Ways of the rivers: arts and environment of the Niger Delta. (exhibition preview).

The universal stillness of the scene was very imposing; unbroken as it was by any sound, save the dashing of our own paddle-wheels, and the clear musical cry of the leadsman ... The large and umbrageous trees, with their festoons of Orchidae and purple and white Convolvuli hanging from the branches, formed a combination of forest scenery, so striking, novel, and interesting, as enabled us to forget that the much-talked-of Delta of the Niger had been fairly entered upon ...

(Capt. William Allen in Allen & Thomson 1848:178-85)

For Captain William Allen's contemporaries in the nineteenth century, the words "Niger Delta" were more likely to conjure up images of explorers succumbing to tropical maladies than visions of the majestic mangrove forests that line its coast. By the end of the twentieth century Americans were largely unaware of the environmental devastation caused by their reliance on petroleum production in the oil-rich Delta, until the brutal execution of the Ogoni writer and environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa drew international attention. Few realize that the region's arts rival the drama of its environment, history, and politics, for its reputation as an inhospitable swamp long discouraged all but a few adventurous outsiders from investigating its cultural traditions. Only the Kalabari Ijo, whose fascinating carved memorial screens and brilliant masquerades can hardly be regarded as typical, have secured a prominent spot in surveys of African art. "Ways of the Rivers: Arts and Environment of the Niger Delta" seeks to redress that imbalance by demonstrating that Niger Delta peoples have produced some of the finest figurative sculpture and masks in all of Africa.

The Setting

The Niger River forms the second largest--and the largest inhabited--delta in the world; in common use, the term Niger Delta refers to a broader riverain and coastal region that extends along the coast from Opobo in the east nearly to Lagos in the west (see map, p. 28). Several ecological zones cut across this region, resulting in varied subsistence patterns as well as marked transitions in scenery. Because natural resources differ from one zone to another, the region's inhabitants--who speak dozens of distinct languages representing nine different language groups--used the rivers as avenues for internal trade long before, Europeans began plying its coastal estuaries in search of slaves and, later, palm oil.

The Delta's myriad rivers and creeks not only define a geographic region; they also form a cultural confluence. Its peoples, including the Ijo, Itsekiri, Isoko, Urhobo, Lagoon Yoruba, Riverain Igbo, Ekpeye, Abua, and Ogoni, overlap and mingle, drawn together by trade, intermarriage, and common interests. As diverse and distinct as they may be in terms of language, historical experience, world view, and social organization, they have borrowed freely from each other. Proximity and common experience often matter more in this context than linguistic relationships. The Central and Western Ijo (referred to as the Ijo throughout this essay), who have historically depended on fishing and farming, often appear to have more in common with their Urhobo and Isoko neighbors than their Eastern Ijo relatives, who prospered as middlemen during the era of trade. Moreover, they tend to identify as Ijo smaller groups who have a similar life style but speak different languages.

"Ways of the Rivers" and the accompanying catalogue consider the relationship between culture and environment and also address issues surrounding the construction of identity in a multiethnic setting. These include: images and representations that contribute to identity; identity as enacted in core complexes that vary among cultures within a region; the different uses and manifestations of cultural borrowing; and ways intergroup relationships are defined. The exhibition also highlights two recurrent themes in Niger Delta cultures: water and war. Throughout the Delta--and well into adjoining mainland regions people associate water and water spirits with well-being, fertility, and prosperity. This "water ethos" surfaces in shrines, masquerades, and rituals associated with water spirits, as well as in aquatic exhibitions and performances on land that incorporate canoes and paddling displays. Though underlying beliefs tend to be more disparate, the "warrior ethos" manifests itself in virtually all Delta cultures in a group of related images and practices that emphasize masculine strength and assertiveness. Sometimes the two merge, as when ceremonial war canoes appear at festivals or when maskers impersonating water spirits aggressively pursue spectators with their machetes.

Masquerades and shrine arts provide the basic framework for exploring these issues. In addition to showcasing approximately 130 wonderful objects, including works by two internationally renowned contemporary artists, "Ways of the Rivers" exhibits two mannequins of masqueraders and two re-created environments--an Isoko shrine complete with sculpted emblems and other furnishings, and a lavishly decorated Kalabari funeral room. Several videos as well as field and archival photographs help to convey the context of arts in the Delta.

Theoretical Issues

Because of its unusual ecology and cultural diversity, the Niger Delta forces a number of theoretical issues, including the idea that the physical environment determines cultural behaviors. Embraced by anthropologists in the nineteenth century, this thesis fell out of favor long ago, for it failed to explain the diversity found among cultures existing in similar settings. Although no reputable scholar would wish to resurrect environmental determinism, the extreme wateriness of the Niger Delta clearly creates boundaries and opportunities for its human inhabitants. For example, as already noted, the riverain topography affected certain historical developments, such as trade.

The Delta's unique environment has encouraged a number of similar cultural traits. Peoples throughout the region celebrate their riverain lifestyle by mounting aquatic displays, including dazzling regattas, happily unaware of the "refuge area" thesis, which assumes that no one would choose to live in such a soggy environment without being compelled to do so by an external threat. Their world views often echo the constant contrasts between land and water. The Ijo, for example, associate the rivers that border their villages with wealth, fertility, and trade, but regard the surrounding forests as perilous places, fraught with dangerous animals and violent spirits. At the same time, responses to the environment differ enormously among Delta peoples: in contrast to the Ijo, whose art and ritual embrace water, the Isoko tend to be rather indifferent to it.

The region also provides a good laboratory for studying variability among multiethnic communities. Most Delta groups still function primarily at a village-group, or "clan," level, and demonstrate an exceptional capacity for incorporating and fusing social units. For the majority, the idea of large-scale ethnic identification is very recent. Interethnic violence has erupted from time to time, particularly within the hotly contested environs of Warri, where Itsekiri, Urhobo, and Ijo live side by side. Nevertheless, Delta peoples continue to gather together to lobby for issues that affect them as a whole.

By devoting itself to a geographical region instead of an individual ethnic group or a whole nation, "Ways of the Rivers" permits study of a puzzling dynamic of human cultures, an inquiry into a simultaneous need to be both alike and different within what we often term a culture area. Ethnic identity has always been a critical factor in the Delta, affecting both the interactions of its peoples and their relationships with outsiders. For example, links to powerful neighbors, such as the Benin kingdom, might be amplified or denied. This exhibition seeks to demonstrate some aspects of those intangible qualities--including style--that provide some sort of distinction among cultural groups. It argues that the arts may exhibit a greater degree of mutual intelligibility than spoken languages, that dress and diet may cross ethnic lines more than social structures do. For instance, people living throughout the Delta participate in a water-spirit masquerade complex known as Owu, express their regional identity by wearing distinctive garments that play on the style of Victorian nightshirts, and proclaim the virtues of a diet rich in fish. Emigres living in Lagos or London may intensify the practice of such "Delta" traditions.

By examining a range of art forms that reflect cultural borrowings as well as distinctive traits, this exhibition focuses on cultural authentication--the process by which traditions derived from the outside are validated by the authority of political or religious leaders. As groups adjust new elements--whether borrowed from distant or very different cultures--to make them conform to local aesthetics and beliefs, they often obscure their origins. The Kalabari Ijo, for example, have submitted European hats to radical changes in both style and meaning, transforming them into "traditional" headgear worn by prominent men.

The Art

Providing a dramatic entry to the exhibition are a trio of spectacular marine head-dresses, a group of life-size figures depicting ancestors and a bush spirit, and an array of beautiful and highly sophisticated bronzes from the Lower Niger Bronze Industry, a term that encompasses a stylistically diverse assortment of objects found scattered throughout southern Nigeria that appear to have been produced by several casting centers. Chosen to document the range of media, styles, and technologies and to attest to the historical longevity of arts in the region, these initial objects in the exhibition also signify the important relationship between culture and environment in the Niger Delta. An enormous, sawfish (oki) headdress (Fig. 1) greets visitors and provides an excellent example of the Delta's water and warrior emphases, as well as its shared art forms and styles. Oki's large size, wicked-looking snout, and aggressive behavior account for his popularity as a masquerade character throughout the region. The artist who carved this elegant example exaggerated the length of the fish's toothed rostrum and streamlined its body. The simplified naturalism of marine and reptile masks and their widespread distribution make it difficult to determine their origin. Some that have been arbitrarily attributed to the Abua or Ekpeye closely resemble others found among the Itsekiri, Urhobo, and Ijo, making a general Niger Delta label advisable for undocumented examples. Although typically less than life-sized, headpieces like these stand among the largest wooden masks in all of Africa.

The second gallery explores the role art plays in defining a person's identity as a male, female, youth, elder, titleholder, or member of a particular group. This section focuses on the Urhobo, Isoko, and Ijo, who share certain cultural traits and art forms while maintaining many distinctive traditions. All three stress the importance of military prowess for males and childbearing for women, and their arts reflect these roles. These groups have slightly different concepts of the individual, but all agree that features we might associate with personality or destiny can be affected through ritual as well as effort.

Certain images, differing somewhat in form and purpose by ethnic group, stand for various aspects of personhood. Addressing such matters as spirit doubles, personal aggressiveness, and hard work, they provide one of the most interesting ways by which to compare Delta peoples and their neighbors, including the Igbo and Edo. A re-created Isoko shrine contains a variety of small sculptures, which tend to be kept private, in comparison to those like the eye-catching Urhobo post in Figure 2, which are displayed in communal meeting houses. The images of crocodiles, pythons, skulls of enemies, and sacrificed animals that decorate such posts allude to the collective leadership that prevails at the lineage level, and also convey concepts associated with these motifs.

The exhibition affords the rare opportunity to compare multiple Isoko, Urhobo, and Ijo examples of one of the most characteristic of Delta art forms, the ivri. Although all three groups admire bold and assertive individuals, they admit that these same qualities can also render them extremely argumentative and temperamental. Among the Isoko, excessively stubborn and antisocial individuals (including women) can acquire personal sculptures called ivri to control these traits. War leaders serve larger ivri to increase and maintain their aggressiveness in order to safeguard their communities. The forms and imagery of these sculptures refer to assertiveness and aggression. Sizes and styles vary, but the basic unit consists of a ferocious, block-like beast, standing on four legs and flanked by vertical projections. In the brilliant Isoko example featured in the exhibition (Fig. 3), the figure mounted above the beast portrays a titled warrior, whose dress and attributes signal his power and prestige. Larger, more sculpturally complex examples incorporate secondary figures to suggest an entourage.

Life-cycle rituals play an important part in defining identity; in the Delta, those held to mark a girl's passage into womanhood prove to be the most fascinating, often featuring body painting, extravagant costumes, and lavish public displays. Among the Eastern Ijo, Ogoni, and neighboring groups in Southeastern Nigeria, young female initiates were confined, pampered, and fed rich foods to prepare them for marriage and motherhood. "Ways of the Rivers" includes video footage of the Okrika Ijo ceremonies as well as costume elements and photographs of Kalabari Ijo initiates. Sculptures scattered throughout the exhibition, including Ogoni puppets, depict young maidens fresh from the "fatting house," as the institution came to be called. One finely carved figure (Fig. 4) represents a tradition the Urhobo share with the Isoko. In the Urhobo region, girls once enjoyed nine months of leisure following excision. Attended by younger girls, the opha, or initiate, consumed rich food, paraded in fine clothing, and received guests bearing gifts. The Urhobo call her "She who sits as king" to acknowledge that they are temporarily granting her powers and privileges usually reserved for kings.

In the Niger Delta, men tend to be more closely associated with warlike, land-based spirits; women often have stronger ties to water spirits, who are thought to bring children. Although a display of Ijo and Urhobo carvings in the exhibition includes maternity and other female images, many of the figures depict males and express the region's warrior ethos. Ijo shrines typically portray forest or bush spirits as superhuman warriors with aggressively projecting features; when displayed in shrines, these forbidding images protect the community from evil spirits and other dangers. The stunning example shown in Figure 5 may represent a warlike spirit known as Tebesonoma, or "Seven Heads," who appears in the Ozidi play, a performance staged in villages throughout the area. Multiple glass eyes enhance his aura of supernatural vigilance and vitality. White markings probably denote his status as a titled member of the Peri warrior society. Although not clearly identifiable, the surmounting animal recalls stories about warriors who transformed themselves into leopards and other animals during battle.

This figure invites comparison with the Kalabari Ijo memorial screen in the next gallery (Fig. 6). Such screens reflect marked historical differences between Ijo living east and west of the Nun River by depicting merchant princes instead of forest spirits, yet they continue to express the warrior ethos by displaying weapons, trophy heads, and war paint. (The example, like many others, has lost its cloth costumes, paint, and detachable elements.)

Much of the rest of "Ways of the Rivers" focuses on the water ethos. Many individuals living in the region acknowledge personal relationships with water spirits, and some visit the shrines of more widely recognized spirits to secure children, health, and success in fishing or trading (a role that reinforces the spirits' image as fabulously wealthy "foreigners"). The exhibition addresses the theme of "wealth from the waters," which encompasses the rivers' role in fostering trade as well as beliefs about beneficent water spirits. For centuries, Delta peoples have incorporated trade goods into both ritual and political contexts. Shrines reflect the spirits' "foreign" origins and prosperity by displaying trade items like white saucers and plastic dolls as shrine emblems. Bronzes found in shrines or owned by leaders throughout the region, but probably cast at mainland centers, may indicate a centuries-old identification of water spirits with foreign wealth. Numerous Delta shrines display real leopard skulls, an animal widely associated with leadership and warfare. Bronze versions like one from the Hecht collection (Fig. 7), which features delicate decorative additions, were imported from the mainland for display in shrines. Others may have served as emblems of chiefly rank, like the tenth-century example found at Igbo Ukwu.

Numerous enterprising Delta traders amassed fortunes by serving as middlemen in the overseas trade, and European fashions and trade goods, ranging from top hats to bicycles, came to serve as markers of status and prestige for individuals living throughout the region. Some leaders amassed collections of imported objects to demonstrate their financial success; others transformed European trade goods into distinctively Delta art forms. The Kalabari Ijo provide a particularly good example of this phenomenon. Kalabari men express their power, prestige, and personalities by donning top hats, bowlers, and fedoras, but only chiefs wear flamboyant affairs like the ajibula in Figure 8. Kalabari hatmakers began with a European model, then submitted it to the process of cultural authentication, adding layers of material and meaning to create a distinctive and "traditional" art form. Prescribed elements of the ajibula include a ram's beard, feathers, and concentric circles (a Kalabari symbol). Mirrors, plastic baubles, fringe, and foil are added for aesthetic effect.

Eastern Ijo memorial arts, including the funeral bed shown in the preceding gallery, which is elaborately decorated with Indian madras, also reflect the eclectic approach taken by Delta artists. Kalabari memorial screens recall the bush spirit figures made to the west, and at the same time acknowledge traditionally valued military and artistic accomplishments; the example in the exhibition (Fig. 6) shows the central figure wearing the headdress of Alagba, an important masquerade character. The more egalitarian Ijo living to the west do not make ancestral memorials, and the Kalabari screens appear to have originated within the past few centuries in response to the emergence of elite rulers. Their construction shows knowledge of European joinery techniques, learned from ships' carpenters during centuries of trade, and their rectangular format has led to speculation about the influence of Benin plaques, European prints, and, as Nigel Barley suggests (1988), even photographs. An unusual Nembe Ijo carving (Fig. 9) is another example of this phenomenon. King Ockiya, a wealthy nineteenth-century Nembe trader, commissioned a number of figures to represent both his living family and his ancestors. Although he may have borrowed the idea of royal portraiture from the nearby Kalabari or the more distant court of Benin, his carvers seem to have been inspired by the figureheads of European ships, for the figure's naturalism contrasts markedly with the strict geometry of other Ijo carvings.

The immense popularity of water-spirit masquerades in the region today attests to a fascination with the world inside the waters. The Ijo term for both the spirits and masquerades that represent them, owu (or ou), now describes a masking complex that stretches from the Yoruba lagoons well into the Igbo area, far to the east. Many of the groups in this complex use horizontal masks derived from Ijo prototypes, but some, like the Urhobo and Isoko, have retained their own mask types while clearly basing their performances on Ijo models. Formal similarities suggest that the style traveled as far as the Grebo region of Liberia. The highly conceptualized, geometric style of some of the Ijo headpieces included in the exhibition, with their skull-like foreheads and projecting features, also prefigures European Cubism.

Ijo maskers, as demonstrated in the exhibition by two mannequins, impersonate water spirits by wearing colorful costumes that incorporate fish tails; the images on their headpieces range from upright human heads and figures to rapacious reptiles and marine animals to composite monsters that mix skull-like human features with aquatic forms. Carved in the clean geometric style of the Central and Western Ijo, a composite headdress from the Krannert Art Museum (Fig. 10) displays miniature mask-like faces thai: probably represent the spirit's children or followers as well as a projection that could allude to either a fish tail or the stern of a canoe. The brass inlays and porcelain eyes suggest both the bright, reflective surface of the water and the supernatural powers of the spirits who reside within it.

A display of headpieces from around the region makes it possible to compare the variants that have appeared among neighboring groups. A rare and historically significant Bini water-spirit headdress from the Indiana University Art Museum (Fig. 11) demonstrates that the Owu complex had spread to the Edo area by the nineteenth century, and probably much earlier. When members of the Benin Punitive Expedition passed through Ughoton, the port of Benin, in 1897, devotees of a "river spirit" named Igbile tried to repel them with a group of masks, including this one, which is known as Ighodo. Although it derives its basic style and horizontal form from Ijo models, the forehead and nose more closely resemble those on Lagoon Yoruba examples; however, the Bini do not Share the Yoruba reluctance to show bared teeth.

The exhibition's final gallery celebrates the Delta's unique environment. Water defines the Delta as a geographic unit and also serves as a leitmotif for the region's arts and cultures. It draws disparate peoples together by providing them with a sense of a shared identity. Throughout the Niger Delta, people celebrate their aquatic lifestyles both on land, where they pantomime fish hunts and paddle imaginary canoes, and on water, where they stage a variety of nautical displays. Shrines house paddles and fishing gear, songs mimic the lapping of waves, and dance steps evoke the flickering movements of fins and fish tails. Festivals almost always feature waterborne activities, ranging from athletic events like blindfolded canoe races to rituals that include offerings to water spirits. Ceremonial war canoes parade noisily along the region's myriad waterfronts, festooned with raffia and spewing smoking medicines. Similar boats, loaded with boastful competitors and their rowdy supporters, announce their arrival at wrestling meets with bells, drums, and horns. Well-dressed mourners travel to funerals aboard "engine boats" that serve as modern "dance canoes," and revelers transform ordinary barges into floating discos. Canoes and rafts ferry imperious "water spirits" to masquerade venues.

"Ways of the Rivers" conveys the festive spirit of a regatta and aquatic masquerades through videos and photographs, and pays tribute to aquatic modes of transportation through a display of art forms that that includes canoe masks and paddles. In the Niger Delta, paddles can serve as spirit emblems, shrine furnishings, and dance props as well as equipment for propelling canoes. A head sporting a European hat tops the handle of the exquisite Ogoni ceremonial paddle featured in this last section (Fig. 12). The female figure perched above the flaring form probably represents a maiden fresh from the "fatting house." An Ogoni masker may have used it to accentuate paddling motions.

Works by Bruce Onobrakpeya appear in this section. This highly acclaimed contemporary artist draws on a wide variety of sources, including the Urhobo shrines and Benin bronze reliefs he saw as a child. Several of the prints displayed here evoke the color and excitement of a regatta. The gallery also presents one of Onobrakpeya's large multimedia installations, Akporode (Fig. 13). Packed with assorted columns, stools, and paddle-like forms, whose intricate surfaces invite contemplation, it suggests the loose organization of Delta shrines and the artist's reverence for his cultural heritage.

Onobrakpeya and Sokari Douglas Camp, whose work also appears in the exhibition, represent the continued vitality of Niger Delta arts. "Ways of the Rivers" salutes all the Delta artists who have preceded them, and hopes to inspire a new generation to follow in their wake.

This issue:

The Niger Delta and Beyond

The articles in this special issue of African Arts represent cultural aspects related to the Niger Delta which are not addressed in the multiauthored volume accompanying the exhibition, but which complement and extend the ideas discussed in its pages. In addition to an overview of the archaeological record (by F. N. Anozie and A. A. Derefaka, p, 78), this issue includes articles that look at the Delta's connections with the Igbo peoples of southeastern Nigeria (by Eli Bentor, p. 26), and those of coastal Cameroon to the east (by Rosalinde Wilcox, p. 42), It also highlights Barry Hecht's impressive collection of Lower Niger artworks, a number of which appear in the "Ways of the Rivers." All these contributions attest to the richness, complexity, and vitality of the arts of the Niger Delta and neighboring regions,

M.G.A. and P.M.P.

Allen, Capt. Wm., R. N. and T. R. H. Thomson. 1848. A Narrative of the Expedition Sent by her Majesty's Government to the River Niger in 1841 under the Command of Capt. H. D. Trotter, R. N., vol. 1. London: Richard Bentley.

Arnoldi, Mary Jo and Christine Mullen Kreamer. 1995. Crowning Achievements: African Arts of Dressing the Head. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.

Barley, Nigel. 1988. Foreheads of the Dead: An Anthropological View of Kalabari Ancestral Screens. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Museum of African Art.

Foss, Perkins. 1976. "The Arts of the Urhobo Peoples of Southern Nigeria." Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University.

Foss, Perkins. 1981. Caption for figure in For Spirits and Kings: African Art from the Paul and Ruth Tishman Collection, ed. Susan Vogel. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This exhibition, organized by the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History and curated by Martha G. Anderson and Philip M. Peek, is the first to comprehensively explore the Niger Delta, a river environment unique in Africa, where many cultures have converged and thrived for centuries. Emphasizing the importance of water and environment in the daily and spiritual life of the region, "Ways of the Rivers: Arts and Environment of the Niger Delta" brings together more than 130 works--a multicultural assemblage of large-scale masks, water-spirit headdresses, warrior figures, puppets, and ritual dress. The exhibition opens at the Fowler Museum on May 19 and runs through November 17.

Anderson and Peek edited the companion publication of the same name. It includes essays by numerous authors and is distributed by the University of Washington Press, Seattle (634 pp., 72 b/w & 376 color illustrations, 2 maps, bibliography. $50 softcover). The two scholars are also guest editors of this special issue, "The Niger Delta and Beyond" (see p. 25).

MARTHA G. ANDERSON, who received her Ph.D. from Indiana University, is a professor of art history at Alfred University. She conducted research on Ijo art in the Niger Delta in 1978-79 and 1991-92.

PHILIP M. PEEK, a professor of anthropology at Drew University, conducted fieldwork among the Isoko of the northern Niger Delta in 1970-72. He has carried out research on African folklore, divination, and systems of knowledge.