Spatial continuities: masks and cultural interactions between the Delta and Southeastern Nigeria

African Arts, Spring, 2002 by Eli Bentor

The artistic interactions between the various peoples of the Niger Delta and their Igbo neighbors who dominate Southeastern Nigeria to the north and east are not difficult to demonstrate. Art objects, including textiles, bronze shrine sculpture, and masks, have been traded between these regions for generations. More than objects alone, numerous masking and figurative traditions have crossed ethnic and regional boundaries and are practiced in both areas. The existence of shared artistic traditions counters a persistent notion in the study of African art--that of the continent as a series of discrete ethnic units, each in its hermetically sealed artistic world. Although these assertions have long been recognized as problematic (Frank 1987), their broad implications have not been fully examined. A discussion of the dynamic exchanges between the southern Igbo and Niger Delta peoples is essential for a fuller understanding of art in this part of Nigeria. It also offers an opportunity to examine the nature of interregional artistic interactions against a historical background.

The Niger Delta and Southeastern Nigeria are ecologically and culturally diverse, and both places display distinctive characteristics that account for the nature of the interactions between them. The settlements of the Delta have exploited fishing and other aquatic resources typical of a region dominated by waterways. Peoples living in the freshwater areas often combine fishing with farming. Surrounded by water, Delta communities rely on boats and canoes for transportation. Dependence on such resources has resulted in the emergence of complex beliefs in which water spirits play an important role. The Delta location facilitated early contact with other coastal communities and, since the fifteenth century, with foreign traders and, subsequently, colonial powers.

North of this coastal area occupied by Delta, Ogoni, and Ibibio peoples is the hinterland dominated by the Igbo. Largely farming land where yam, cassava, and palm trees are grown, it is bounded by the Cross River to the east and extends past the Niger River to the west. From south to north, the region gradually shifts from the lush palm-belt to parched savanna. Despite the extensive use of waterways such as the Niger, Cross, and the lower part of the Imo and the Enyong, travel often required traversing long distances on foot. Until the early twentieth century, coastal and Delta communities formed an effective barrier against direct contact between the hinterland and seaward commerce. Examining the role of these communities as intermediaries in the export trade is important to understanding their relationships with their Igbo neighbors (Floyd 1969:19-54).

Neither region was ever politically or culturally unified, and both exhibit diverse modes of social, political, and religious organization. Scholars often use the term clan to describe the largest unit of social cohesion in the Delta, while in Igboland it is the village group, consisting of from three to thirty villages. Beyond village groups there are often clans that trace their origin to a putative ancestor, but these are not effective or cohesive social units. This fragmented sociopolitical situation brought about a corresponding degree of artistic diversity: masks or figures in one village group often look substantially different from those of a neighboring group. The picture is further complicated by the independent movement of object types, names used to describe them, and the institutions that use them (Nicklin & Salmons 1982).

The diversity of artistic styles and the complexity of their distribution have been a source of frustration for those attempting to study the visual arts of these two regions. As early as 1935 Carl Kjersmeier observed, "The strong productive reciprocity among the different tribes of southeastern Nigeria ... [is] so much so that it is impossible to discern from an artistic point of view who is a creator and who is an imitator" (1935, vol. 2:28; my translation). In 1969 William Bascom commented that Igbo art is "a striking example for the existence of multiple sub-tribal styles ... that it is almost meaningless to speak of an Ibo [Igbo] style in wood carving, and almost impossible to abstract any stylistic features common even to a single form, such as a mask" (1969:103). This variety perplexed William Fagg, who maintained that "[a]rt provides one of the principal criteria for the identification and delimitation of tribes" (1965:11). Igbo artists, according to Fagg, "seem to have found little need for integrative influences in art above the level of the village and the district" (Elisofon & Fagg 1983:13).

Fagg's approach to the study of African art is based on two factors. The first is a bias toward a centralized mode of political organization over the apparent chaos of decentralized societies--a typical colonialist position that characterized the British attitude toward Southeastern Nigeria (Afigbo 1972; 1975). In this regard the decentralized Igbo were the polar opposite of the British Crown. The other reason is that, as pioneers in the study of African art, Fagg and his contemporaries were striving to establish a comprehensible body of knowledge marked by tidy classifications of cultures and artifacts. This approach was similar to the focus on the distribution of cultural traits that was then current in British and American anthropology, and is still held by some collectors and museum curators looking for easy labels to attach to their objects. Fagg's notion that each African "tribe" is its own stylistic world has become known as the "One Tribe, One Style" approach (Kasfir 1984).