Where Gods and Mortals Meet: continuity and renewal in Urhobo art

African Arts, Winter, 2003 by Perkins Foss

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Individuals may have affinities to more than one edjo. Usually upon advice of divination, a person may be told that he or she is being troubled by a particular edjo in the town and that providing the spirit with regular offerings will alleviate this suffering. At the same time, however, one particular edjo in the community is usually recognized as the spirit of the town (edjo r'ovwodo). (8) It is here that the artistic expression of the edjo receives its fullest manifestation, in the form of assemblages of up to a dozen carved statues housed in a single shrine building. (9)

I saw a particularly well-maintained edjo group in May 1969 in Ovu Inland (Fig. 14). This collection of twelve wood statues commemorated the spirit of Ovu, called Ovughere. The figures were painted with a whitewash of chalk. Red and black trim outlined the highlights of their weapons and accoutrements. Freshly installed behind the figures was a broad white cloth, above which were the skulls of decades of animal sacrifice. A thick curtain of dried palm raffia obscured the facade of the shrine; this barrier is removed to allow public viewing only at certain moments on festival days.

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An elaborate hierarchy of titled priests and priestesses, the spiritual leaders of the cult, is associated with Ovughere. The community of Ovu Inland staged large annual festivals in honor of the spirit; on these occasions numerous elaborate dances were performed, often complete with masquerade performances, lavish meals, and extensive displays of wealth and finery. The event culminated in a mock battle, staged between two extended families of Ovu (Fig. 15). In the open space in front of Ovughere's shrine, the two sides struggled for possession of a clay vessel holding medicinal herbs (orhan). This vessel was said to contain the magical ingredients that gave martial prowess to the spirit in ancient days.

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Bruce Onobrakpeya has turned to Urhobo shrine art for inspiration in his own work. Agbogidi Shrine (1972), a plastograph print, (10) developed out of visits that the artist made to the northern Urhobo communities of Ogharefe and Idjerhe (Fig. 16). In the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, Onobrakpeya has written a vivid description of this work:

   Urhobo shrines and those of her neighbours (Edo, Ijo, Isoko and
   Igbo) are virtual art galleries because each has an assemblage of
   art works ranging from sculptures (metal, wood and clay), pottery,
   textiles, found objects and paintings. The priests who are sometimes
   the artists themselves aesthetically arrange these in a room or in
   an enclosure in the forest. One Edjobeguo whom I encountered in the
   nearby Ogharefe suburbs in the 1970s was both the priest and the
   carver of the figures in his Urhapele shrine.

   Shrines, particularly those situated in special rooms of forest
   enclosures, nearly always have frontal composition which is roughly
   divided into three sections that dovetail into one another. The
   middle sections have the dominant forms which may be separated with
   vertical shafts. There is the foreground with smaller objects that
   are links between the main figures. In the third section are the
   background walls, usually painted, on which other objects are hung.

   In "Agbogidi," the dominant forms in the middle section are two mud
   sculpture figures, a carved wood staff with some figures on top, two
   pots, one with snail shells and a vertical wooden rattle with
   cowries tied onto the middle section. There are vertical staffs
   which are a kind of support to these main objects. The first of the
   two main figures has the paraphernalia of a chief or a priest. It is
   bedecked with ritual objects like ukokogho (gourd containing
   charms), a colonial bowler hat, bangles (egblogho obo) and an apron
   (buluku) on which are tied cowries (igho) and metal rattles
   (ugherighe). The second figure is a soldier brandishing a spear
   (oshue) and a cutlass (opia). It has a cap and wears an elephant
   tusk (ukoro) at each ankle. At the foreground of the composition are
   the carvings of three obor (hand) statues worshipped for good
   fortune. One of them sits on an enamel plate. Other objects are
   rattles (aghwala), kaolin chalk (oorhe), cowries (igho), palm
   kernels (ibi) and a hoe (eghwlo) and smaller objects which serve as
   textures that weld the larger forms together. Conspicuous on the
   background assemblage are a mirror with decorated frame and chicken
   legs (igbawo echo). There is a frieze of objects including figurines
   and masks at the top of the painted background.