Toyin Falola, Series Editor The Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor University of Texas at Austin Muslim Fula Business Elites Catholicism and the Making of Politics and Politics in Sierra Leone in Central Mozambique, – Alusine Jalloh Eric Morier-Genoud Race, Decolonization, and Global Liberated Aicans and the Abolition Citizenship in South Aica of the Slave Trade, – Chielozona Eze Edited by Richard Anderson and Plantation Slavery in the Sokoto Henry B. Lovejoy Caliphate: A Historical and The Other Abyssinians: Comparative Study The Northern Oromo and the Mohammed Bashir Salau Creation of Modern Ethiopia Aican Migration Narratives: Brian J. Yates Politics, Race, and Space Nigeria’s Digital Diaspora: Edited by Cajetan Iheka and Citizen Media, Democracy, Jack Taylor and Participation Ethics and Society in Nigeria: Farooq A. Kperogi Identity, History, Political Theory Nimi Wariboko Aican Islands: Leading Edges of Empire and Globalization Edited by Toyin Falola, R. Joseph Parrott, and Danielle Porter-Sanchez A complete list of titles in the Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora series may be found on our website, www.urpress.com. West African Masking Traditions and Diaspora Masquerade Carnivals History, Memory, and Transnationalism • Raphael Chijioke Njoku Copyright © by Raphael Chijioke Njoku CC BY-NC All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation, no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. First published University of Rochester Press Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY , USA www.urpress.com and Boydell & Brewer Limited PO Box , Woodbridge, Suolk IP DF, UK www.boydellandbrewer.com ISBN- : ­---- ISSN: - Cataloging-in-Publication data available from the Library of Congress. This publication is printed on acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America. is book is published as part of the Sustainable History Monograph Pilot. With the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Pilot uses cutting-edge publishing technology to produce open access digital editions of high-quality, peer-reviewed monographs from leading university presses. Free digital editions can be download- ed from: Books at JSTOR, EBSCO, Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, OAPEN, Project MUSE, and many other open repositories. While the digital edition is free to download, read, and share, the book is under copyright and covered by the following Creative Commons License: CC BY-NC. Please consult www. creativecommons.org if you have questions about your rights to reuse the material in this book. When you cite the book, please include the following URL for its Digital Object Identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.38051/9781787447202 We are eager to learn more about how you discovered this title and how you are using it. We hope you will spend a few minutes answering a couple of questions at this url: https://www.longleafservices.org/shmp-survey/ More information about the Sustainable History Monograph Pilot can be found at https://www.longleafservices.org. In memory of Nne Nkáru Anosike, Njoku Timothy Anosike, Peter Njoku, Francis Joseph Ayozieuwa Njoku, Ukaerueze Ejimofor, Ejimofor Nwaiwu, and Francisca Ulumma Uzodinma • Preface xiii Abbreviations xvii Introduction On Origins of Masking: History, Memory, and Ritual Observances Aspects of Society and Culture in the Biafra Hinterland Bantu Migrations and Cultural Transnationalism in the Ancient Global Age, c. BCE– CE ­ Bight of Biafra, Slavery, and Diasporic Africa in the Modern Global Age, – Igbo Masquerade Dances in the African Diasporas: Symbols and Meanings Unmasking the Masquerade: Counterideologies and Contemporary Practices ­ Idioms of Religion, Music, Dance, and African Art Forms Memory and Masquerade Narratives: The Art of Remembering Notes Bibliography Figures . European mask, . Masquerade dress, Europe, – . The Carnival of Venice, ­ . Death mask of Ramses II of ancient Egypt . Dancing initiation masks, boys’ initiation, Cross River . Spirit (mmụọ) masquerade . Ghost police, Amobia Village . Boys’ masquerade (Ibibio style mask) Abiriba . Bantu migrations ­ . A slave dance in Surinam, . A gábá masquerade of Umunneọhá Mbáitoli . Female counterpart of Achi Mbieri Okoroshá masquerade . Achi Mbieri Okoroshá masquerade ­. Band playing for Mmáu masquerade, Amuda Village, Isu Ochi ­. Ohaa war dancer with headboard (Ọyáyá) ­ Tables . Africa departures by region . The Bight of Biafra embarkation and principal port of disembarkation, – . Percentage of enslaved children sold to British slave traders at the Bight of Biafra xi My conceptual journey to this study began before I learned how to read and write. Growing up in the ­s while the Igbo recuperated from the traumas of the –­ Nigerian Civil War, my grandmother, a keen host for our regular moonlight tales, would jokingly chide the kids arriving late from the composite households with the au fait: “He who arrives at the middle of a story leaves with a disjointed narrative.” Her words echo an Igbo saying: “When a man who was absent at a burial exhumes the corpse, the village should be prepared to deal with a disembodied cadaver.” While both proverbs underscore the imperative of complete and accurate mastery of a subject in general, they particularly chal- lenge students of Africana Studies to ensure grounded knowledge of the com- plex and intricate nuances of the African roots of African American history and culture they market. Otherwise, the ominous risk is to produce incoherent and disjointed accounts. In this book, I bring an African voice to the copious volumes of studies on African and African Diaspora linkages by focusing on African-styled masquer- ade carnivals. Taking into account the unique roles masquerades played in the indigenous society, the voice with African linguistic, ethnic, and cultural roots is crucial so not to have the details muddled in translation in an age of modernist thinking. The book informs the reader where, when, and how the African mas- querade genre was invented and explains the life force behind the festival play. Masquerading in the Africana world was a dynamic device of narratology. For the enslaved people, the art of masquerade engagee was one of the most po- tent survival devices in the Americas. By exploring the origins, religious idioms, symbols, internal and diasporic diusions, and the music, dance, and drama that accompany the masquerade tradition, the result is to see beyond the jamboree displays, which most people have identied with carnivals everywhere today. With a Pan-African approach contextualized in change-over-time-and-space argument, this book also speaks to the connection between Bantu migration and the ethnic complexity and spread of masquerade culture across the con- tinent and beyond. In addressing this theme, I provide a richer and fuller ac- count of both the internal dynamics and the multiple and multifaceted cultural xiv Preface connections between Africa and the African Diasporas without reifying culture as something cast in stone. The Bantu-African masquerade genre that evolved from the Bight of Biafra hinterland is adaptive and was in constant ux prior to the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade. Its presence in the Americas was an extension of the uid Bantuization process outside Africa by way of creolization. Bearing in mind the agitated debates it conjures, the Bantu paradigm de- serves further clarication. As employed here, Bantu as a concept is more than the language question; it is symbolic for precolonial cultural inventions and the hybridities that connect African societies across regional lines. Colonial schol- ars who pioneered Bantu studies and classied African languages into dier- ent families admitted that they did not understand fully the etymologies and complex nuances of African languages and the culture they carry. As a result, the early Bantu scholars placed the Igbo language among the Kwa subfamily of the parent Niger-Congo family. The colonial scholars discounted the fact that the Cross River Igbo (including Ábám, Ábiribá, Ákpo, Arọchukwu, Èddá, Ezzikwo, Ihe, Igbèrè, Ikwo, Isu, Nkporo, Ọháá, Ọkpọsi, Uburu, Unwáná, and Ututu) share similar history, culture, and language with their Èk, Ibibio, Ijọ, and Èkọi neighbors who were classied into the Bantu subfamily group of the Niger-Congo group. In a eld of history where the word of the colonial scholar oen carries the same weight as a papal bull, it is critical to start rethinking some of the serious aws inherent in these received sweeping ideas in order to turn a new corner in African history. Aer eminent scholars such as Adiele Ebere- chukwu Agbo, Ogbu Kalu, and Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa, I reiterate here that the Igbo language, particularly the various dialects spoken among the Cross River Igbo, align more to the Bantu subfamily than the Kwa subgroup. I owe numerous individuals immense gratitude for their assistance in com- pleting this project. From the very beginning, Baldwin Anyasodo, Chidi G. Osuagwu, Joseph Bangura, Emmanuel Amadife, Apollos Nwauwa, Dimeji To- gunde, John McLeod, Thomas Mackey, Tracy K’Meyer, Christine Ehrick, and Francis O. C. Njoku oered their support that saw to the successful completion