Igbo Male Shrine Figure, Nigeria

alusi
Wood, pigments
height 53 1/2in (135.9cm)

Provenance
Merton Simpson Gallery, New York
Emmett Heitler Collection, Denver
Important California Private Collection

Mark: "B.0809" in white paint on rear of proper right foot

According to Herbert Cole, these shrine figures "were symbols of supernatural beings, not gods (or idols)--who could be seen only by dead people, as one man put it--yet the deities were themselves quite like human beings, with both positive and negative attributes, their behavior conditioned in part by how they were treated by their human devotees. At the same time, their conventionalized nature--the simplified naturalism of the styles in which deity figures were typically carved--reinforced the notion that they were not intended to represent actual human beings. Many figures--male and female--from the Onitsha/Nri/Awka region and some from Owerri have carefully rendered ichi forehead scarification even though this type of title-prerogative was in most places largely confined to males. Such forehead marking, consisting of deeply incised grooves (which must have been painful to receive), indicate that the gods are of high status in local thought...The chest scars that run down the torso to or past the navel were not title attributes, but rather, a form of beautification affected by both males and females." (Invention and Tradition: The Art of Southeastern Nigeria, 2012, pp. 55-56)