TERA Gallery - African Art and Antiquities

"Altering The Way You View The World Of Art"
Type of Object:
    Mumuye Figure

    Mumuye figures are some of the most highly stylized figures
    found in West Africa. Their highly attuned figures are prime
    examples of the best of abstractive and stylistic
    development available in African sculpture.  The Mumuye
    are also well known for their highly abstracted figures carve
    in wood  figures called Lagalagana.  

    This sculpture incarnating the tutelary spirit, however,  has
    been worked in iron reflecting a tradition relatively
    undocumented in their art.  Figures such as this represent
    females with a high crested hairstyle and large wooden
    plugs placed into the extended lobes of the ears. This is a
    unique example of Mumuye iron working blending the craft
    of the blacksmith to the better known shape of the wooden
    carved figures..   

    Even though the Mumuye show great respect for the
    ancestors, their statuary does not depict ancestors but
    rather incarnates tutelary spirits. These statues were used
    by both diviners and healers, whose professions included
    diagnosis and cure of ill health and other kinds of
    misfortune. They are thought to be able to manipulate the
    forces of nature and control human behavior. Mumuye
    figures participate in ceremonies to bring rain, guard the
    house, make iron, heal, advise, and officiate at funerals, and
    serve as the wner’s confidant. They are also used in trials
    when men in dispute swear on the statue, which they must
    kiss. Elders used them to reinforce their status in society. It
    was not unusual for a figure simultaneously to serve two or
    more functions.

    These figures are in the care of a trusted elder who keeps
    them in a shrine that is a small hut in the family compound
    where the figures are involved in family and everyday
    community life.

    Due to the difficulty of access to their lands of rocky hills and
    savannas, the Mumuye remained in near total isolation until
    the end of 1950. They were an unknown culture before the
    1960s.

Ethnic Group:
    Mumuye Society

Country of Origin:  
    Nigeria

Material:   
    Iron

Dimensions:

Reference: