the iconology of the yoruba "edan ogboni"

International African Institute

The Iconology of the Yoruba "Edan Ogboni"Author(s): Denis WilliamsSource: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Apr., 1964), pp.139-166Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1157904 .Accessed: 16/06/2014 04:19

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THE ICONOLOGY OF THE YORUBA EDAN OGBONI'

DENIS WILLIAMS

INTRODUCTION

THE anthropomorphic brass staff of the Yoruba Ogboni Society-the edan Ogboni- holds a position of isolation and aesthetic distinction within the Yoruba plastic.

Whereas traditional wood-carving is humanistic in its identification with life, is spontaneous, descriptive, and experimental in idiom, Ogboni art is iconic-archetypal, hieratic, and conservative, a manifestation of eternal principle. Where the formal theme of Yoruba carving is abstract, dynamic, architectonic, Ogboni art is absolute, static, and linear. Frequently the edan Ogboni is little more than high relief- a non-sculptural projection of drawing in wax. Though art associated with Orisha is often religious it is not generally held to contain a spirit, and is never worshipped as a spirit. Orisha art is most typically symbolic of the spirit, where Ogboni art, in contrast, is sacred and worshipped as the actual vessel of the spirit. This difference in function, besides affecting the resulting form, determines the attitude of the artist to the object rendered. Yoruba wood-carving is therefore free to be naturalistic and spontaneous, where Ogboni art is rigidly traditional and conservative. The contrast between the two idioms can be summarized:

ORISHA OGBONI

CONTENT Descriptive Archetypal Humanistic Hieratic

FORM Abstract Iconic Architectonic Linear

The term ' abstract' is used as in general art criticism, i.e. to describe forms abstracted or generalized from natural motifs in the interests of thematic construction, and as opposed to realism. In this process the thematic method in which a module abstracted from nature is incorporated into a larger unity, on the principle of the relationship of the part to the whole, may be called architectonic-an ordering of masses in the manner of architecture. Opposed to these categories, typical form in Ogboni art refers to a spirit or principle or essence in nature, and to nothing visual. The image is, in this sense, primary; it is, moreover, the articulate vessel of the spirit. All Ogboni imagery is in this way orientated with spirit rather than with matter. The term which suggests itself as most accurately descriptive of this orientation is ' iconic '. The process by means of which the image comes to be realized may be called 'linear', i.e. in the manner of drawing, as opposed to architectonic, in the manner of architecture. Where Orisha carving is therefore typically visual, Ogboni art is typically conceptual; the former relates to the actual and the concrete while the latter relates to the world of spirit and of being.

The author wishes to acknowledge with thanks a subsidy from the University of Ife towards additional printing costs for this article.


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THE ICONOLOGY OF THE YORUBA EDAN OGBONI

This distinction in form and content could be held to reflect distinct impulses behind the two idioms. The following study attempts to examine the nature of impulse in Ogboni art, and to contribute to the morphology of the idiom in stylistic terms.

I. ICONOGRAPHY

The concept of the ownership of the land central to Ogboni belief may have spread from some aboriginal locality by means of colonization or otherwise,' but it is now mobile and not vested in a particular people, and is found throughout Yorubaland as the established form of earth-worship. Whether this aboriginal earth-cult in its earliest beginnings can be correlated with an art-idiom which survived the introduction of the typical art of Orisha worship, and developed in a parallel though distinct line from Orisha art, will perhaps never be established. Idiom in Ogboni art refers to very ancient beginnings. Except for certain metal forms in Orisha art which it demonstrably influenced, Ogboni art in its iconic orientation is not easy to reconcile with the Yoruba plastic as exemplified in traditional wood-carving, either religious or secular. The differences in impulse would appear to be principally metaphysical, but on the basis of pure iconography we must confine our inquiry to stylistic data, in order to isolate and explain the characteristics of the edan Ogboni. We must bear in mind, by way of a foil to Ogboni idiom, the typically naturalistic, entirely plastic nature of the traditional Yoruba wood-carving which defines it.

Ogboni art cannot be appraised without a glance, however cursory, at some religious aspects of the cult-organization.2 The society is headed by the Oluwo-the chief priest-whose office, like that of the Apena-the speaker-is hereditary, being vested in the lineage of the man who first introduced the cult in a given area. In both offices succession is by right to the eldest son of the senior wife. This person has, however, the power to nominate in his stead his next younger brother, or even the son of another of his father's wives, who, at the time of succession, might be considered a more suitable candidate. Election of the new Oluwo, or the new Apena, on the death of the old, is carried out by all eligible members of the lineage. So that though the cult of the ownership of the land is mobile, or at some stage became so, tutelary rights within each organization are hereditary.

The personification of Earth (Ile) in the cult is Onile-the Owner of the Earth, the mother from whom all life issues and to whom all return. Beier cites an Ogboni myth in which we sense something of the awe attending on the propitiation of Earth. Earth and Heaven were once hunting together. They killed only a small rat, over which they began to fight as to who should have it. When they could not agree Earth refused to bring forth any more crops, and there was a famine. Then all the Orisha went to Heaven and persuaded him to submit.3 Onile is symbolized in edan iconography by the left. The Ogboni sacred sign is the left fist clenched over the right, with thumbs concealed. The bead bracelet on the left wrist is part of Ogboni insignia. On the death of a member marks are made on his left wrist in the ritual

I H. U. Beier, 'Before Oduduwa', Odu, no. 3; West African Conference, Ibadan 1949, p. 257); O. Esan, 'Before Oduduwa ', Odu, no. 8. P. Morton-Williams, ' The Yoruba Ogboni Cult in

2 For political and judicial functions of the Oyo' (Africa, xxx, no. 4). Ogboni among the Egba, see S. O. Biobaku, The 3 H. U. Beier, A Year of Sacred Festivals in One Egba and their Neighbours (Oxford, I957, pp. 5 seq.) Yoruba Town, 1959. and Ogboni, The Egba Senate (Proc. IIIrd International

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recall to the Ogboni of powers imparted to the member during his life.' Anthropo- morphic renderings claimed to be Onile are not many and are difficult to authenticate. In any case, as figures claimed to be Onile do not significantly depart from idiom in edan imagery they need not be separately considered. A large brass claimed by the Oluwo in an Ibadan cult-house to be Onile is identical with one in the Nigeria Museum and identified by Morton-Williams (Africa, xxx, no. 4) as Ajagbo,z a terrible spirit standing in close relationship to the Earth Goddess, whose image is used by the Ogboni to detect a member who has revealed a secret or otherwise acted traitorously. Four of these brasses are now known, three of them female and identical in style but differing slightly in size, while the fourth, also related in style, is male and smaller. This latter is also in the Nigeria Museum Collection (6i. 5. io Nigeria Museum). One of these large female brasses, now in the possession of the Timi of Ede, is said to have been smuggled out of Owu to the daughter of the Olowu who was married to the Timi Ajeniju, just before the destruction of that town in or about 830. A sister piece has been dated by the Nigeria Museum to the eighteenth century (P1. Ib).

In many shrines Onile remains a concept associated with a certain object rather than necessarily an anthropomorphic image. Often the Apena could not, or would not, specify a figure of Onile in any way different from the standard edan. Some informants identify any remarkable or very striking edan as Onile. It is possible, however, that, like the High God in Yoruba cosmology, Onile is never anthropomorphized and worshipped in any particular rendering, but apprehended as simply occupying a fixed locus in the iledi.3 In the sanctification of the shrine lie is buried in a certain spot, and Onile is then placed on it either as an identification of the position of the Ile, or as a focus and centre of its existence. In this ritual sacrifices are made of tortoise, cockerel, sheep, pig, snail, pigeon, and duck. lie is then localized in a corner of the iledi by the burial there of the heads of these sacrifices. Associated with this burial are certain natural substances symbolizing the four elements of the Ogboni system: Olorun (the Sky God), Ile (Earth), blood (judgement), and human being. These are represented respectively by powdered chalk, pure black mud from the river, powdered camwood, and powdered charcoal collected from food cooked by the members. These substances are gathered together in four calabashes previously used by members, and buried in circumferential relationship to the sacrifice. The site is then an Ile-the sacred centre of the iledi, and marks the spot where Onile is worshipped.4 (Fig. Ia.)

I ' Many Africans distinguish between the left and behind, and fearful of countenance (P1. Ia). and the right sides of the body, the right being 3 An anthropomorphic image claimed by the symbol and seat of strength and virility, the left of Oluwo of the Ibadan cult-house to be Onile is also weakness and femininity.' Edwin Smith, 'African claimed by him to have been cast single for this Symbolism ', JRAI, lxxxii. 52. reason; no pair of it exists. It is significant that the

2 Ajagbo-Ekun is said, in an Iwo account, to have three identical examples of this particular image so been a terrible Alafin of Oyo, a warrior, later far known (one at Ede, one in Ibadan, one in the apotheosized as a vengeful spirit whose image is Nigeria Museum) are all female. Closely associated used in punishment of an Ogboni elder for grave with their style, however, is the fourth figure misdemeanour. In the iledi the agba drums are (6x. 5. Io Nigeria Museum) which is male. Of this, sounded to summon all members. The offender is too, no pair is known. declared, and executed, and his blood poured over 4 At Ijebu-Ode lie is buried in the thickness of an Ajagbo. The Janus-image is said to symbolize his earth wall in the inner recesses of the iledi; the spot is being a twin. He is usually rendered with eyes front covered with a cloth.

I4I




Another important rendering of the edan is Eluku-Oro-the spirit that rises from the earth, the genius of the earth-a death-dealing spirit, according to an Iwo account, used to enforce secrecy among the Ogboni. This form of the edan is bigeminate, though in no other way stylistically different from other edan. As I hope to show, this bigeminate image represents a stage in the morphology of the edan associated with a terminus a quo around the mid-seventeenth century (P1. Ic).

0

0

4

?

(a)

2

z 04*

6

Lu- F- -

(b)

FIG. I. (a) Location of Ile in the iledi: i. Olorun (the Sky God); 2. Ile (Earth); 3. Blood (judgement); 4. Human being; 5. Heads of the various sacrifices (e.g. tortoise, cockerel, sheep, pig, snail, pigeon, and duck).

(b) Configuration of the Ogboni in Ifa divination.

The day-to-day operation of the cult revolves around the use of the pair of edan, usually 4 in. to o1 in. long, but sometimes longer. Upon initiation each member receives a pair which remains in his possession for the remainder of his life. The pair, male and female, symbolizing the union of Heaven and Earth on which human existence is based, is usually cast in brass, as are most often all other Ogboni ritual ornament and shrine furniture. Style varies from region to region as the iconographic theme is adapted in one workshop or another, but the characteristics of the edan are always easy to isolate. Apart from the distinguishing pair connected by a chain, edan usually incorporate the Ogboni sacred sign of left fist over right; facial features are non-individual and schematic, characterized especially by a very prominent, typically ' Ogboni ' formula for the treatment of the eyes, which are of three types: (i) a split sphere, (2) an almond-shape set on edge and protruding obliquely on the face, and (3) a configuration of two flat concentric circles rather like the yolk and white of an

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egg.' Each of the figures carries some object identified with Ogboni ritual, e.g. the executioner's club, the anthropomorphic staff of office (also referred to as an edan), a ceremonial fan usually cast in brass, a dish, a wooden ladle used in initiation rites, &c.

In spite of the asceticism and solemnity of the edan image there is frequently an erotic symbolism connected with the pair, absent in general from other forms of Yoruba art. Images of Ajagbo (the bifacial image cast in a single piece back to back), are aggressively ithyphallic (P1. Ia). The large female figure, identified among the Oyo Ogboni as Ajagbo,2 is correspondingly ithyclitoric (P1. Ib). Most consistently in the edan pair, however, male and female genitalia are exaggeratedly stressed. In examples where the edan is no more than a head on a spike genital members are appended to the staff; in other cases the body is conceived as the mere carrier of genital detail. A pair in the photographic records of the Nigeria Museum represents the human

generative act. One regional style, still practised in the village of Ilobu, Oshun Division, figures the female edan with full breasts surrounded by several smaller

figures and suckling an infant. This preoccupation with sexual detail would appear to stress the fecundity of Earth in rituals propitiating her fertility.3 Sexual taboos, however, operate in the actual use of the edan. A husband may not bring it into contact with a menstruating wife, or with a woman who has not borne children.

THE AKEDANWAIYE

Ritual casting of the edan Ogboni4

Only a man past fathering children becomes an akedanwauye, since spells invoked during manufacture of the image could render a younger man impotent. Moreover the continual invocation of Orisha attendant on casting the edan is supposed to have a cumulatively good or bad effect on a man; he grows to have superior powers, and people tend to fear him. Young men avoid the occupation because the activity is associated, if not with actual impotence, at least with the loss of children.5 This tradition would seem to conceal the reality of Ogboni organization as an old men's institution, and has a direct bearing on Ogboni art and imagery. The young brass- smith is precluded from casting the image, which must above all retain its character as icon. The title akedanwaiye in fact suggests a chosen one: ' he who brings the edan to earth.' There is a spiritual connotation. He seems, too, to possess a degree of spiritual authority, i.e. he demands sacrifices and propitiates Earth in the process of sanctifying the edan for use by the initiate. It is above all, however, in his character of spiritual guardian of the edan image that the akedanwaiye must be an elder. A man still in the process of fulfilment of manhood would inevitably extemporize with form in the sacred image, and this could not be tolerated. We have a picture, then, of the

x An observation first made by Mr. John Picton, of Bantu cultures: Les Peuples et Civilisations de Curator, Nigeria Museum. l'Afrique, Payot, Paris, I962, p. 6o.

2 Morton-Williams, loc. cit. 4 An Ogbomosho account, given by an Ogboni 3 Though genital symbols are associated with brass-caster.

metal-working in other parts of Africa: 'Genital s The brass-caster at Ilobu, Oshun Division, is Symbols on Smiths' Bellows in Uganda', E. C. today a young man, and his apprentice a mere boy. Lanning, Man, liv. 262. And accentuation of the He is, however, a Muslim, and can be supposed to sexual theme is cited by Baumann as characteristic have relinquished many of the old beliefs.

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akedanwaiye as a man past the age of propagation, thoroughly familiar with symbol and ritual in the Ogboni system, certain of what is required in edan imagery, and rigidly circumscribed by these requirements. He is not in a position to take liberties with symbol and meaning in edan iconography, though his personal instinct for form, proportion, and finish would be certain to distinguish his work. It must be remembered that every akedanwaiye does not possess these virtues, and that some were in fact very poor artists. In the finest examples of the tradition, however, the most elaborate resources of craft have been employed to do honour to the edan as the manifestation of an eternal principle, i.e. as icon.

Though succession in the craft tends to be from father to son this is not necessarily always the case. The Apena is the final arbiter in the matter of the selection of an Ogboni brass-smith; in this connexion the individual brass-smith acquires a reputation in much the same way as a European painter or sculptor. The Apena, however, exercises the power of certifying the edan; in his hands finally lies the control of the rectitude of the image, which he may reject for any of a number of reasons, such as incorrect rendering of cult insignia, failure to represent certain characteristics of the spirit, or on technical grounds as being simply not up to standard.'

The casting of the edan In the initial stages of the making of the edan, when the image has just been

modelled in clay, the akedanwaiye keeps a vigil for the first three days and nights. During this time the image, or pair of images, is kept by the fire to dry. Upon it he makes libations of snail's fluid, palm oil, guinea-corn wine, and the blood of the pigeon, symbolizing by this means the supreme importance of the image in the clay state in its association with Earth. It is then invested with the wax coating and sculpted, at which stage further sacrifices are made of pigeon, tortoise, and snail. These creatures frequently appear in edan imagery, especially the pigeon as a symbol of vigilance. Intense invocations follow in the name of the Orisha, and at intervals white and red kola nuts are cast by the akedanwaiye to ascertain from the image whether the process is going well. These stages are at three times of the day-early morning, early afternoon, and evening-when the cock crows. It would seem, then, that at a very early stage in the process of manufacture the edan takes on a function distinct from its function as the materialization of an essence in its primary association with Earth. The image, by virtue of this primary association, is already sacred in its own right, and implies no visual referent. In the second function the image is defined as the vehicle of the spirit, a localization capable of response, standing in a particular relationship to the suppliant. The relationship exemplified in this second function is that which will be of principal importance to the initiate once he is a member of the Ogboni. At its inception, then, the image is produced in accordance with obser- vances referring to these two principal functions. Its idiom, like the Christian cross, must in the first place convey the iconic theme by which it is to be recognizable from every other plastic rendering, but unlike the Christian cross this idiom is not symbolic; it is actual, referring to nothing outside itself. Secondly it must be so handled in the process of its manufacture that after the initial propitiation of Earth and the

x In recent times, however, edan have appeared in the free-lance trade, e.g. in markets at Ibadan. Brass- smiths at Ijebu-Ode and Ilobu also work privately to commission.

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invocation of the Orisha, it becomes a vehicle capable of controlling the outcome of the process of production. This dual function of the edan can be correlated with the Ogboni metaphysical system, principally exclusive and Earth-orientated in its judicial aspects, and inclusive of the Orisha system in its religious.'

Next comes the casting. The edan is wrapped in a clean white sheet and placed in a safe place to cool. This is the evening of the sixth day. On the morning of the seventh day, towards midday when shadows are shortest, the mould is removed and the image revealed. This is very carefully done, precaution being taken that no force is used. (Signifying perhaps that human agency must be kept to a minimum?) The brass image is then washed and rubbed clean with a white rag. The initiate provides bean bread (ikuru), which is crushed over the new edan. Kola is then thrown, as before, by the akedanwaiye to ascertain from the edan whether it is ready to be taken home. If the answer is favourable a sacrifice is made in which the blood of a sheep and of a duck is poured over the image, along with guinea peppers. A few of the latter must be chewed by the akedanwvaye while ' speaking ' through the kola to the edan. At sunset2 the edan, along with its clay mould, is wrapped in the white sheet to be taken to the shrine. Here it is washed by the Apena. The Oluwo then declares it ready to be taken to the home of the initiate. At his home the initiate buries the mould (signifying perhaps Earth, Ile) in a chosen secret spot where the edan will spend the remainder of its life.3 The edan is laid on this spot, to be removed thereafter only for ritual purposes. Since throughout its life the edan is washed periodically with lime juice and certain herbs to counter oxidization of the metal and to clean off sacrificial blood, a genuine patination rarely occurs, even in old examples.

The edan and the initiate4 A bath is prepared in the iledi for the initiate. This is a large urn in which is

immersed the new pair of edan which had previously been purified in the blood of a pigeon. The bath is completed by the addition to the water of certain medicinal herbs. The initiate is washed by the Oluwo-head, hands, feet, and genitals-and is then wrapped in a white sheet from the waist downwards. Virtues of every description are invoked upon him by the Oluwo, after which he spends the remainder of the day in prayer, asking for strength and purity. Later in the day ile is consulted to ascertain whether the rites have been appropriate and the initiate acceptable. This is done by casting kola nuts-white and red-two pieces each. Approval is signified by the kola falling in a certain manner-two facing downwards, two upwards. If the rite has not been appropriate and the initiate acceptable another must be made, and this could be required by the Oluwo to be more elaborate, calling for a more expensive sacrifice. This emphasis on the acceptability of the initiate and the appropriateness of the rite impresses upon him the need of acquiring the requisite state of purity in his relationship with Earth. The blood of pigeon, duck, tortoise, and snail used at these lavations is meant to induce this state of purity. During invocation all the protagonists

'I Earth existed before the Orisha, and the Ogboni 3 Edan are always cast by the cire perdue process. cult before kingship.' Morton-Williams, loc. cit. No attempt is ever made to remove the clay core

2 The secret recesses of the iledi are always dark; after casting. The completed piece is perhaps desired edan are always kept in the darkness. At many shrines to carry within it the attributes of Earth. the Apena would not allow them to be placed in the 4 An Iwo account. Given by Chief Osa, a senior sun for photographing. Ogboni elder.

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in the iledi are nude but for an apron or waistcloth, signifying the immediacy of the relationship meant to exist between man and earth. All edan are rendered nude.

When the rite has been accepted by Ile as appropriate and the initiate signified as acceptable, a meeting is held in the afternoon at which all cult members dance, the initiate being especially fervent in his dancing, invoking sundry desirable virtues to enter into him and possess him. The bath in which he had been purified stands mean- while in the iledi covered with a white sheet which had been part of his ' dowry ' to the Ogboni. The rites of prayer and purification continue for seventeen days, after which the initiate is a member of the Ogboni.'

The pair of edan, manufactured as we have seen by exactly controlled processes, and subsequently certified by the Apena, plays the vital role in the initiation ritual of purifying the initiate in the name of Earth. It is thereafter his personal link with the Earth-principle Ile, and a vehicle for localizing this Earth-principle in his life. He is identified with it, and it is of course not transferable. The pair of edan also plays an important role in his mortuary rites. On the occasion of his death his body is handed over to the Ogboni who preside over his return to Earth. Relatives buy pigeon, snail, a black sheep, and a tortoise, whose blood and material essences are poured into the body of the corpse. Marks are made round the left wrist of the corpse, signifying the removal from the body of secrets imparted to it during life; powers conferred by the Ogboni are thus recalled. This symbolic recall is paralleled in the case of royal mortuary rites by actual removal of material elements from the corpse in the process of transferring vital forces to the new king. These elements are held to contain that which in a man is immortal and which can therefore be controlled only by the Ogboni in its relationship with Earth. After removal of these elements (of divine reference in the case of a king, and controlled by the Ogboni among its members) the body which returns to Earth (purified by the sacrifices of pigeon, &c.) is held to be empty. During these last rites the pair of edan is spiked in the earth beside each temple of the corpse while the chain rests on the forehead.z The pair is removed just before burial; it is never buried with the deceased. As the edan is held to retain that secondary power appertaining to the localized Earth-spirit which only the deceased had been able to placate during his life-time, it is often returned to the shrine after his burial.3

The pair of edan functions also as an amulet. Small pairs of images are sometimes carried about the person, especially among travellers, which, in addition to identifying the member in other cult-houses, are felt to possess apotropaic and protective attributes. These edan are about two to three inches high, usually in brass, but sometimes in lead, ivory, or even wood. In every detail they are like the normal edan, but are usually of rather crude workmanship.

As has already been pointed out, the edan image has also an emblematic function.

I The Orisha invoked during the ceremony are people that traced their foundation to Ife people. held to be present for a period of four weeks of four But in Ife the Ogboni priests denied this, and said days each. They depart on the morning of the seven- that edan must always lie on the ground.' Morton- teenth day. Williams, loc. cit.

2 'In Oyo the edan were laid flat on the ground. 3 In the case of an Ogboni member existing among In an Egbado town that claims its founders came the relatives of the deceased permission may be from Ife and not, as the other Egbado towns do, granted by the Oluwo for its retention, provided he from Oyo, I was told that they made their edan stand belongs to the same cult-house, and does not use upright by sticking the prongs into the ground, and the edan for further ritual purposes. that this was characteristic of Ife Ogboni and of all

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Various items of shrine furniture and articles of personal use such as staffs (for senior members), daggers, knives, ritual urns, wooden ladles, &c., all carry renderings of the Ogboni sacred image, sometimes reduced to the utmost conventionalized brevity of statement, but serving always to bring home to the member his cult-identification and responsibility to the society. The split-sphere convention of eyes and mouth joined together by a vertical passage for the nose, appears on all manner of articles and in various types of material, from a bas-relief on a clay pot, or on a woman's hairpin of brass, to the image, also in brass, on the face of the opele chain.'

The pair of edan, then, concretizes the ' pure ' or eternal self of the member in his relationship with the Earth-principle, Ile, and acts as a vessel of the Earth-spirit Onile with which, throughout his life, he stands in a peculiar personal relationship, and which at his last rites presides over the transference of his immortal essences back to the Ogboni who control the sanctions of Earth.z Throughout his life the image binds the cult-member, from the moment of his initiation to the transmission of his vital essences back to the Ogboni after death. It is a function of his daily being and a sup- port. The ritual purity which he continually seeks in his relationship with Earth is objectivized in the edan image, which is, as a result, non-temporal, hieratic, and absolute in idiom. In a formal sense the regard, the eye, in edan imagery is of supreme importance. With its dominant placing and the consequent frontality of the image, the 'drawing in wax' establishes the relationship of the spirit to the suppliant. Ogboni art is, in this essential sense, supremely a miniature art-an art of dialogue. There is no sense in which the edan functions apart from the person of the member. Whether in the recesses of the iledi, or in the home of the cult-member, it has no public reference, and certainly no purely decorative or purely visual intention. Ogboni art therefore possesses none of the purely architectonic relationships of masses already described as characteristic of Yoruba wood-carving, and of the African plastic in general.

In the iconography of the edan Ogboni, then, idiom is represented by three principal forms, each of spiritual identification: (i) Ajagbo (P1. Ia), the bifacial image cast back to back in one piece; (2) Eluku-Oro, the bigeminate pair,3 P1. Ic, and (3) the edan pair, relating to the individual cult-member and connected by a chain. Renderings of Onile do not appear to exist, or are not easy to authenticate. Examples of the idiom occur also in emblematic form on ritual ornament and shrine furniture. In all these renderings the iconographic theme remains constant and identifies the Ogboni icon within the corpus of Yoruba art. Within the idiom many variations of style occur. It is by the isolation and analysis of these individual style-systems that a morphology can eventually be attempted for the idiom.

I In Ifa divination the Ogboni is represented by 3 'Three pairs of large edan, reputedly from Abeo- the configuration of the opele known as irete kuta, shown in the Arts Council Exhibition of the onwonrin (Fig. ib). Epstein Coll. (London, I960) are unusual. Each of

2 An Ogboni incantation runs: the linked members is a double image, of both a man The edan does not die, rocks never crumble. and a woman. For the moment I can only guess that The ogri sakan does not die from year to year. these are a fairly recent development matching in I become the hill, I become the rock beneath the sea, their exuberance the exceptional power enjoyed I die no more. by the Ogboni in Abeokuta.' Morton-Williams, May it please God that I become like the rock beneath loc. cit.

the sea.

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II. STYLE The Gbongan Series'

An important example of one of these style-systems is represented by the Gbongan Series. These six edan Ogboni were acquired as a group for the University of Ife collection. Their identity of style and alleged common provenance make them a good object of study for the establishment of style in the edan Ogboni. They provide, at the same time, a key to the morphology of the idiom.

Stylistic characteristics All these figures conform to a convention in which the abdomen is highly pro-

tuberant. Vertical scarification runs in two parallel lines up the sides of the abdomen

; 4=0

FIG. 2. (a) Ladder-pattern scarification; (b) Ladder-pattern, herring-bone variant; (c) Ladder-pattern, solid, with oblique variant.

which turn off at right angles just below the pectorals to terminate beneath the arm- pits. A similar pair runs up the back on either side of the spinal column, and turns off at right angles into the shoulders. This particular scarification is of a' ladder-pattern ' (Fig. za) which occurs also in examples of Lower Niger bronze art. It is most often raised in relief, the result of parallel strings of wax added to the wax investment before casting. Transverse cuts are made between these parallels, either at right angles or obliquely, to form the ' ladder-pattern '. In some cases the uprights have been laid so closely together that the transverse cutting is impressed on to the lines rather than between them. A herring-bone variant appears on some examples (Fig. 2b). In some cases too, a solid fillet of wax, about -k inch wide, takes the place of the parallel strings, and this is sliced by deep transverse alternate grooves, again either at right angles or obliquely (Fig. zc). This latter method appears on two examples of the Gbongan Series-on one of the singles, and on the female of the' pair ', an observation which suggests that in spite of their great similarity the pair is not a true pair. Though un- doubtedly stylistically related, the two images, upon close examination, do not appear to have been fashioned as a unit, or even by the same hand. Differences in the pair can be traced from decorative into structural detail. The conception of the head,

1 For description see Appendix I.

148




though in the same idiom, varies greatly from one to the other, the treatment of the female facial features being rather coarse and blunt. In this head the modelling of the facial features does not take place as a development on a basic ovoidal shape, as in the male, but the ovoid is itself hacked away from the ridge of the eyebrows to leave a bare basic suggestion of the features proper (Fig. 3a). In the male the composite shape, which indicates the upper and lower legs joined in a squatting position, is modelled to indicate the position of the individual limbs. In the female this distinction is lost in a highly generalized form. This squatting posture constitutes another style-motif which distinguishes the series.

% '.

*, S . % S *;. . g

(b) (a) 2.

FIG. 3. (a) Treatment of facial features. (b) Treatment of shoulder and arms in the Gbongan Series. I. Clay model coated with the wax investment bevore casting. 2. Members applied in solid wax before casting.

Another distinguishing style-motif in the Gbongan Series is the treatment of the upper limbs. In all examples a bulbous treatment of the shoulder and upper arm gives way to an attenuated rendering of the remainder of the limb, in which no modelling or gradation of any kind is attempted. This important convention would seem to have arisen out of a practical difficulty in creating the small clay figures which con- stituted the core for the casting. This core would be modelled bearing the main characteristics of the figure, in its principal masses, around a rudimentary vertical armature. On such a figure the arms and legs would represent a structural embarrass- ment since these members, free-standing and unsupported by the metal armature, would crack and fall off by virtue of their small diameter and relatively great length. A solution to the problem would be to model the upper arms in a piece with the shoulders, of a sufficient thickness to allow the whole to stand unsupported. In this

L

I49




way the two halves of the shoulder and the two upper arms would form a single integrated mass from elbow to elbow capable, by virtue of its compactness, of standing up to the casting without falling off, even though unsupported by the armature, resulting in the bulbousness characteristic of this detail in the style. Before casting, the lower arms would be appended as simply as possible to the elbows, in wax, which would result in the characteristic attenuation and lack of modelling observable in the member. This primary tubular treatment of the lower arms would be found, in the final metal cast, to be quite solid-a fact which obtains for all examples of the series examined. Anatomical details such as the pectorals, genitals, navel, &c., would similarly be applied to the wax investment, and would therefore in the final cast, too, be solid (Fig. 3b) (P1. IId).I

The diminution of the limb below the elbow resulting from this technical necessity would be of no aesthetic or formal consequence to the brass-smith, since it is the gesture, the sacred sign, which is important in the image, and not the arm as such, which is conceived merely as the vehicle which bears the sign, and having no material value in its own right.

The solidifying of the upper and lower members of the lower limb represents a reverse solution to the problem of dealing with these appendages to an otherwise compact form. An incidental gain from this innovation was that the figure now came to have its own pedestal and no longer needed a spike. This innovation was, in time, to spark off a revolution in edan Ogboni imagery-a revolution whose implications for the idiom we shall examine later (Fig. 4).

A further characteristic style-motif in the Gbongan Series is the curious convention in which a swelling forward protuberance of the forehead leads in one movement down the bridge of the nose and spreads into the wings of the nostrils. This forehead- nosebridge-nostril sequence is of particular importance in applying the style of the Gbongan Series to other examples of edan Ogboni of unknown style and provenance, since, being entirely subjective and not a result of technical necessity, it is more purely stylistic than other criteria. Its distribution, in fact, occurs outside Ogboni work (see Appendix II), and therefore provides a means of extending inquiry into other forms of Yoruba metalwork.

Finally a double-crescent brow marking occurs in work related to the Gbongan Series, but this is of such wide distribution in other examples as to be of little value for pinning down the style. It must, however, be recorded as a characteristic style- motif associated with the series.

We have now isolated the following characteristics which define style in the Gbongan Series: (i) the protuberant abdomen; (2) design of' ladder-pattern' scarification of back, sides, and abdomen; (3) the squatting posture resulting from the abridgement of a sitting position for the lower limbs; (4) the forehead-nosebridge- nostril sequence; and (5) the double-crescent brow-marking. These stylistic characteristics can now be applied to other examples of edan Ogboni of unknown provenance and style to extend the number of examples capable of being identified in the category represented by the series. An analytical list of these further examples from the Nigeria Museum Collection appears at Appendix II.

Since this paper was written X-rays made by Dr. Peter Cockshott, Department of Radiology, Univer- sity Hospital Ibadan, have supported the conclusion (P1. IId).

I50o




Isolation and identification by style-groups rather than by geographical provenance would seem to be the most fruitful method of attempting a morphology of the edan Ogboni. This identification by style-groups is perhaps the best that can be hoped for in classifying an object of study which is not homogeneous and pinned to a single region, as is the case with the Ife or Benin bronzes, but exists in thousands of examples scattered throughout Yorubaland, and is subject to a variety of stylistic adaptations, sometimes in forms that are contemporaneous with our inquiry. In identification by groups internal stylistic evidence would cut across geographical regions and embrace seemingly unlikely periods of time. In stylistic backwaters elements of a given idiom would become frozen and continue to be mechanically produced long after the original impulse had died out or had changed itself into other forms. Examples of an idiom associated, for instance, with the seventeenth or eighteenth century could still be newly cast in the twentieth century, while the idiom itself has yielded to innovation and the development of new forms. For these reasons it is doubtful whether regional provenance can ever be satisfactorily worked out for examples of the edan Ogboni, let alone attribution of individual authorship, or consideration of the auvre of a particular artist. In the first place must be considered the unifying and standardizing effect of the local tradition, whose conventions would be jealously guarded by the Apena. Brass-smiths would be required to continue casting the conventional prototypes over long periods-a fact which, on the face of it, would seem to be of importance in preserving style-regions. But against this it must be remembered that the nature of the society as an institution of universal scope in Yorubaland allows free movement to the smiths, who would thus be continually diffusing idiom in the various local renderings. The cult-member, too, would similarly be cross-fertilizing the scene as, for one reason or another, he settles in a new area and, as he must, takes his edan with him. The result would be that many regional styles would not be subject to an isolated linear development, but would be receiving spurts of impetus as more advanced ideas were injected from the outside. Local styles would in this way be non-sequential, with the older forms persisting long after newer forms had been introduced. As for the individual hand-that development of the peculiar individual vision of a given artist-there is no evidence that the Ogboni artist felt, or was allowed to consider himself, in special communication with any equivalent of the muse of the Western artist. We have seen that throughout the process of manufacture his work is rigidly controlled by ritual requirements, and that on a certain level the edan Ogboni might almost be considered to make itself. The duty of the Ogboni artist is to invest a universal essence with a form, and in such a manner that by controlled processes it assumes power as the articulate and particular vessel of the Earth- principle. This power is of course independent of the power of the artist's own emotions, and in fact leaves little place for the operation of the latter. A certain hand- writing can, however, be assumed to go with the productions of a particular gifted artist, but this would be so weighted down by the conventions of the common idiom as to be wellnigh negligible.

The free-standing revolution It seems possible that the edan Ogboni was first whittled in wood, and developed to

some extent as wood-carving before the idiom was transferred wholesale into brass.

IS I




Oral tradition recalls that edan were first made from palm-branches until Ajibowu, the first Yoruba blacksmith, came with his knowledge of metals and transferred the idiom into brass. In certain areas of central Yorubaland the autochthones claim that

they were conquered by a metal-using people.' This tradition is confused by the fact that Ife, a culture which in some quarters is held to have been overrun by Yoruba

immigrants,2 was a metal-using culture. Apart from its celebrated bronze-casting, knowledge of iron-working appears to have attained to a high degree of skill there and, significantly, the name of their eponymous blacksmith was not Ajibowu, but Ladin. His 'anvil', a drop-shaped block of iron 30 inches high with a girth of 41 inches, still stands in the compound of the Oni of Ife. It was believed by Frobenius to be of cast iron, a claim which would suggest furnaces capable of generating tem-

peratures in the region of I, 50? C.3 The block on close inspection, however, appears to have been built up from lumps of wrought iron-a feat which in any case represents a high degree of metallurgical skill, assuming the object to be a genuine Ife artifact, and, following the West African pattern of the Iron Age preceding the Bronze Age, to be earlier than the Classic Period represented by the heads. If the earliest edan were made of wood at a time before the mastery of metals in Ife, then the beginnings of the form would have taken place in periods of undocumented antiquity. It is possible, on the other hand, that the Yoruba immigrants may have encountered and subdued

non-metal-using autochthones among whom the Ogboni cult was already developed and adapted it. In this case, too, the earliest form of the art in wood-carving would still be lost in a period for which no records are now likely to exist.

The earliest rendering of what appears to be a pair of edan Ogboni occurs on an Ife terra-cotta pot. The unit is simply a ring on a shaft-a shape rather like that of the

Egyptian ankh symbol, but without the bar, or the head and shaft of a key. Edan in this form still in use today carry the face in the circumferential thickness of the ring. In presumably later versions the face takes on its own autonomy though still remain-

ing a part of the shaft, and this, without any attempt at representing the remainder of the body, ends in an iron spike. In these renderings of the edan distinction between male and female is effected by the addition of genitalia at the junction of head and staff. At what stage the representation of the complete figure came to supplant the staff will probably never be known, but whenever this occurred, edan idiom seems

already to have been established as a pole-like structure, and in this form was to continue for many centuries. The pole-like pair of edan connected at the heads by a chain, each figure ending in an iron spike, is standard idiom to the present day.

Of the earliest phase in the morphology of the edan Ogboni, then, we know nothing. This period, associated with the use of wood as a means of expression, when the

prototype of the image was probably developed, we may, for the sake of definition, call the ' archaic', in distinction from the next, 'primitive', phase in which brass came to be employed and its limitations explored. In Western Nigeria brass-casting is held to antedate c. A.D. 1280, the date at which the Benin culture is said to have learnt the art from Ife. In the welter of examples of edan Ogboni scattered today

0. Esan, loc. cit., and H. U. Beier, loc. cit. African Studies in I963. Temperatures up to 1,500? C 2 E. B. Idowu, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief. were recorded in the furnace. In this furnace, in

Longmans, 1962, p. 23. traditional times, steel was accidentally produced at 3 A traditional Yoruba iron-smelt was carried out these temperatures. An example of this steel is in the

and observed by the University of Ife Institute of University Collection.

I52




throughout Yorubaland it can be assumed that many pieces survive from this second period, though no means has yet been developed for isolating these and establishing a style-sequence. It is only in connexion with the third,' mature ', phase that stylistic diagnosis now appears possible. At the present stage of the inquiry, however, this archaic-primitive-mature schema must be regarded as merely tentative if one is to avoid the temptation of extrapolating from style-sequences observable in the history of European art. The life of forms in Ogboni art is at present an unknown quantity, and more independent evidence is required before an archaic-primitive-mature schema can be correlated with its morphology, especially when the highly conservative nature of idiom in this art is remembered. However, the isolation of the cluster of style-traits evident in the Gbongan Series needs to be temporally defined, and on purely stylistic evidence it does not seem to be stretching the argument too far to posit a certain, possibly long, development behind the idiom as expressed in the series, and defining the Gbongan cluster of traits, in a relative sense at least, as ' mature '

Across the variety of styles in edan Ogboni art, both in space and in time, it is possible to draw a line of demarcation distinguishing between the spiked and the free-standing image. This distinction can be correlated with two characteristic forms in edan imagery-the 'spiked' style conforming to the requirements of the pole-form, and the 'free-standing' style conforming to the spatial attributes of tri-dimensional sculpture. We have noted that technical difficulties in treating the clay core in examples of the Gbongan Series led to an innovation whereby, for the upper limbs, the shoulder and arms became integrated into a single composite mass, while for the lower limbs the sitting posture was abridged to a squat in which the upper and lower members were fused into a pyramidal mass. This technical evidence, demonstrable and reliable, does not, however, necessarily indicate direction in the time-order from a 'spiked' to a 'free-standing' idiom. The succession could of course have taken place in the opposite direction, i.e. from a 'free-standing' convention ritual may have demanded the evolution of a 'spiked' image. That the succession in fact occurred from spiked to free-standing would, however, appear to be supported by the following considerations. In the oral tradition the word edan is always used to denote an anthropomorphic brass staff, for other cults as well as for the Ogboni (e.g. Edan Ogun, Edan Obalufon, &c.). More especially, though, it refers to the brass staff of the Ogboni. A long pole-like anthropomorphic brass staff is used as a badge of office by the Oluwo, and by the Apena, in the Ogboni cult. This object is also known as an edan. The meaning of the word edan seems to be 'anthropomorphic brass staff' (Morton-Williams, loc. cit.). The twin staff connected by a chain appears, as we have seen, as a probable type of the idiom in the Ife culture. A bronze find at Ita Yemoo (Ife) in I 957 depicts a' queen ' holding a long metal staff believed by the Nigeria Museum to be an edan Ogboni. Whether the two Ife examples are edan or not, the pole-form in ritual art is obviously of some antiquity, and the traditional form of the edan would seem to have been associated with it from the earliest times. The spiked and free-standing states of the style therefore appear to indicate a time-order in which the former precedes the latter. A good instance of this succession is illustrated in 62. 2I. 291 a and b, and 62. 2I. 290 Nigeria Museum, by the same hand or from the same workshop, in which the former is spiked and the latter free-standing (P1. Ic and d).

53




One result of the free-standing revolution was that the edan, now conceived on its own pedestal, more truly approached sculpture in its tri-dimensional implications. Gone was the need, in use, for the cumbersome shaft and the necessity for finding always a place on ground-level for spiking it. The edan could now be used on eye-level- a development of probable significance when its function as an articulate vessel of the earth-spirit is considered.' Gone too was the need for fashioning together two such aesthetically incompatible metals as brass and iron. The edan became formally and aesthetically autonomous. But more than this, it was now free to become larger.

Traditionally there had been a critical limit as to size regarding the spiked image; beyond certain proportions a spike would become top-heavy in handling, in a manner a free-standing piece could not. In 62. 2z. 245 Nigeria Museum (Appendix II) the spike is significantly reduced to a mere couple of inches or so, possibly in order to counter the above-mentioned top-heaviness, and the better to allow handling of the object as a piece. As to the use of brass and iron in a single work, attempts were made to counter this unaesthetic combination by sheathing the entire staff in brass. In this solution the wax investment was laid over the entire iron rod, this carrying the required details of cult insignia. The blank end resulting from the removal of the spike was then given interest, and the staff artistic and physical balance, by the placing of a subsidiary head at the end of the rod opposite the main head. This was probably the earliest rendering of the bigeminate pair representing the Earth-spirit Eluku-Oro. The solution does not appear, however, to have been satisfactory; very few examples of this type exist. The aesthetic gain was offset by the loss of both spike and pedestal. Connected by its chain the pair in use had to be laid flat on the ground.

In the appraisal of style-traits within the Gbongan Series we can isolate the following sub-groups:

I. Spiked, conforming to the pole-structure; of a characteristic solemnity of expression and inflexibility of idiom.

2. Spiked, conforming to the pole-structure; characterized by technical virtuosity and a baroque expressiveness.

3. Free-standing, with some of the baroque attributes of 2. 4. Free-standing, and corresponding in conception to wood-carving idiom. Can the existence of these subgroups within the 'mature' phase represented by the

Gbongan Series be correlated with a time-sequence ? If so, what is the general direction of this sequence ?

The abridgement of the sitting posture into the composite squat seems to be exemplified in the examples from a common source already quoted (P1. Ic and d). In these examples the virtuosity of the craftsman seems to be outstripping tradition as the possibilities of brass-casting are exploited to the fullest. Style moves to a baroque lavishness as the artist comes to dominate his medium. For want of purely formal development the image developed materially; it multiplied itself upwards in another version of the bigeminate pair.2 In P1. Ic male and female are perched one

See p. 146, note 2. could always be melted down. In this connexion 2 See p.'47, note 3. It has also been pointed out that it is doubtful whether a more plentiful supply of

the increase in the slave trade may have led to greater brass/bronze is alone sufficient to account for the decorative virtuosity, less concern being felt that progressive thickening of castings from Ife to late material should be wasted through failure of over- Benin. ambitious casts. Possibly. But an unsuccessful casting

54




on the other, with Churrigueresque daring and exuberance; a number of crotals appear; the image proliferates like lights in a bubble: one edan bears in its lap another, smaller, version of itself, which bears a smaller in its lap, which in turn carries another, &c. Granted that succession in the series proceeded from the spiked to the free- standing image, we can assume the ' spiked baroque ' 2 to have succeeded to a more sober rendering (spiked solemn i) closely fashioned to traditional religious impera- tives. A number of examples appear to conform to this ' spiked solemn' i stage, of which 62. 2i. 245 Nigeria Museum is a good example (P1. IIa). These two spiked phases appear to have been succeeded by free-standing phases in which the 'free- standing baroque ' 3 developed into an idiom closely corresponding to wood-carving, 4 (P1. Ib), marking a late phase in the life of the style.

The solution to the problem of anchoring the spiked staff and the revolution which it ushered in could not have been easy of achievement, granted the orthodoxy of the average Apena, and was perhaps accompanied by a weakening of spiritual autonomy among the Ogboni. A certain weakening of spiritual integrity is certainly noticeable in the edan image as increasing technical virtuosity produces new interpretations of the traditional idiom. As long as the edan had continued as an extension and development of the staff proper-a pole-form-purely plastic values had remained secondary; the classical edan was content to be a projection of drawing into wax. Now the brass- smith came to produce sculpture many characteristics of which are indistinguishable from wood-carving technique. Such is the case in the cluster (subgroup 4) represented by the three large brasses already referred to (P1. Ib). This example, Nigeria Museum Collection, is 30 inches high. In its excessively protruding eyes, its heavily over- hanging nose, and above all in the unit construction of the torso and limbs (which seem as though carved from a cylindrical block), it recalls processes now associated with wood-carving, and is in this respect perhaps oblique testimony to the contemporary wood-carving imagery of the period. The freedom to achieve hitherto impossible dimensions carried edan imagery, at least as represented in the Gbongan Series, along a line of development which culminates in these large brasses made at some time before 830.

III. DATING The crotal

The crotal, or hawk's bell, is of Irish antiquity, first described by John of Salisbury in I I5 6 (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary). On the arrival of a Portuguese ship off the Gold Coast in 1484 the king ' came out wearing armbands of plates of gold. About his neck he wore a chain with many small bells .. .'. This ornament cannot now be identified, though its description appears to fit an article imported by the French on the Gambia Coast some two centuries later. On his first voyage to the Gold Coast (I 555) Towerson traded on three separate days with ' a dozen of bells ',' bells ', and 'seven dozen small bells '. These could very possibly have been crotals, though again we have no description of them. In I 5 61 Towerson includes ' slight bells ' among the most desired articles of trade for the Guinea Coast.

A possible description of the crotal does not appear until Barbot, who, writing from a journal started in I678, mentions brass bells among trade goods imported by the Dutch. A copy of the crotal is illustrated in his description of native industries

I155




(Fig. 5). This particular article would appear, as he claims, to have been of local manufacture-suggesting that the imported article was already familiar on the coast. It is cast cire perdue in a single piece. This distinguishes it from the European original which is composed of two hemispheres clamped together into a ridge forming a waist around the bell. Barbot also mentions that on the Sestro River ' persons of distinction wear abundance of toys as bugles, brass bells, &c., about their necks, waists, and legs' (p. 13 I). In 1714 the Sieur Briie provides a drawing of the European commodity as traded by the French, which recalls the 'chain with small bells' first seen by the

4- 6

FIG. 4. The Gbongan squat. FIG. 5. The' African' crotal (after Barbot). FIG. 6. Chain with small bells (after Briie); in Astley, Voyages ..., II, p. 17, pl. XVIII.

Portuguese two centuries earlier (Fig. 6). The bells described by Briie were definitely crotals of European manufacture; they were of silver, and weighed between 60 and 70 grains each.

Though, as shown in Barbot, copies of these bells were already being locally manufactured, they nevertheless continued to be imported in considerable quantities and in several sizes. 'Brass bells No. i, eight hundred and forty-one; No. 2, sixty- two; No. 3, sixty-nine; No. 4, fifty-six ', i.e. I,o28 bells-this was part of the trading cargo of a small vessel (ioo tons burthen), engaged in a month's trade at New Calabar in I698. The larger size bells, however, might not have been crotals, but that crotals were imported is indicated by the fact that around this time, the later seventeenth century, they begin to appear in some profusion in Benin art. 'These crotals . . . form quite a feature of Bini art, and appear in the most unlooked for articles, either cast or suspended loose by links' (Ling Roth, Great Benin, p. 223). Here 'cast' denotes a reproduction of the bell modelled as part of the object (as in examples of sistra on which they appear), and does not signify individual cast copies of the crotal itself used as separate objects 'suspended loose by links '. The distinction is further made clear by Ling Roth: 'In two places on the larger bell (sistrum) where the casting of the crotals has failed, or where the crotals may have been broken off, other

I 5 6




crotals have been let in afterwards as substitutes, but not as in some cases where extra ornamentation such as eyes, catfish, etc., have been made separately, then fixed on to the mould and caught up by the molten metal . .'. Since, however, by his own description these substitutes were not made separately, they were obviously crotals of foreign manufacture let into the article subsequently to casting in precisely the manner described by Ling Roth. They differ entirely in their process of manufacture from bells made locally, by virtue of their mechanical regularity of size and shape, of being clamped together into a waist from two hemispheres, and most of all by their contrast to the local hand-made casting in copper which carries a stone in place of the metal rattle or tongue.

Wire employed to form the eyes on the local version of the crotal frequently com- prised off-cuts from a narrow-gauge copper coil which was either an already made-up trade article, or produced for the purpose by local craftsmen coiling lengths of copper round an armature. Off-cuts of a turn or two of this, about i inch in diameter, would provide accurate ready-made ringlets which would be let into the mould while the metal was still in a fluid state-work no doubt meted out to small boys similar in nature to that of young apprentices still today to be seen swaging shot for Dane guns in blacksmiths' forges all over the country. These local crotals appear also on a Benin bronze armlet reproduced by Ling Roth (in his Appendix XXIV), and on bronze armlets from Wukari in the Benue valley. They have appeared too as far north as southern Lake Chad. (Correspondence, P. Huard, Paris, and 0. H. Myers, University of Ife.) Examples on which the imported variety occurs appear on P1. 18 and P1. 59 in Dark (Dark, P., Benin Art, Paul Hamlyn, I960) and in Fagg (Fagg, W., in The Sculpture of Africa, Elisofon, E., Thames and Hudson, 58, I3I). These are dated respectively to late seventeenth century, and late seventeenth-early eighteenth century (Dark), and seventeenth or eighteenth century (Fagg). This dating, determined from entirely different data,' would seem to be supported by the evidence of quantities of these goods arriving on the coast in the later seventeenth century as the slave trade increased in volume. Though, as we have seen, some form of small decorative bell was known on the Guinea Coast as early as the late fifteenth century, the crotal is not reflected in trade records as a significant item until the later seventeenth century. Examples appearing on the Gbongan Series would seem therefore to suggest a terminus a quo for the style some time around the mid-seventeenth century.

The chain of iron or copper

Though the Iron Bar does not appear to have been established as a standard unit in trade currency along the Nigerian coast until the late seventeenth century, iron in various forms had been bartered along the West African coast from Portuguese times and used by the inhabitants for some time before that.2 In 143 5, two or three years after the rounding of Cape Bojador, the first Portuguese blood was shed in West Africa by natives armed with spears. Thereafter, wherever they went the early

1 Dark's system is fundamentally a correlation of 2 As we have seen for the Ife culture. Iron was form-sequences with time-sequences, supported also smelted at Nok. 'Vers 5oo ap. J.-C. j'estime where possible by oral tradition; the formal-temporal que tous les peuples ouest-africains devaient con- synthesis is also applied by Fagg with socio-political naitre le fer ', R. Mauny, Tableau geographique de correlations where possible. l'ouest africain au Moyen Age. Ifan-Dakar, I961, p. 3 6.

57




travellers encountered iron weapons. Ca da Mosta (I455) found the Wolof armed with darts, spears, and an iron sword of Turkish design which he felt must have come from the Gambia. A century later John Lok (I 554) found an efficient iron industry on the Gold Coast. In 1557 Towerson mentions among commodities and wares most desired in Guinea, 'small wedges of iron, short pieces of iron, as well as swords, daggers, hammers, &c.' James Welch (1588) took ironwork of sundry sorts to

Benin, and a few years later, around the turn of the century, the Dutch traveller D. R. observed the Bini producing a great quantity of ironwork for market, such as

implements for fishing, ploughing, and otherwise preparing the land. Bosman describes traditional ironwork on the Gold Coast: ' their chief handicrafts being the

smithery, for which their sorry tools can make all sorts of war arms ... as well as whatsoever is required in their agriculture and housekeeping '. On the Slave Coast he also found ' assegais and smithsware which are in greater perfection here than on the Gold Coast'.

The native currency in the late seventeenth century-early eighteenth century in use in the Eastern Delta was the copper manilla, while on the Slave Coast and in the Western Delta it was the cowrie shell. It seems, though, that an earlier metal currency in which the unit was of iron preceded these later currencies in parts of West Africa. At Jenne on the Niger Leo Africanus found the inhabitants using' certain iron money for matters of small value, some pieces whereof weigh a pound, and some a quarter of a pound' (Hakluyt, ed. Brown, p. 822). Barbot (Churchill, v. 25 ) illustrates a small iron pin used on the Gold Coast as money. G. I. Jones mentions a similar

currency in Eastern Nigeria (Africa, xxviii, no. I, I958). At Loggun on the Shari River Denham found a horse-shoe unit in use. An iron pin about a foot long has until recently been currency among the Loma of Liberia. These currencies imply a

rarity attaching to the value of iron before European contact. It would seem then that a local metallurgy had existed on the West Coast long before this contact, that the sources of the metal were inadequate, and that European trade subsequently supplied a great hunger for iron among the indigenous peoples, at first in 'pieces' and ' wedges ' of the metal and in made-up articles, and later in the form of the Iron Bar, which begins to appear in the records during the later seventeenth century.

In the mid-sixteenth century we find the Merchant Adventurers instructing their

captains to learn what commodities belonged to the places they touched at and what would be most desirable for trading on the Guinea Coast. Towerson (I 55 7) records manillas, basins (mostly of lead), tin pots, wedges of iron, Dutch kettles with brazen handles, engraved brass basins, great pins, swords, daggers, short pieces of iron, &c. (to mention only objects of metal). Welch carried to Benin (I588) a selection from this list. The omission of Iron Bars from the detailed inventory supplied by Towerson and reflected in contemporary cargoes would suggest that these bars were not carried. It would seem then that objects of trade along the Guinea Coast until the end of the sixteenth century did not include the Iron Bar, and that besides odd bits of the metal, iron was traded principally in the form of made-up articles.

At precisely what date the metal came to be introduced in quantity along the coast from European sources in the form of the Iron Bar is not clear, but this would seem to have been some time in the later seventeenth century as the slave trade was

expanded and organized. In ships' invoices for the last quarter of the seventeenth

15 8



THE ICONOLOGY OF THE YORUBA EDAN OGBONI 159

century the Iron Bar appears as one of the principal items of trade goods. In 1676 the Sarah Bonaventura carried 0oo quintal (one quintal equalled 128 lb.) to the Gold Coast representing a value of ?i8 out of a total consignment worth ?358. In i680 the Mary carried to Cape Coast 32,000 bars valued at ?580 out of a total consignment valued at z2,547. Voyage iron, as it was called in London, was of standard weight and size and used 'throughout all Nigritia, Guinea, and West Ethiopia in the way of trade' (Barbot, p. 44). At Senegal the French factors bartered brass rings or bracelets, chain, little bells, iron nails, copper bars, brass trumpets, &c., and above all Iron Bars of which, at Goree alone, about I,ooo were imported annually.

The crotal which appears in association with examples of the Gbongan Series is joined to the edan by a link of copper chain. The ringlet by means of which this object is attached to the edan is of the same metal. This link of copper chain is typical of a chain most probably introduced from a European source some time during the seventeenth century. As early as the mid-sixteenth century John Lok had traded ' certain dogs' chains and collars ' on the Gold Coast; in the late seventeenth century the French were trading 'chains' from Goree. These objects doubtless came into more general circulation along the coast as the slave trade increased in volume and placed a wider range of metal, both in worked and unworked form, at the disposal of the local smiths. This European chain is of drawn wire-iron or copper-with a link of circular section.

A different, distinctly local, type of chain is made from strips of iron, the links of which are of rectangular section. About ten links of such a chain equal about 3 inches, each link being about ? inch in diameter. The waste in linkage results from the individual link being formed to a circle of comparatively small diameter. This rather congested type of iron chain is used for linking together the male and female edan in 62. 21. 291 Nigeria Museum (P1. Ic), related to the Gbongan Series. It can evidently be regarded as a type antedating in Nigeria the chain of an elongated double-U linkage c_, composed of circular-sectioned links, which ousted it. This 'foreign' iron chain is described as follows. The iron wire of which it is composed is not forged, but drawn; it is of a uniform i inch thickness, each link of circular section. About four feet of it comprises about twenty-nine links of double-U shape. Individual links vary in length from i4 inch to 2z inch-a variation of ? inch. The width of links is fairly uniform, though each link is very individually fashioned, the juncture taking place haphazardly at any point along its length. This suggests a manual rather than a mechanical facture.

It is improbable that iron-wire was ever drawn in Africa. In Europe iron-wire was made by forging till the tenth century, when the drawplate was invented. Application of water-power to wire-drawing from the cast-iron drawplate came in the fourteenth century. Even though, as we have seen, the African furnace was at times capable of reaching temperatures in excess of 1,500? C., cast iron or steel produced at these temperatures would have been accidental, and the product regarded as 'spoiled '. There is, moreover, no evidence in contemporary blacksmiths' practice that the drawplate was ever known, and nothing in the descriptions of the early travellers. No evidence or tradition exists either of a source of motive power. As late as 1926 Talbot observed among the Yoruba that 'wire is made by hammering' (Peoples of

Statement by a traditional blacksmith at Isundunrin, near Ejigbo, W. Nigeria.




Southern Nigeria, 1926, p. 924). The traditional chain of double-U linkage made from circular-sectioned wire could only therefore have been forged locally from wrought iron. But the uniform inch diameter of iron irn re used for these chains suggests that they were not forged but drawn. It would appear then that this chain was produced by local blacksmiths from imported iron rods or iron wire of a uniform } inch thickness. Of the two types of iron chain used, one rectangular-sectioned of irregular link formation, and the other circular-sectioned of an elongated double-U link formation, the first can be regarded as of entirely local manufacture, while the second would be of local manufacture from imported material.I

All chain made from drawn wire, whether of iron or of copper, would therefore have appeared on the West African coast with the seventeenth-century expansion of the slave trade.2 The rectangular-sectioned chain of a circular congested type of linkage which appears on 62. 21. 291 Nigeria Museum would seem to represent an

indigenous chain which was ousted by the type of elongated double-U linkage made of imported material from prototypes appearing on the coast as trade goods. It might be objected that copper wire could well have been manufactured locally by the cire perdue process before the European article appeared on the scene; it could even have been drawn, copper being a much softer metal than iron, but neither the material culture nor oral tradition has provided evidence for the use of the drawplate. Copper-wire produced by the cire perdue process would not have been impossible, but the example associated with the Gbongan Series was definitely not cast; it was drawn, and therefore of foreign origin.

Though wire is never specifically mentioned in the invoices examined it may well have been accessory to trade items which are mentioned, e.g. Dutch kettles with brazen handles. 'Copper and brass rods, bundles of copper-wire, and iron-bars, were imported in great quantities.'3 It can hardly be doubted that in response to increasing demands both copper and iron became fairly common on the coast at a date some time around the mid-seventeenth century. In addition to the dating implied by the use of the indigenous iron chain on 62. 21. 291 Nigeria Museum, the chain of drawn copper-wire appearing on this piece would seem to suggest a terminus a quo for the style in the late seventeenth century.

The smoking-pipe One figure in the Gbongan Series is depicted smoking a pipe. Tobacco is now

I Since the above was written archaeological evi- lished which served an indigenous trade in the Niger dence for the early use of a rectangular sectioned basin before the coming of European commerce. iron wire in Ghana has been published. P. L. Shin- These are known to have carried various items of nie and P. C. Ozanne, Excavation at Yendi Dabari, European manufacture to the coast, from North Trans. Hist. Soc. Ghana, section v, fig. I4b: Africa and the Sahara. The age of these routes has

2. Excavated from square B3, layer 3. A very not, however, been established. C. C. Ifemesia, corroded ring, made of square-sectioned wire. British Enterprise on the Niger, 18so-I869. Ph.D. Thesis,

4. Collected from the surface. A well-preserved Univ. of Lond. 1959. Barbot heard reports on the bangle made from square-sectioned wire. Ivory Coast that' the inland blacks sold vast quanti-

The date of the abandoning of the site is placed ties of [cloth] to a white people who live far in the by the authors 'in the late seventeenth century; inland, usually riding mules or asses, and carrying probably between I66o and I675 '. Mr. Ozanne has assegais or spears; which must needs be Arabs since suggested to me that Yendi Dabari was' almost (p. 143). certainly abandoned in 1713-4 '. 3 M. C. English, Outline History of Nigeria, Long-

2 Three north/south trade routes have been estab- mans, 1959.

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believed to have appeared on parts of the West African coast about 1640 (Shaw, Excavations at Dawu, 1961; Man, bxii. 217). Professor Shaw further states:

' Some of our more recent conclusions hinge on the evidence from a single site-that of

Ayawaso, the site of Old Accra, where three pieces of evidence were obtained which were not available at Dawu:

(i) A typological development of native-made pipes suggesting that the earliest forms were imitations of the English/Dutch " clay ".

(ii) European imported ware dated to " very early seventeenth century ", stratigraphically some distance below the earliest pipes.

(iii) A historically attested terminal date for the site of I677. This suggests a date of c. 1640 for the introduction of smoking in the Accra area. But

there is other evidence suggesting that pipe-smoking established itself at the end of the sixteenth century in the Middle Niger area, and that this spread overland and " met " the coastwise introduction into (modern) Ghana some time in the later seventeenth century. And there are historical records of tobacco in Sierra Leone in I607, Gambia I620, Liberia 1623; and for the Congo in i6i2.' As to the situation in Nigeria with regard to smoking in the seventeenth century, we are largely ignorant. Smoking-pipes have been excavated both at Ife and Benin, but from undated levels; there were no smoking-pipes at Igbo.' (Letter to the author, 25.xi.63.)

The large free-standing brass in the Nigeria Museum (P1. Ib), already cited, is attributed to the eighteenth century. We know of the tradition that an identical

example was smuggled out of Owu before its destruction around 1830. This piece, stylistically related to the Gbongan Series, marks that late state of the style already described where the edan is almost indistinguishable from wood-carving. The principal characteristics of style in the Gbongan Series would seem therefore to be covered by the period c. I640-c. 1830. Though dating cannot be attempted for individual pieces, this dating would seem to fix that period in time with which style in the Gbongan Series can most plausibly be correlated.

IV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The edan Ogboni is iconic form par excellence. It is the material manifestation of the

Earth-spirit, and its vessel. Its formal conservatism over the entire period of its

development is to be understood as implying no lack of possibilities for invention within the idiom, but as expressing this eternal principle embodied in the worship of Earth. The generative force, being identified with this Earth-principle, is itself

responsible for its expression in matter. Hence the edan Ogboni is, in a manner of

speaking, hardly a human construct at all, but the form in which, through human

agency, an eternal spirit secures its manifestation. Its tutelary functionaries are the

Apena and the artist. The image, and the idiom in which the image is vested, are con-

sequently seen to be as enduring as the Earth-spirit itself. Ogboni ritual art is always therefore rendered in a permanent material-brass-in contrast to the extremely transitory medium, wood, associated with the Yoruba Orisha system, whose ad- herents are notoriously indifferent to the longevity of their pieces.

The edan Ogboni is related to all other forms of African Art by its indifference to the I A good deal of the foregoing is based on recent discussion with Paul Ozanne, who has two articles

in the press containing much of the above evidence.

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natural divisions and proportions of the human figure, by its total lack of concern with idealizing the human form, by its frontality and emphasis on the head, and by the absence of a mensurational or geometrical canon for the construction of the human form.x Unlike most African Art, however, it is not humanistic in orientation; it is hieratic and absolute. This quality distinguishes it not only from other African Art, but from most of the art of mankind. In its extreme conservatism of idiom over perhaps a thousand years, in its metaphysical interpretation of the human form, in its characteristic religious solemnity, it recalls the Icon of the Greek Orthodox world. The reasons for formal conservatism in the two cases, however, are entirely different. The Byzantine Icon, like the Russian which it influenced, was conceived within a scheme of ecclesiastical decoration, as an integral part of the iconostasis; it was rarely meant to be appraised in its own right. Its simplicity of statement and conservatism of form stem technically from this fact. The edan Ogboni, on the other hand, though cast as a pair, is primarily an individual construct meant to be communicated with in isolation. The members of the pair are always identical, differentiated only as to sex. But though the Byzantine Icon provides a useful external reference for evaluating idiom in the edan the differences between the two are in fact greater than their points of comparison. For where the Byzantine Icon is particular and illustrative (hagio- graphic), the edan, is the actual vessel of a spirit, i.e., where the Byzantine Icon is a picture, the edan is an image in the most primary sense of the term; it has no visual referent. It is worth noting too, in passing, that the Byzantine Icon eventually be- queathed its forms to Romanesque Art; the edan, by virtue of its identification with Earth, is capable of no such adaptation. The edan Ogboni is essentially a sacred miniature art of personal reference, and on no level public in its functions.

By applying stylistic criteria deduced from a study of the six examples of the Gbongan Series to a number of edan of unknown style and provenance, we have been able to widen the range of examples represented by the category (Appendix II). The principal characteristics of the style would appear to be covered by the period I640- 830, with the beginnings possibly going back before the earlier date. At some point during this 'mature' phase technical processes came to outstrip the conventional rendering, resulting in the rather baroque expressiveness which immedi- ately preced

the iconology of the yoruba "edan ogboni"

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