A RARE IBO DANCE CREST, for the Ekpe masquerade, the two heads each with painted scarification about the face and keloids to forehead and temples, one with the coiffure carved as layered tresses, the oval superstructure above painted with black and white segments, the other with the median crest with painted triangles, the rectangular strut below with similarly painted ornament, on flared base with ringed stem, painted black, ochre, red and white, some damages and restoration to one crest, Ohuhu-Ngwa area

Details

A RARE IBO DANCE CREST, for the Ekpe masquerade, the two heads each with painted scarification about the face and keloids to forehead and temples, one with the coiffure carved as layered tresses, the oval superstructure above painted with black and white segments, the other with the median crest with painted triangles, the rectangular strut below with similarly painted ornament, on flared base with ringed stem, painted black, ochre, red and white, some damages and restoration to one crest, Ohuhu-Ngwa area
65cm. high

Provenance

Dr. G.I. Jones

Lot Essay

Jones (1973, pp.62 and 63) records that the Ekpe masquerade had been defunct for some time in the Ohuhu villages, but it still survived in the 1930s in the Ngwa area under various other names. There were no masks used in the masquerade, but only heads, in which he recognised a Lower Niger influence. He calls the dance Ekpe (Ibo) to distinguish it from the Cross River Ekpe (Egbo). He illustrates a similar crest (1973, p.63. fig.13): Cole and Aniakor illustrate another collected in Nsulu by K.C. Murray (with whom Jones travelled in Nigeria in the 1930s), now in the National Museum, Lagos (1984, p.178, fig.295, also illustrated by Jones, 1984, p.201, fig.103).

The carving of these dance crests ceased in the 1930s and the style does not appear to have been revived nor imitated to date

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