Face mask representing an old man 'agadi' worn during Okorosia plays. [ZM 09/04/2013]

Collection type: Object
Description: Face mask representing an old man 'agadi' worn during Okorosia plays. [ZM 09/04/2013]
Long description: Face mask worn during Okorosia plays. Mask of a human face, with a human figure on the top. The face has a protruding mouth, with lines carved on the cheeks (perhaps to indicate scarification?), and fibres on the chin, which could indicate that a beard had once been present. The eyes have been cut out, and the nostrils are also open. There are small holes round the edge, which could have been for the attachment of hair. [CW 23 4 98]
Geographical reference: Nigeria
Africa > Western Africa > Nigeria; Southern Nigeria Imo State Eziama and Orlo village groups
Cultural groups: Igbo Eziama; Orlu
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, Material Animal Hair, Process Carved, Process Painted
Dimensions: Height: max 298 mm, Width: max 143 mm, Depth: max 98 mm
Object numbers: Accession number: 1938.15.85
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]
Associated publications: Listed as number 92 on page 12 of Art from the Guinea Coast (Pitt Rivers Museum, Illustrated Catalogue No. 1), Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum (1965): 'NIGERIA Eastern Region ... 92. Agadi mask worn during Okorosia plays, Isu subtribe. Ibo (1938.15.85.) (30 cm.)'. (For details of exhibition, see under 'Display History'.) [JC 12 9 2013] Illustrated in black and white (centre; with 1938.15.86 (left) and 1938.13.87 (right) as Figure 45 on page 138 of The Art of Eastern Nigeria, by G. I. Jones (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). The caption (same page) reads: '45 Ibo masks'. The figure is also listed on page vii of the table of 'Illustrations': '45 Ibo masks: the one in the centre [1938.13.85] is not unlike Nupe Elo masks, the one on the right [1938.15.87] tries to imitate the Yoruba style (P.R.M.). Northern Ibo.' The figure is used to illustrate the author's discussion on pages 137ff of 'The Lower Niger major style'. He writes: 'Some of the masks carved in a more stylised mode were really crude attempts at representing human features, or unfinished pieces in which the salient features had been blocked out and the mask had then been abandoned or given to boys to use in their masquerades. Others were remarkably successful reductions of human features to abstract geometric forms of circles, cones, squares, rectangles and rhomboids.' NB The image, which has been reversed, appears to be one taken by G. I. Jones in the field. [JC 21 5 2009]

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