Skip to content
Pitt Rivers Museum
AboutHire the MuseumNewsletterUniversity of Oxford

1938.15.9

Face mask from a Okorosia play. [ZM 08/04/2013]

1938.15.9

Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

Terms and Conditions

If you wish to order a high-resolution image and/or licence its use for print or web publication, exhibition, film, promotional product or any other use, whether in the academic or commercial sector of any print run, then please visit photographic services.

Collection type
Object
Description
Face mask from a Okorosia play. [ZM 08/04/2013]
Long description
Face mask from a Okorosia play. Finely carved and painted wooden mask of a human face. The face has small semicircular eye slits, and a small mouth with carved teeth. The inside of the mouth and the ears are painted pink. The face is white, but the mask has a brown border, features and a brown ridge down the nose. 3 locks of hair depending over forehead. [CW 22 4 98]
Geographical reference
Nigeria
Africa > Western Africa > Nigeria
Southern Nigeria
Cultural groups
Igbo
Person
Field collector Gwilym Iwan Jones
PRM source Gwilym Iwan Jones
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1937
Date collected
1937
Acquisition information
Donated: 1938
Materials and processes
Material Wood Plant, Material Pigment, Process Carved, Process Painted
Dimensions
Depth: max 123 mm, Width: max 160 mm, Height: max 297 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1938.15.9
Research and responses

For the donor's description of the Okorosia play in the 1930s when this mask entered the Museum collections see Jones, G.I., 'Okorosia' (by 'Daji'), Nigerian Field Volume 3 No. 4, pp 175-177 (October 1934) [ZM 02/05/2013]

For a description of the Okorosia masquerade (also known as Okoroshi, Okorosh or Okorosi) during the 1980s see pp 186-204 in Igbo Arts: Community and Cosmos, by Herbert M. Cole and Chike C. Aniakor (Los Angeles: University of California Museum of Cultural History, 1984). [ZM 10/07/2013]

In the G.I. Jones photographic archive at Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA), Cambridge, is a black and white negative (identification number N.73993.GIJ) of this or an identical mask, which is described on the MAA photographic catalogue as follows: 'A documentation photograph of a 'beautiful' face mask used in the Okorosie or Okoroshi masquerade. The mask is a wooden, white female face that is oval in shape with a high forehead, slit eyes, nose, ears and open mouth with teeth. The black coiffure consists of three braided plaits on the front of the face. Black paint is used to accentuate the features and there is a line from the forehead to the mouth, and two curved black marks on the cheeks.' [ZM 26/11/2013]

Search terms: Mask

Further items to explore