A superb Yoruba horseman.

The unusual carving discussed here is of a bearded rider holding the reins in his left hand. He is wearing a short-sleeved tunic and breeches, his coiffure dressed as a long, interlaced pigtail falling to the horse's rump, with white painted eyes, and a sheathed broadsword at the left hip. The horse has a halter carved as rectangular-link chain, its legs clustered on the small, pierced, rectangular base, and painted spots on the saddle cloth. It has a fine, old, crusty patina and an old label. It was first published by H. Clouzot and A. Level in Sculptures africaines et oceaniennes (libr. de France, Paris, 1923, Pl. XXXXI) with the caption, "Groupe fetiche du Dahomey, cavalier et monture, H-0.40. Col. Feneon." It subsequently belonged to Louis Carre and Mrs. George W. Crawford and was exhibited and illustrated extensively until it was acquired by the present owner from the sale of the late Russell B. Aitken, Christie's, April 3, 2003.

The motif of the mounted warrior sculpted in wood and, more rarely, in ivory is placed in several different settings by the Yoruba: in temples or shrines of a number of gods (orisha); in the palaces of kings and the great houses of high-ranking chiefs (noblemen); and in the superstructure of some masks, notably the epa masks of the Ekiti-Yoruba. In temples and palaces it may be used as a free-standing figure or be incorporated into columns supporting the roof or, for smaller-scale figures, appear as a support or superstructure for lidded wooden bowls. It may portray an individual great man, either in his actual role as leading warrior or as an emblem of his power and achievements. In a religious setting it may represent a male orisha in one of his manifestations, but it may also be a metaphorical representation of the relationship of orisha to worshipper or to the public at large. (For instance, the horseman in the setting of a shango temple may represent the god both as mighty destroyer and as divine horseman who "rides" the heads of his entranced priests and priestesses.)

The living cavalry warrior of the Yoruba people was specific to the kingdom and empire of Oyo--a city sacked circa 1835 in the course of civil war. Its armies were led by mounted war chiefs supported by archers (Clapperton wrote that "the Eyeos [sic.] have the best bowmen in Africa"). The cavalry were too numerous to be maintained solely by the king; rather, each of the seven great town-chiefs had to support, in his own sector of the capital, ten noble warriors and their entourages. That was at great cost, for the horses were not put to pasture, where they would be bitten by tsetse fly, but stabled in the town; it is asserted that it required three slaves to bring fodder and water to each horse. Politically, the practice led to a community of interest between king and chiefs in profitable warfare.

This figure takes the form of an Oyo-Yoruba cavalryman of the highest military grade. It may indeed be a representation of the alafin (king) of Oyo's commander-in-chief ("the esho of the eshos"), of whom the Yoruba Samuel Johnson wrote a century ago in his The History of the Yorubas (C.M.S., Lagos, 1921; reprinted 1937). This supremo's office was created about the end of the seventeenth century when the might of Oyo was growing and winning the city prominence in the Atlantic trade. (Oyo horsemen were able to range southward to the coast because the West African coastal forest is interrupted by an extension of savanna to the sea through what are now the Republics of Benin and Togo.) The Kakanfo, in Johnson's words, on

   taking office ... is first to shave his
   head completely, and 201 incisions
   are made on his occiput, with 201
   lancets and specially prepared ingredients
   from 201 viols are rubbed
   into the cuts, one for each. This is
   supposed to render him fearless
   and courageous ... the hair on the
   inoculated part is allowed to grow
   long, and when plaited forms a ...
   pigtail.

It is said that pigtails became a sort of badge for the esho. Johnson adds that the Kakanfo in war "carry no weapon but a baton known as the 'King's invincible staff'." Because the right arm of this figure is lost, it cannot be known if it was holding that baton or, like other pigtailed horsemen, a lance or javelin. The emphatic, greatly exaggerated carving of the pigtail draws attention to his rank, besides materially strengthening the aesthetic balance of the composition. The beard was affected by warriors, perhaps copied from northern Muslim peoples. It is seen on other carvings.

Increasingly in the course of the eighteenth century, Oyo had to deploy its army to contain the rising power of the kingdom of Dahomey and its capital at Abomey, which had its own ambitions to seize the seaports and control the trade. Despite Abomey's disciplined armja which showed increasing skill in musketry, all went well for Oyo until the end of the century, when its own power was lessened by internal factions and invaders from over the River Niger. Oyo rerouted its trade eastward to the port of Badagri and, according to Johnson, stationed two successive Kakanfo at Jabata (a.k.a. Djabata) in the south of its vassal kingdom of Shabe, east of Ketu and only 62 miles (100km) northeast of Abomey. In 1821 the Kakanfo's threat to Abomey and his capability to defend Oyo territory ended in his rout by the Dahomey army, and by 1830 Shabe had been razed and the cavalry no more to be seen.

Stylistically, the figure seems not to be a product of Oyo itself but of a sculptor further to the southwest, which would account for its having been collected in the Republic of Benin (formerly Dahomey).

In the eighteenth centur3> Oyo established a trading route to the coast at Ouidah, running through a chain of vassal kingdoms and guarded by its armies. This figure may have been made for the palace of a vassal or for a temple/shrine. The latter seems more probable. It could have been in honor of a specifically Oyo divinity: Shango, a deified king of Oyo as well as Divine Thunderer; or Oranyan, the earliest Yoruba king, founder of a military nation, worshiped for success at the outset of any military enterprise, and worshiped by all esho; or a more ancient divinity said to originate from Ifa, Alajogun, Lord of War. A further possibility is that it was the top piece of a composite carving embracing a large wooden bowl used in the service of Orumila, the divinity animating the Ifa oracle, in which case the bowl would have been used to contain the sacred palm nuts and small ivory markers used by the diviners. In other equestrian figures the horse stands four-square; here its feet are on a small base that has been detached from something else.

While the figure may have been part of a vessel for ritual use, the association with the Ifa oracle would be negated if, as may be, it was once colored red. (The whole figure has at some time been repainted, and a small patch of damage at the crown of the horseman's head shows a layer of red pigment beneath the greenish-grey oil paint that now covers the whole, including the raw surface of wood where the right arm and whatever it carried was broken off.) Red was a colour never linked to Ifa but indicative of an association with "hot" or "fiery" divinities such as Shango or Alajogun.

The figure provokes the speculative imagination and a further possibility comes to mind: that it was mounted on a pole to be carried by an attendant of its warrior-chief owner or used to embellish his house. Such an elaborately carved standard has not been reported among the Yoruba. The nearest Yoruba likeness would be the opaileke, the beaded staff seen in some royal palaces and proper only to kings. These can have a representation of the enthroned king at the top, and the whole is covered in tiny beads of many colors. Alternatively, was its possessor copying in wood the banners of the Muslim cavalry of the savanna kingdoms or the long, carved staves of the Asante and other Akan chiefs? The question is open.

The style appears to derive from the Ketu area. The equipment--harness, reins, saddle, stirrups--is standard Oyo, as is the costume of short tunic and knee-breeches; the fine ornament on the sheath to the broad sword could well represent a brass band. The triangular ears and lenticular eyes are a particular trait of the Ketu / Ohori / Ifonyin area now generally termed Anago. However, we are unable to find a parallel to this master's inventive use of triangles to define spaces as well as solids. The face is a composition of triangular forms, as are the spaces enclosed by the falling pigtail and the clustered legs--even the horse's eyes are lenticular. The horse is treated more sympathetically than usual in Yoruba art, having a greater horizontal dimension. Thus, the composition of this majestic figure on his steed achieves an elegance not normally associated with the art of the Yoruba. It certainly predates the middle of the nineteenth century.