The African Maternity Figures

Afo peoples, Nigeria, 19th century
(wood)

Since the 1940s, the excavations in the inland delta region of the Niger River near Djenne in Mali have yielded numerous sculptured terra-cotta, cast copper-alloy, and gold figures representing humans and animals. These sculptures originated in advanced, flourishing cultures that may have existed as early as the eighth century A.D. or as late as the seventeenth century.

Figures representing a mother and child seem to occur less frequently than other subjects, such as chiefs or warriors on horseback, reclining or kneeling females, or animals, especially snakes. The meaning of these ancient maternity figures is unknown. Perhaps such figures served as symbols of the primordial mother or another mythical figure in the history of a clan in which the sculpture originated. Regrettably, the stratigraphic context in which most of these objects have been discovered and other pertinent data are unknown. Even so, it is possible to date the objects.

The proliferation of decorative details on the figure includes serpents, which are depicted as zigzags. Snakes commonly occur in the visual arts as well as in the oral traditions of numerous peoples of the inland delta region. Snakes play an important role in the cosmology and mythical origins of the clan. For example, snakes are king makers, designating the successful candidate by touching him with the nose. Snakes are often considered to be symbols of immortality throughout sub-Saharan Africa because they "renew" themselves by shedding their skin.

Asante group, Akan peoples, Ghana
19th-20th century (wood)

Fertility and children are the most frequent themes in the wooden sculptures of the Asante. Thus the most numerous works are akua'ba fertility figures and mother-and-child figures. In traditional Asante society, in which inheritance was through the maternal line, a woman's essential role was to bear children, preferably girls to continue the matrilineage. Sculptured mother-and-child figures show the mother nursing or holding her breast, as exemplified by this figure. Such gestures express Asante ideas about nurturing, the family, and the continuity of a matrilineage through a daughter or of a state through a son.

This figure does not depict an ordinary mother. Rather, as indicated by her elevated sandaled feet, the figure represents a queen mother as she would sit in state on formal occasions. Such royal maternity figures were kept with the venerated seats of ancestral chiefs in special rooms, or they were housed in the shrines of powerful deities that were particularly concerned with the well-being of a royal person, perhaps a queen mother.

According to Yoruba belief, children are blessings from the gods. Before the advent of modern medicine, women petitioned certain deities for fertility and the birth of a healthy infant. The shrines to these deities - Erinle, Yemoja, Shango, Ogun, and others - were adorned with sculptured figures representing a mother and child, as exemplified by this figure. The absence of cult attributes makes specific identification of this figure impossible. The kneeling position is a gesture of respect, devotion, and submission. Thus the figure represented in the carving is probably a petitioner rather than a deity. The sculpture may have been a votive offering from a woman who had successfully petitioned for a child, a priest or priestess of a cult, or even the entire body of
worshipers.

Afo maternity figures are thought to represent an ancestral mother and are owned by individual villages.These figures are brought out of their shrines once a year for the Aya ceremony. At this time, men pray for increased fertility in their wives and make gifts of food and money to the ancestor.

Extant maternity figures from the Afo are usually monoxylous, that is, carved from one piece, and are usually shown with only one child. It was customary in the grasslands Batufam Kingdom to have portrait statues carved of the new fon (king) and the wife who bore his first child. According to royal custom, the heir to the throne could not rule until he proved his fertility. The sculptures were executed within two years of the beginning of the reign and were used in the rites of installation of the successor.

Female figure with child
Kongo people, Congo
(wood)

The Kongo Kingdom flourished from c. 1300 to the mid-seventeenth century. The Kongo were the first people of Central Africa to make contact with the Portuguese navigators, who first arrived in 1482 and brought with them Catholic missionaries, merchants, and artisans. The Kongo aristocracy embraced Christianity and Western culture, and trade with Portugal resulted in increased wealth and military power. From the capital at Sao Salvador in present-day Angola, Kongo rule extended into portions of Zaire, Congo, Cabinda, and numerous small coastal and inland chiefdoms in Angola. Around the mid-seventeenth century, the once-powerful kingdom began to founder and shrink. Finally, it collapsed and became decentralized.

Among the symbols of rank belonging to Kongo kings and chiefs were scepters (mvuala) made of hardwood and usually topped by an ancestor figure carved of precious ivory. Very often the ancestor so represented was a female (Cornet 1971, 48). Because power was transmitted through the female line, rulers were selected from among the matrilineage. The king's mother was titled the "queen mother," and although she did not share rule with her son, she held a position of respect and privilege.

Article and images, courtesy of Rand African Art 

A Kongo-Yombe Maternity Figure has recently been sold for US$ 3,525,000 by Sotheby's... 
What's In Your Attic?

Head of a Queen Mother (Iyoba)

Head of a Queen Mother (Iyoba)
1750–1800 - Nigeria, Court of Benin
Courtesy: The MET Museum of Art

In the Benin kingdom, the iyoba, or mother of the oba (king), occupies an important and historically significant place within Benin's political hierarchy. The title was first conferred upon Idia, the mother of king Esigie, who used her political skill and supernatural abilities to save her son's kingdom from dissolution in the late fifteenth century. Ever since that time, queen mothers have been considered powerful protectors of their sons and, by extension, the kingdom itself. Because of the enormous esteem in which they are held, iyobas enjoy privileges second only to the oba himself, such as a separate palace, a retinue of female attendants, and the right to commission cast brass sculptures for religious or personal use.

Ancestral altars dedicated to past iyobas, like those of past kings, are furnished with cast brass commemorative heads. The heads of queen mothers are distinguished from those of kings by the forward-pointing peaks of their coral-beaded crowns. Commemorative heads of iyobas hold to the same stylistic chronology as those of obas. Earlier heads were cast with thinner walls and display tight beaded collars that fit snugly beneath the chin. Later versions have thicker walls, exhibit enlarged cylindrical collars that cover the face up to the lower lip, and are designed with a circular opening behind the peak of the crown to hold a carved ivory tusk. This head of an iyoba dates from the eighteenth century. While its high collar and pierced crown place it with later examples, the sensitive, naturalistic modeling of the face is reminiscent of the earliest commemorative heads.

Article: Courtesy of: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Image: Courtesy of: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Date: 1750–1800
Geography: Nigeria, Court of Benin
Culture: Edo peoples
Medium: Brass
Dimensions: H. 16 3/4 x Diam. 11 3/4 in. (42.5 x 29.9 cm)
Classification: Metal-Sculpture
Credit Line: Bequest of Alice K. Bache, 1977
Accession Number: 1977.187.36

Benin bronze heads are easily sold for $12,000 upwards on eBay... What's In Your Attic?

The Awèlé Board Game (with rules)

Awale (known as: oware, awèlé or wari) is a very ancient board game that comes from Africa. 

An Awèlé Board Game

It belongs to the big group of mancala games. In all these games the player must transfer pieces from one bin to another of the board during each turn. It is a fast and a dynamic game. The luck is not there implied. Only the practice allows to arrive at a domain high level. The rules of Oware game are simple and the game is really easy-to-learn. The origin of the game gets lost in the night of the times.

Oware or awalé with many names as for example: ayo, awale, awalete, awele, oware, wari, woli,... is played in western african countries as Senegal, Gambia, Cape Verde, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Mali, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon. Also in the West Indies and in the Americas as for example: Surinam, Guyana, Grenada, Barbados, Sta. Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, Antigua and St Kitts, Dominican Rep., Brazil, etc. as a result of the slave trade that came from this part of Africa. 

The Rules

The aim of the game:

To capture more seeds than your opponent. At the end of the game, the player who has captured the most seeds wins.

Rules of the game:

The board is divided into two areas, hollowed with 6 holes each. At the beginning, 48 seeds are distributed among the twelve holes (4 seeds in each hole). Therefore, the players need for play a 2x6 or 2x6+2 board.

The top row belong to opponent player. You own the bottom row.

The game turn:

Every player plays alternately. The first one to play is chosen at random.
The player takes all the seeds in a hole of his/her area and distributes them counter-clockwise, one in each hole.

Capture:

If the last seed to be distributed falls into one of the opponent's holes, containing already 1 or 2 seeds, the player captures the 2 or 3 seeds.
The hole is left empty. The captured seeds are taken off the board or collected into the player's loft (if the players play with a 2x6+2 board).
Therefore, the hole can be captured only if, after distributing the seeds, it contains two or three seeds.

Multiple capture:

If a player captures 2 or 3 seeds, and the preceding hole also contains two or three seeds, they are captured too, and so on.
Capturing is only allowed in the opponent's area.

Loop:

If the number of seeds taken in the starting hole is greater than 11, it constitutes a loop: the starting hole is left out every time in the distribution loop, and therefore, always left empty.

Feed the opponent:

A player is not allowed to "starve" his/her opponent: a player can't play a hole that leads to capturing all the seeds in his opponent's area. A player can be left with no seeds at all only if is impossible to feed him/her.

End of the game:

The game ends if a player has n seeds anymore in his/her area, and therefore can't play.
In this case, the other player captures all the remaining seeds.
Or the game ends if the game is "looping" (after some turns, the same board configuration is obtained again).

More information on the game is given by http://www.awale.info/?lang=en

Contributions with thanks from:

African-Art

http://webfacil.tinet.org/jtc

Benin Oba Commemorative Heads

Head of an Oba
16th century (ca. 1550)
Brass; H. 9 1/4 in. (23.5 cm)

The leaders of the kingdom of Benin in present-day Nigeria trace their origins to a ruling dynasty that began in the fourteenth century. 

The title of "oba," or king, is passed on to the firstborn son of each successive king of Benin at the time of his death. The first obligation of each new king during this transition of rule is to commemorate his father with a portrait cast in bronze and placed on an altar at the palace. 

The altar constitutes an important site of palace ritual and is understood to be a means of incorporating the ongoing influence of past kings in the affairs of their descendants.

Though associated with individuals, this highly stylized genre of commemorative portraiture emphasized the trappings and regalia of kingship rather than specific facial features. In the Edo world view, the head is considered the locus of a man's knowledge, authority, success, and family leadership. 

The burden of providing for his family and seeing them through times of trouble is often described as being "on his head." The oba is often called by his praise name "Great Head," accentuating the head of the living leader as the locus of responsibility over and for the Benin kingdom.

The idealized naturalism of this work reflects conventions of depicting the king at the prime of his life. The straightforward gazing eyes, which would have included iron inlays, possess the ability to see into the other world, communicating the divine power of the oba to survey his kingdom. 

The beaded headdress and collar are depictions of the king's coral regalia. Coral is of particular importance to the Edo because of its associations with the ancestral realms of the sea and to the immense wealth of the oba gained through ocean-going trade with Europe.

The relatively minimal amount of brass used to make this light cast and the proportionately small amount of regalia depicted indicate that the head was created during the earlier half of the sixteenth century. 

Art historians have suggested that over the centuries, as greater quantities of brass became available, casters had less incentive to be economical with the material, and the trappings of office worn by the kings of Benin became more ostentatious.

Document borrowed from the Rand African Art.com website

Nigerian Bronze Bells

South Western Nigeria is the home of the YORUBA and BINI traditions, and was originally thought to be the sole source of the wealth of bronze castings, and so it was with great interest that a new source of material was found in an archaeological site beyond the eastern shores of the Niger. It is here in the IGBO interior that the earliest corpus of Nigerian Bronzes has been unearthed.

In the course of controlled excavation, approximately 100 bronzes were brought to light at IGBO-UKWU, a small settlement in northern IGBO country in southern eastern Nigeria. Among the collection of vessels and other artefacts were a large number of fine thinly cast bells, decorated with tiny coiled spirals, miniature human heads, leopards, serpents, birds and floral patterns.

Although the bell is common in other traditions throughout Nigeria, it is so prevalent in southern Nigerian collections that it can be said to typify the small bronzes as a whole. Some bear minimal decorations, others are quite elaborate in design. The bells are usually about 15 cms in height and are often, but not always, provided with a clapper. They tend to fall into three general groupings.

The first category are the small waisted type, conical with a flared lower rim, thin cast and approximately 15cms high. The category is made up of numerous bells with inverted tulip shape, also approximately 15cms high. They too have a loop and are thin cast. Holes for the clapper are often punched on top at the side of the handle after casting, but others have no hole at all. Ethnographic documentation reveals that a tulip shaped bell was collected as early as 1904.

Another almost identical bell collected in 1958 was found to be machine manufactured and it originated in a southern IGBO community within the arc of distribution of hand cast bells. Both versions are still encountered in situ in shrines and other ritual contents in part of southern Nigeria today.

The third category covers the many larger tubular bells of elliptical circumference with wide sloping shoulders. These are approximately 20—23 cms high and have slightly flared mouths and clappers are attached. This type is sometimes known as an IGALA bell and can date back some 500 years. Such bells have been found far up in the BENUE RIVER and as far east as CAMEROON. The most delicately executed examples however, do tend to cluster in the IGBO interior.

As in many other parts of the world, the bells were used as a portable noisemaker proclaiming a sacred presence, on the one hand, and neutralizing hostile or harmful forces on the other.

The bells established power fields, enveloping either incorporeal or tangible principles, the latter frequently embodied in a priest or ruler. Bronze was considered to be endowed with unique powers, reinforcing the prerogative of important members of the community.