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Leadership Symbolism in Onitsha Igbo Crowns and Ijele Author(S): Richard N Leadership Symbolism in Onitsha Igbo Crowns and Ijele Author(s): Richard N. Henderson and Ifekandu Umunna Source: African Arts, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Feb., 1988), pp. 28-37+94-96 Published by: UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3336526 Accessed: 01/06/2010 12:37 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=jscasc. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to African Arts. http://www.jstor.org LeadershipSymbolism in Onitsha Crowns and Igbo Ijele RICHARDN. HENDERSON* IFEKANDUUMUNNA distinctive contribu- forms an elegant and powerful cultural In West African religions these relation- Anthropology'stion to the study of art is to view art construction of this sort. ships are grounded philosophically in objects in relation to the whole culture The ijele is part of a cultural complex origin myths. According to the Nri ver- and to other cultures. Our aim here is to that Cole and Aniakor (1984:map A) sion, in the Beginning the Great God in examine certain headdresses of Igboland characterize as "northcentral Igbo" (in- the Sky created a termite hill and sent in this light. The forms of objects them- cluding the people of the Anambra val- down the first Nri king to sit upon it. selves may directly stimulate aesthetic ley and associated uplands of southeast- There the king found himself sur- experience. When, for example, the ijele ern Nigeria). Its traditional cultural cen- rounded by a limitless morass, and masquerade of the Igbo (Cover), with ter is the Nri-Awka area where the divine asked for help. The Great God then its combination of great mass and deli- king of the ancient kingdom of Nri re- facilitated the drying out of mother cate symmetry, is displayed in a dance by sides. Throughout West Africa, divine earth, created vegetation and animal life, a bipedal performer, its beholders can kingship has long been rooted in reli- and gave the king the staple food plants hardly fail to experience meanings as- gions that postulate an intimate associa- (yam and cocoyam) enabling human be- sociating strength with balance. Such tion between the lives of humans and the ings to thrive. Ever since that time the meanings appear to be universals, life of nature.2 They postulate moreover Nri king has had both the right and the rooted in our very perception of the ob- that human beings can increase their duty to establish the yearly and seasonal jects themselves. The most powerful control of natural forces and ensure cycles, to make yam medicine and dis- aesthetic experiences are induced when prosperity by installing selected indi- tribute it among the surrounding such visually salient forms are connected viduals into leadership positions that en- peoples so the yams will be good, and to to the dominant symbols or root tail increasingly close relationships with send his agents traveling among them to metaphors of a culture in such a way that aspects of nature that the people identify supervise and repair their moral rela- the composition of the art object leads as crucial, and by instituting ritual pro- tionship with the earth, upon whose participants to experience that culture's grams in which these divine kings dem- good will both survival and long-term reality as a whole.1 In this paper, we onstrate both identification with and prosperity depend.3 suggest that the Igbo ijele masquerade control over these natural forces. This basic cosmology - in which the opposition between earth and sky is mediated by natural vitality (vegetable, animal) together with the moral guid- ance of human leadership - is wide- spread in Africa, with kings (and to some extent lesser leaders as well) possessing attributes of both "mother earth" and "father sky" In West Africa there is a general tendency for the king's relation- ship to mother earth to be less explicit, more hidden than his overt identifica- tion with the sky.4 For example, in the Nri-linked kingdom of Onitsha (where our own work has been concentrated), everyone knows to hail the king as igwe, which means "sky," but far fewer know his salutation as nkpu, which means "termite hill." These two terms of refer- ence reflect the basic polar dualism of the I. Onitsha king's identity.5 In this paper we suggest that this cul- tural complex is reflected both in the ~~.kL4TIforms of ijele masquerades and in aesthe- tic forms homologous to them: the headdresses worn by Onitsha chiefs and the king. Consider the appearance of these latter during the festive emergence of the king from his normal life of palatial seclusion. These "great crowns" 1. PHILIPANATOGU, THE PRIMEMINISTER (ONOWU) OF ONITSHA,WEARING HIS GREATCROWN. OCTOBER1960. (nnukwu-okpu)6are mainly worn for the 28 Jr 2. CHIEF OREFO, THEN OWELEOF ONITSHA, DANCES TO OBI OKOSI II'S ROYALWAR DRUMS AT THE FUNERALOF THE OBI (KING) IN 1961. annual New Yam Harvest festival (ofala), when chiefs and king assemble with their people in the royal palace square. lot Viewed from a distance, these headdres- 17 *ab. 4W' ses primarily display plumage (Fig. 3). In low, 400, the early 1960s, the use of imported os- trich feathers overshadowed that of the more traditional local birds like the cattle 1.va egret, and some feathers were dyed in 4C- colors including purple, yellow, red, green, or violet, creating spectacular ef- fects. But among this varied array of feathers must also be those of the vul- turine fish eagle, ugo, king of birds. Typi- cally the large feathers have been 4f ro stripped except for their tufted tips, lend- 'Of ing a strongly branch-like aspect to the superstructure (Fig. 1). Itu The clustered feathers and intimations of branching on these spectacular crowns suggest birds perching on a tree, and therefore a tree itself, an im- plication made quite explicit in the Onitsha people's prime metaphors for leadership: the leader is a "mighty tree," oke osisi (this is a general term accom- modating diverse types of trees), that gives birds perching on its outstretched arms and shoulders a safe abode. We infer that one dominant symbol of these 3. THE GREATCROWN HEADDRESSES OF ONITSHA CHIEFS(NDICHIE) CLUSTERNEAR THE ENTRYWAY headdresses is a tree of this kind. TO THE PALACEOF THE OBI DURING OKOSI II'S FINALFUNERARY FESTIVE EMERGENCE IN MARCH 1961. 29 The chief's head rests under a small Onitsha people also have ijele (Fig. 5). symbolized by incarnate ancestors like depression whose top side is exagger- They explicitly identify this masked fig- ijele. Ijele, then, represents both an ideali- ated to form a mound, out of which rises ure as representing a deceased person of zation of the titled leader - his reflection the central pillar that (in one dimension high title, a great leader who has re- as it were, coming from the other earth of meaning) designates the trunk of the turned from the land of the dead, emerg- - and a potential social opposition to liv- tree. Vertical arches and horizontal loops ing out of the termite hole that connects ing, titled leaders. The masquerade as- are then attached to complete the this world with the other earth of the hal- sociation forms a collective opposition to framework. lowed ancestors (ani-mmuo, "land of the the overweening pretensions of living Around the periphery of the flat disk dead"). Like the chief's headdress, its leaders, in the name of the idealized base, coiled decorations suggest an en- primary visual aspect is elevated plum- leadership of the dead.8 circling snake (Fig. 2). In Onitsha this age, implying birds perching in a tree ris- Below the disk of the ijele's headdress implies the python, denizen of rivers ing out of a mounded base, with a much (Fig. 5), the bearer of this crown takes not and messenger of mother earth. Also more prominent coiled snake signaling living human form but that displayed in present on the base, sometimes dangling mother earth's domain. color coding and decoration of the ijele from its circumference, and in the lower In Figure 5, we see the ijele figure es- elsewhere among the Nri-associated part of the superstructure are small corted by members of the Ota ("Arrow") Igbo. This color patterning is prominent bronzes and other objects that may in- age set, men who are of course members also in another context: so-called clude representations of small animals of the secret "incarnate dead" or "mas- maiden-spirits, ghostly women who also like the lizard, tiny mirrors, iron tools, querade" (mmanwu) organization of the represent the vitalizing, fertilizing pow- and other valuables.
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