Carved Ogboni figures from Abeokuta, Nigeria: Adugbologe who shines like the new moon. There is no place where he is not known on this earth

African Arts, Winter, 2002 by Christopher Slogar

Hans Witte maintains that the carved Ogboni figural groups might best be understood in the context of Abeokuta's vibrant political scene (personal communication, June 4, 2001):

   ... from 1850 onward Abeokuta
   was a fast growing city that harbored
   several kings, several Ogboni
   lodges and quite a number of war
   chiefs, locked together in an ever-shifting
   power balance. There must
   have been an enormous demand
   for prestige symbols as we can see
   in the number of scepters, ceremonial
   pokers, walking sticks and
   staffs of office from Abeokuta that
   are left.... In such an environment
   the Ogboni lodge, [which brought
   together] the social elite, must have
   been an ideal center for political
   maneuvering and intrigue [and
   was therefore] much more than a
   place for religious reflection.

These are important points, for in 1904 the British government appointed a central authority in the Alake of Ake to rule over the diverse groups in Abeokuta--a move that significantly curtailed the traditional powers of Ogboni to select, advise, and, when necessary, depose kings (Wolff 1985:100, citing Ajisafe 1964:215). Until then, the society's influence on the politics of Abeokuta was great, as indicated by Burton: "The power of the Ogboni is unlimited ..." (1863:248). Twenty-five years later, the Reverend Baudin, a Catholic missionary who visited Western Yorubaland, would concur. "Among the Egbas," he noted, "the Ogboni are more powerful than the king" (Baudin 1885:63).

But such power would not last. The years between 1889 and 1945 were a critical period, characterized by the historian A. I. Asiwaju as a time when, due to colonialism, "... cults of political significance, such as Ogboni and Oro, were deprived of their political functions" (Asiwaju 1976:212).

Sydow's Visit

In 1943, very near the end of the period examined by Asiwaju, Eckart von Sydow's account of his 1939 visit to Abeokuta was published posthumously. (21) It includes some very interesting photographic illustrations. In one of them (Fig. 14), we see four Ogboni members in their distinctive attire, as depicted in the carvings. (22) Another (Fig. 15) is a portrait of a carver identified as "Adugbologe," who is most likely Oniyide, because the founder had long since died by the time Sydow made it to Abeokuta. A third image captures the interior courtyard of an Ogboni lodge--apparently that of the Adugbologe compound--with about a dozen members in view (Fig. 16). Behind them, just under the corrugated tin roof, stand two massive wooden sculptures. The one on the right, blurry and partially obscured, is an image of a mother and child. This motif is widely encountered throughout Yoruba art and is also seen in the Ogboni brass castings, in which case it recalls the nurturing role of Earth as mother to all, the source of fertility. (23) On the left side of this photograph is a clearer image of, a two-tiered figural group whose upper tier prominently displays a titled Ogboni member wearing the familiar wide-brimmed hat, striped wrapper, and sash. He holds a figural staff in his right hand and a small rectangular plaque in his left that presumably carries an inscription but is indistinct as published. Two attendants stand at the ready beside him, while another lies prostrate at his feet. The lower tier of the work is partially obscured in the reproduced photograph, but Sydow mentions that it includes four figures, two of which display the Ogboni hand gesture of left fist over right. (24) Sydow also states that one "Chief Adilah" told him that the main figure was "das Bild unseres letzten Oluwo," or "the image of our last Oluwo" (Sydow 1943:30). (25) Sydow goes on to mention a second Oluwo figure ("garishly painted") as well as a box crowned by an Oluwo with attendants and further decorated with interlace patterns and representations of edan Ogboni, which recalls the carved wooden boxes noted above. The larger figural group Sydow illustrated is remarkably similar to the polychrome example now in the National Museum, Lagos (Fig. 7). Its lower tier prominently displays a row of four kneeling figures; the outer two occupy movable panels attached with hinges. A small female figure, which looks to be a painted ibeji image, is positioned at the rear, facing outward.