© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University

ClassificationsAfrican Art

Face Mask with Superstructure, Okorisia Nma

Place CreatedOwerri, Nigeria, Africa

CultureIgbo, southern

Date20th Century

MediumWood, metal, pigment

Credit LineEx coll. William S. Arnett

Dimensions22 7/16 x 8 7/8 x 6 7/8 in. (57 x 22.5 x 17.5 cm)

Object number1994.004.201

Label TextThis mask with a Janus-faced superstructure is said to have come from Owerri in southwestern Igbo country, but the janus form itself is borrowed from the Cross River region to the north and east. This kind of mixing is common in Igbo masks, partly due to the presence of a large number of styles in southeastern Nigeria and partly because masquerades travel. They can be commissioned or purchased by a community far from their point of origin, so that an Owerri mask need not have been made by an Owerri carver.

While this mask is not a classic okorosia type, in Owerri it may have been used as an okorosia masquerade. The belief in Okorosia water spirits is borrowed from the Niger Delta to the south. Okorosia masks are considered to be the messengers of Owu, a water deity found in the Niger Delta region. They descend from their homes in the clouds and appear on earth for a month every year at the peak of the rainy season. This mask is a representation of one of the friendly and beautiful feminine spirits, Okorosia Nma, which dance in white attire while gesturing with fans or dance-paddles. About their waists are hung large brass bells. Their visual and behavioral opposites, the Okorosia Ojo, are ugly and fierce spirits with distorted features that contrast utterly with the small, finely-featured and symmetrical whiteface type seen here.

Exhibition HistoryThree Rivers of Nigeria: Art of the Lower Niger, Cross, and Benue from the Collection of William and Robert Arnett, The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, 1978
Art of Nigeria from the William S. Arnett Collection, Michael C. Carlos Museum, October 15, 1994 - January 2, 1995
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, Rotation 2, February 1997 - July 1998
Published ReferencesMarcilene K. Wittmer and William Arnett, Three Rivers of Nigeria: Art of the Lower Niger, Cross and Benue (Atlanta: The High Museum of Art, 1978), 34, number 77.

ProvenanceEx coll. William S. Arnett (1939-2020), Atlanta, Georgia, by 1978.

Status

Not on view

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