IDNO

N.72150.GIJ

Description

An Ogbum headdress placed on the head of a male. The headdress is attached to a horizontal, conical basket that is pointed at the front and at the back is a round wheel-shaped design. The Ogbum represents a female wooden figure sitting on a stool. The figure has a stylised and angular face and an elaborate coiffure that is arched at the top and pointed along the back of the head, the eyes are slit, and the mouth protrudes forward, pointed breasts, arms to either side, and sitting on a stool.

The man is holding the headdress upright with his arms; It appears that he is modelling the piece as it would be worn.

In the background are thatch and mud buildings and vegetation.

Place

W Africa; Nigeria; Eastern Nigeria; ?Bende division

Cultural Affliation

Igbo [historically Ibo]

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

Film Negative Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

This negative was found in pocket 16 of the negative album now numbered C20/.

A handwritten list describing the images found in print box 12 has been kept in the box. The image may be a mask from the trophy dance “Ugbom” of which Jones mentions: “Ogbom or Ugbom trophy dance borrowed from Ibibio where it doesn’t survive- No longer played.”

These prints which were found in a box with a slip mentioning that they came from box 12 may have originally been in the box catalogued as10 by G.I. The prints are all from Ugbom, the area from where the prints in box 10 are supposed to be from. It is possible that a mistake was made while sorting out negatives with prints. The person who matched them made two boxes of prints for box 12, and none for box 10. [Sudeshna Guha- 28/09/2001]

Context: Jones photographed and documented several Ugbom figures in Eastern Nigeria in the 1930s. He writes about their significant, “ Ugbom figures. In addition to their Ekpe (Ibo) carvings the Ibeku Olokoro, Oboro tribes and the adjoining Ngwa subtribes had a dance in honour of a trophy figure called Ugbom, and this dance extended northward as far as the Ozu-Item Ibo. The Ugbom was a carving of a female or, very occasionally a male figure which was paraded and danced around in what appears to have been a women’s fertility ritual. It was carried aloft on the head of male bearer who stood in the centre of a ring of dancing and singing women. The base of the carving was narrowed into a cylindrical projection which fitted into a tubular basketwork frame attached to the bearer’s head. Two rotating wheels festooned with coloured ribbons and streamers were carried fore and aft on a wooden axle, which passed through a hole in the base of the carving. The carvings varied from a single head, with or without supporting carvings, to a complete figure. The majority of these were seated female figures, some with elaborate crested coiffures, some carrying a platter with a head standing on it. Bird forms were frequently associated with the figure or head, either flanking it or carried on a bracket on the head. The modes in which these figures were carved varied, being naturalistic, stylised and angular.” (Jones, 1984, 200-203).

Context: The specific style of these figures was the treatment of the lower face. This exaggerated the subnasal prognathism. The lips and chin projected well beyond the nose and the upper part of the face. In support of this distortion the lips were over large in size and prominence, particularly in relation to the chin, which receded beneath them; the cheek-bones and the angle of the jaw disappeared, as did the line of the jaw, which was displaced by a line which ran from the corner of the lips to the outer edge of the brows. The eyes reduced to slits between straight, insignificant narrow lids hidden beneath the overhanging brows. This exaggeration of the forward projection of lips was also found in some Anang figures. (Jones, 1984, pp.203-204)

Context: Cole and Aniakor write in detail about the Ogbom (Ohuhu Ngwa). “The full-figure headdresses worn in Ogbom dances are among the most dynamic and finest Igbo works of art, comparable in quality to any sculpture from tropical Africa. The dance is known among Ibeku, Olokoro, Oboro, Ngwa and Ozu-Item peoples. but versions employig carved headdresses seem to habe been moribund in the early 1940s. Ogbom displays honored Ala (Earth) and called attentin her role in human and agricultural fertility and increase. In some areas it was a harvest celebration. During part of the performance women entered the arena to dance. and sing around the Ogbom carrier. Connections with female productivity and nurture are emphaized in the carvings themselves, which are overwhelmingly female, nearly always depicted with large full breasts. A curious unexplained, but clearly deliberate absence of arms on some figures enhances the prominence of their breasts and suggests explict cult concern with nuture. Other conventions are found, such as the frequent treatment of the face as a curving plane with sharp edges, the economical hadnling of body and lmbs and the disproportionate emphasis on the head.” (Cole and Aniakor, 1984, p.174)

Context: Murray observed and describes the performance and writes about the basket that the Ogbom is placed in. “Through a hole in the base of the carving a stick is fittted so as to protrude horozontally at front and back. On the front a conical basket about four feet long is fixed, and at the back an arrangement of cane and raffia shaped like a wheel” (Murray, 1941, p.129).

Bibliographical Reference: Jones, G.I., 1984. The Art of Eastern Nigeria (Cambridge University Press)
Cole, H. & C. Amiakor, 1984. Igbo Arts: Community and Cosmos (Museum of Cultural History, University of California)
Murray, K.C. 1941. “Obom” Nigerian Field Vol.10, pp.127-131.

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Alicia Fentiman 18/2/2008]