IDNO

P.72191.GIJ

Description

Ogbukere Play with the masquerade character called Aminkoro. The mask represents a crocodile-like fish and consists of an enormous head-dress with a pointed, decorated front piece and with two large dorsal fins in the centre and smaller ones to the side. Around the mask are multicoloured tassels or fringe. The masquerader is covered in multiple pieces of cloth around the waist and is wearing seed anklets. Attendants are behind the masquerader and some are holding metal staffs and others are holding fans and umbrellas. There is a thatched building in the background.

Place

W Africa; Nigeria

Cultural Affliation

Igbo [historically Ibo]; Ekpeya

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.72183.GIJ to P.74286.GIJ were kept in box 15, now numbered C296/.

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 Riverine Igbo (Ekapafia, Abusa, Ekpeya)
2. Ekpafia Igbo
3. Aminikoro mask Ogbukele festival, Ekpafia Igbo (1st image).

Context: Jones describes the Ogbukere masquerade he saw performed in Ihuba in 1936. He writes, “Their Ogbukere play is performed in the dry season. The band consisted of slit drums and membrane drums, including amongst the latter the great Ogbukere drum, about four feet high and standing on three legs, one of which had been sculptured into the form of a male human figure. They sat in the shade of the lodge, and the head of the society, wearing a lifeguard’s helmet, sat at a small table beside them with together with visiting notables. The rest of the society, except for those impersonating the figures and their attendants, formed a chorus. Stripped to the waist and wearing, their best cloths, they made a large circle and danced, sometimes moving round, more often staying in the same place. The newer and Christian masks appeared first, coming out of the lodge on e at a time with its attendant. First came, Obiri Jack, an elaborately caparisoned figure with palm leaf streamers around its neck, and with a model of a woolly dog made of feathers and ram’s mane standing on a platform on its head. It wandered about the ring, danced a bit to the band, and eventually retired, to be followed by Aminkoro, a figure similarly dressed but carrying an enormous head-dress representing a conventionalised crocodile-fish. The under part of the head-dress was hung with short woollen tassels of different colours. Two even more conventionalised fishes followed Aminkoro. Their names, Iwolo and Egidi, were painted on their dorsal fins. They paced around, danced to the band for a while, and retired into the lodge again. All these were Christian masks and borrowed, as the illustration from an Abua Ogbukere play will show, directly from the Abuan plays. In the Abuan plays these “masks” of crocodile-like fishes and of even more conventionalised hippopotami are “juju” masks and the only ones in the play. Some Abuan plays have now followed Ihuba’s example and introduced non-juju masks from outside, bought mainly by the Ibibio. The Ihuaba “juju” masks were quite different and very similar to the “Ekpe” play masks of Ndokki and other southern Ibo clans. There were two of them, each consisting of a carved human head worn on the top of the player’s head and decorated with eagle’s feathers. The first to appear was called Osu; his dress was the same as that of the other figures and he carried a leopard-skin fan in one hand and a live cock in the other, the cock being “sacrificed” to the juju. Osu danced around inside the ring and before the band and retired. Then there was a pause during which the chorus danced among themselves and occasional solo dancers came out from their ranks and danced alone in the ring. A band of woman dancers also came and joined the chorus. After a while all the figures reappeared, followed by the second juju, Ekpekede, a figure similar to Osu and also carrying a fan and a cock, this time a white one. He had two attendants, a man carrying a banner of white cloth, and a pries with a medicine. Ekpekede was the main juju of the play, and had to be brought out every year or bad luck would befall the village. He brought good things to the people, good harvests, and gave children to the women. His arrival was loudly cheered by the women dancers, and when he reached their part of the ring they broke out of the rings and danced around him. He and his attendants made a tour round the village followed by women and a part of the chorus, and by all the other figures. Eventually he returned, followed at intervals by the other figures. As the figures re-entered the ring and walked down it to the lodge, admirers in the crowd threw money into the ring which was collected by the figures’ attendants (Jones, 1939, pp. 81-82).

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) masquerades, it represents an elephant spirit (hence the ears and tusks); in the Ogbukele masquerades of the Ekpeya Ibo of there Sombreiro River, it represents a water sprit. The head is absent from the masquerades of the Kalabari and Central Ijo but reappears in the more rounded mode in the Igbilie masquerades 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)

Bibliographical Reference:
Jones, G.I. 1939. Ogbukere Ihuaba. Nigerian Field, Vol.VIII, No.2, pp.81-88)
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.

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Alicia Fentiman 19/2/2008]