AN IJO WATER SPIRIT HEADDRESS

Details

AN IJO WATER SPIRIT HEADDRESS
Ekine Society

Overall plank form with body and bent arms of elongated cylindrical section, stylized hands, palms held upwards, circular head with bifurcated tail like coiffure, face with protruding rounded forehead, overhanging tubular eyes, mouth of oval section jutting forward, tail with three protruding spikes along a central axis, framed at the top with a cresecent shaped abstracted faces turned outwards on either side, 41½in (105.4cm.) high

Literature

Anderson and Kremer, , 1989, p. 113, no. 65
Preston, 1991, p. 103, pl. 42
Wild Spirits Strong Medicine, Center for African Art, New York, 1989

Lot Essay

The Ijo are known for their fantastic water spirit headdresses which combine human and aquatic animal features, although they represent creatures of the unruley wilderness, they are believed to have both benedicent as well as evil traits (see Anderson and Kremer, 1989, p. 49). None of the headdresses are exactly the same, and theis inventive creation represents an animal that is abviously not part of the natural world.