These stools were bought in England during the 1940s with no recorded provenance, nor has there been recorded provenance for other stools known to us with similarly carved figure supports. A four-figure stool in the collections of the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva (Schmalenbach, W., Ed., African Art from the Barbier-Mueller Collection, Geneva, Munich, 1988, p.278, pl.184) is classified tentatively by Professor Biebuyck as pre-Bembe, but in his book on the pre-Bembe hunters (Biebuyck, D.P., Statuary from the pre-Bembe hunters, Mechelen, 1981) he illustrated no figures with similar scarificiations nor other characteristics.

All the figures on the stools of this type known to us bear the crescent keloid scarficiation at the temples so typical of the Tiv of the Benue valley (e.g. amongst the others, Neyt, F. and Désirant, A., The Arts of the Benue to the roots of tradition, Tielt, 1985, p.186, fig IV.23). We were told by one authority on Zairian art that he had never come across similar temple scarification in Zaire. The scarification about the navels on the female figures also resembles that found on carved ancestor figures and some figurative spoons from the Tiv. The border of alternating dark and light triangles occurs on a Tiv spoon, the handle of which is carved as a figure with the crescent scarification at the temples (illustrated by Neyt, op. cit. p.192, fig.IV.34). Finally, the panel of engraved diaperwork on the top of the Barbier-Mueller example resembles the decoration on some Igala and Nupe artefacts, which would seem to confirm a northern Nigerian rather than a Zairian origin for this group of stools.