come from box 5 now numbered C302/.

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. Other Igbo cultural items
3. House with carved panels Nri-Awka (9th image).

Context: Jones discusses the various types of houses in Eastern Nigeria according which varied based on the materials available. He writes that, Houses were round with conical roofs in the Savannah zone and rectangular with gabled roofs in the forest. On the Savannah forest margin the forms were transitional; for example square with a conical roof in parts of the North-Eastern Ibo territory. Walls were of mud, solid in the Savannah and in the northern part of the forest zone, plastered on to a lathe-and-stick framework in the southern forests and those of Cross River. Floors were of mud which, as it dried, was flattened with wooden beaters and was then, like the inside of the walls rubbed smooth by hand. This was women’s work: all other work connected with house building was done by men. The roofs were of grass or leaves supported on rafters made from the branches of larger trees and the trunks of smaller ones. There were no windows, and the entrance varied from a small opening through which one had to crawl, to a wood-framed doorway closed by a door which was either pivoted or sliding or, today, hinged (Jones, 1984, p.95). Jones also writes about the panel carving as shown in this photograph. “ In addition to carving stools the Nri-Akwa Ibo carvers had perfected the art of decorating wooden panels (which formed the walls of a titled man’s meeting-house), doors and other flat wooden surfaces. The carving was executed with a mallet and a short heavy-headed knife to produce deeply incised geometric patterns. Although most Nri-Akwa carvers were able to decorate the objects they made in this way, the decoration of panels and doors, and more recently of chests by local carpenters was a specialist occupation and there were craftsmen who were engaged almost entirely in this work. As with the stools and bowls, the wood used for doors and panels was hardwood and mainly iroko. The panels were split from balks of iroko but for most this century were planks obtained from pit sawyers. The doors were split from even larger sections of iroko trunks and shaped with cutlasses and adzes to have a projection tang on one side at the top and bottom which could be fitted into a door frame”. (Jones, 1984, pp. 118-119)

Bibliographical Reference: 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 12/11/2007]