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Pdf/45/1/90/1735693/Afar.2012.45.1.90.Pdf by Guest on 23 September 2021 Catalogue’S Illustrations Are First Encountered asked by museum visitors about facial striation, book review the illustrations of four Ife artworks presented near the beginning of this commentary are evenly divided between striated and unstriated examples. On p. 6, cat. #1 presents a crowned and striated copper-alloy head (believed to represent a woman) found at the Wunmonije site in 1938, and on p. 7, cat. #2 illustrates the crowned terracotta head of another royal woman without striations, found in an intact Dynasty and Divinity shrine at Ita Yemoo. The fine, parallel lines on Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria some Ife faces are usually interpreted as cicatri- by Henry John Drewal and Enid zations that differentiate the status or lineages 5 Schildkraut of Ife residents, and alternate theories that have been suggested are offered on pp. 10 and 12. New York: Museum for African However, in this introduction to archaeologi- Art, 2010. 200 pp. 140 color, 10 cal sites and to Ife’s royal regalia (pp. 2–12), ongo- b/w illus., glossary. $40.00 paper ing problems with the designer’s layout of the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/afar/article-pdf/45/1/90/1735693/afar.2012.45.1.90.pdf by guest on 23 September 2021 catalogue’s illustrations are first encountered. reviewed by Barbara W. Blackmun First, there is considerable confusion between illustrations designated by figure numbers, Although sculptures from the medieval King- and those represented by catalogue numbers. dom of Ife are familiar to specialists in African with Henry John Drewal to produce two well- For example, Figure 4 appears as a full-page studies, they are relatively unknown outside researched discussions, each from a separate photograph on p. 11, while Cat. 4 appears as a of this field. A hundred years have passed point of view. Although both presentations are small photograph accompanied by text on p. since the sophistication of Ife’s early terracot- written for the general public, specialists will 9. In addition, beyond the informal black-and- tas and bronzes1 amazed the German explorer also find them informative. Nevertheless, the white photograph of a few bronze heads being Leo Frobenius;2 yet very few scholars are cur- catalogue is flawed by the publisher’s awkward unpacked from the Wunmoniije site in 1938 and rently exploring Nigeria’s early history through book design, possibly resulting from the rapid color photographs of two crowned examples archaeology. Thirty-one years have passed incorporation of two essays into a single volume. during Schildkraut’s excellent discussion of stria- since Michael Kan, Ekpo Eyo, and Frank Wil- Although periodic insertions of full-page pho- tions and royal regalia (pp. 4–11), no further pho- lett featured Ife’s extraordinary sculptures in tographs add unprecedented reference value, it tographs of Ife’s distinctive Wunmonije bronzes Treasures of Ancient Nigeria,3 and a reintro- is difficult to correlate these with the text, and can be found in the early part of the catalogue. duction is overdue. Perhaps the visual appeal from time to time, the narrative is abruptly cut Finally, on p. 50, far from this relevant discus- of the Dynasty and Divinity catalogue will off mid-sentence by multiple pages of unrelated sion, the bronze half-figure from Wunmonije, stimulate efforts to probe more deeply into the illustrations. Perhaps the placement of photo- portrayed in the full regalia of an Ooni of Ife, advanced state of culture in southern Nigeria graphs can be adjusted in a subsequent edition. appears unheralded in a full-page illustration as between 1000 and 1400 ce. The catalogue begins with Schildkraut’s “Ife cat. #38, followed by eight other full-page pho- A farsighted law prohibits the acquisition of Art in West Africa: An Introduction to the tographs of Wunmonije bronze heads without Ife’s antiquities abroad, although multiple thefts Exhibition,” which frames the cultural setting: commentary on pp. 56–65. that occurred in Nigeria during the late twenti- Inexplicably, Schildkraut’s introduction to eth century have caused great concern.4 There- According to Yoruba myth, Ile-Ife was where the world the beaded regalia of the bronze Ooni of Ife on fore, the proposal presented by Enid Schildkraut began. The kings, queens, and deities whose stories ani- p. 12 is cut short in mid-sentence by the inser- and Suzanne Blier, requesting the loan of these mate Yoruba history and art all trace their origins to this tion of eight unrelated pages filled with indi- masterworks for a second traveling exhibition, ancient center of art and commerce … Ife is associated vidual photographs of early stone figures and was unusually ambitious. The complexities of with the ancestors, with the first dynasties and deities, other rudimentary carved stones, which are not the venture also included the rapid assembly and and with the invention of technology and art. As the discussed in detail until Henry Drewal’s essay in publication of the Dynasty and Divinity cata- ancestral home of some sixteen legendary kingdoms that the second part of the catalogue. It is not until logue in English and its immediate translation first flourished between 1100 and 1200 ce, Ife retains a Schildkraut’s interrupted introduction finally into Spanish, in time to accompany the exhibi- spiritual primacy for Yoruba-speaking people in Nigeria reappears on p. 22 and concludes with an ori- tion’s earliest venues in Santander and Madrid. and beyond (p. 2). entation to the traditions associated with Ife’s After His Majesty, the Ooni of Ife opened sacred groves and shrines, that the significance the exhibition at the British Museum in Lon- Schildkraut then explains that scholars have of these ancient stones is somewhat clarified. don, it was moved across the Atlantic for dis- not been able to resolve many perplexing ques- There seems to be no reason for interrupting play in Houston, Richmond, and Indianapolis. tions concerning Ife’s cultural inheritance, and her introductory essay with this long photo- Credit for its success should be particularly she provides a full-page map of contemporary graphic section illustrating individual stones, reserved for Enid Schildkraut, Chief Curator southwestern Nigeria, on which cities and states before adding the two concluding pages that and Director of Exhibitions at the Museum associated with specific Yoruba groups can be would assist the reader to make sense of them. for African Art in New York, who personally located (Fig. 5, p. 13). After introducing two of Moreover, the eighteen-foot-tall Staff of supervised the shipping of the chosen sculp- the many sites that have yielded extraordinary Oranmiyan (Opa Oranmiyan), which is the tures from Nigeria and has also written the sculptures (Wunmonije Compound and Ita best known and most impressive of Ife’s stand- essay that forms the first half of the catalogue. Yemoo), she briefly comments on archaeological ing stones, does not appear among these In presenting Dynasty and Divinity in cata- investigations from 1938 through the present. instrusive photographs. This huge monolith logue form, Schildkraut has joined forces In anticipation of the questions most often is illustrated for the first time by Henry Dre- 90 | african arts SPRING 2012 af_78-96.indd 90 11/14/2011 1:08:23 PM wal on p. 82 in the second half of the catalogue. the catalogue. headed lids from Ekpo Eyo’s excavation of Ife’s There it fits easily into his detailed explanation When the text resumes on p. 42, there is a Lafogido burial site (cat. #40–41), and finally, far of these shaped stones, which he divides into brief but inaccurate reference to Frobenius and from their introduction in the first pages of the Ife’s Archaic period and later Pre-Pavement his major discovery, stating that “a cast bronze Catalogue, the bronze half figure of an Ooni of period, which both precede the production of head in the exhibition represents Olokun, the Ife from the Wunmonije site (cat. #38) and eight the bronze and terracotta heads. In the cata- goddess of the sea, associated with beads and of the fifteen life-sized and uncrowned bronze logue design, all of the photographs of Ife’s wealth.” Fortunately, by the time this wide- heads (cat. #42–49) found at Wunmonije. stone sculptures could have been placed more spread misconception is encountered in the On p. 66, these illustrations are followed by appropriately into Drewal’s essay to support his text, the reader may have already found the one of the most fascinating images in the art detailed discussion of individual monoliths. correction on p. 27, accompanying the photo- of Ife (cat. #50): the unique, tiny, but detailed Schildkraut’s city diagram could have appeared graph of this crowned head (cat. #16): sculpture, four-and-a-half inches high, found on its own within her excellent introduction to in a cache of other bronzes near the Ita Yemoo the role of sacred shrines, as an aid to locating The name Olokun attributed to this head refers to the shrine. This impressive little bronze portrays the Ore Grove, as well as the Wunmonije and fact that it was dug up in the late nineteenth century in a bowl resting on the stool throne of Ife. (The Ita Yemoo archaeological sites. the Olokun Grove. At that time, it was used in annual unusual characteristics of these royal stools are Schildkraut’s interrupted section of the cata- rites honoring Olokun, goddess of the sea and patroness explained on pp. 86–87 and 124–25, and are logue continues with her comments on the of bead-making. It probably represents an Ooni and, in pictured in Figs. 21–22.) 7 need for increased research into the early his- its original form, had nothing to do with Olokun.
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