Ijaw fishermen are dependant on the meandering creeks, lagoons, and mangrove swamps of the Niger Delta. They negotiate this environment with quixotic water spirits who live in underwater communities and control the movement of fish and animals. Masquerades call on their help and attempt to control their unpredictable behavior with songs, dances and plays that encourage good will.
Wood, basketry, nails, pigment
6 7/8 x 7 1/2 x 38 3/8 in. (17.5 x 19.1 x 97.5 cm)
Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company
81.17.530
Now on view at the
Seattle Art Museum
Resources
Exhibition HistoryLos Angeles, California, Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California, African Art in Motion: Icon and Act, Jan. 20 - Mar. 17, 1974 (Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, May 5 - Sept. 22, 1974). Text by Robert Farris Thompson. No cat. no., p. 144, reproduced pl. 185 (as mask).
Los Angeles, California, The Fowler Museum at UCLA, Ways of The Rivers: Arts and Environment of the Niger Delta, May 18 - Nov. 17, 2002.
Published ReferencesMcClusky, Pamela. African Art: From Crocodiles to Convertibles in the Collection of the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 1987; cat. no. 7, p. 15, reproduced (as Headdress for Ekine Society).
Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.
