37. Decorative Art Among the Edo-Speaking Peoples of Nigeria: I. Decoration of Buildings
Author(s): N. W. Thomas
Source: Man, Vol. 10 (1910), pp. 65-66
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2788306


Decorative Art among the Edo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria: 97 1. Decoration of Buildings. By N. W. Thomas, M.A


In this linguistic family, of which the Bini are the best known and most populous tribe, there is, on the whole, a marked absence of incised, plastic, or laid-on ornament. In Benin City individual houses are found with colours laid on the outer walls in geometrical or other simple design; in one case I have noticed the niche of an ebo (commonly translated " juju " with a circle of radiating coloured bands around it; and one house has plastic figures of Europeans and others upon it; but all these cases are sporadic and due to individual taste or eccentricity. In Uzebu, a western suburb of Benin City, where Ojumo resides, I found on the wall of a house a rosette, the name of which was given as ukegbe (tortoise-shell) and a scroll pattern termed obanuli, or " 200 mark"; this was, with one exception, the only occasion on which I got a definite name and interpretation for a pattern; the other instance was that of the single hatching /////// which is called ebewana, "palm leaf"; in all other cases I could not get more than the name oba (mark); other scroll patterns are found in Uzebu.

Very fine examples of them are preserved in the messroom of the Residency in the shape of two large chests, the surfaces of which are covered with this design and with rosettes. Next to the scroll work, of which examples are figured from Ugo, one day's march east of Benin City, close to the Agbor district; Jeduma, two days north-east of Benin City; Eviakoi and Iguichimi, both ten or twelve miles north of Benin City; and Ugboviato, in the Ora countrv, the most frequent form of ornament was a series of concentric circles, shown on the left of Fig. 1 in the plate.





I noted this also at Ewu, near Agbede, in the Ishan district. Almost equally frequent is a small incised triangle, not shown in the illustration, but analogous to the rectangular depressions in the lower part of Fig. 2. Non-incised coloured triangles are in the main the groundwork of the decoration of the shrine of Ovato at Jeduma, shown in Fig. 1. As a rule these decorations are found in the house dedicated to the ebo, as at Jeduma and Eviakoi, in the king's house, as at Ugo, or in ruined houses, as in the case of Ugboviato and Iguichimi.





In the extreme north-east of the Ifon district, on the boundary of Northern Nigeria, but not, so far as I was able to observe, extending over the boundary, is found the singular type of decorative art shown in Fig. 4. The example is from the interior of the king's house; it is the work of women, and is renewed or replaced by new designs annually. I found similar designs at Otna, some five miles away, and they occur sporadically near Afuge, a day's march south-east, but in this case inter-marriage affords a probable explanation. Another example is faintly seen on the left of Fig. 2, a bove the scroll work.




Human figures, of which one is seen in the centre of Fig. 2, are rare in plastic art except where they represent an ebo, usually Esu, the mischievous ebo whose figure is never found save outside the house, usually on the left of the door. I could get no explanation of the figure at Ugboviato. On the aluebo at Iguichimi (Fig. 3) are seen, on the right of the scroll, an ada, or chief's knife, carried by the omada on state occasions; below are two cocks, and on the left the ebe, or ceremonial sword. The objects depicted on the wall at Okpe are-(1) a tortoise, (2) a big bird (owobo), (3) a small bird, (4) a butterfly (atotomi), (5) a court messenger accompanying (6) the District Commissioner, (7) (9) purificatory medicine (aba), and ( a pepper pounder (umobo).




Fig. 5 is from the house sacred to Ochwaie, at Eviakoi, near Benin City. Above the scroll work is seen a snake, the emblem of this ebo.



Fig. 6 is from a small oguedion in front of the king's house at Ugo; lying beneath the number are the uchure which represent his ancestors, and over which the sacrificial blood is poured.



With the exception of the Okpe examples there is little stylicisation, though the human figure on the left of the convertical chevrons in Fig. 1, which is formed of triangles, coloured, or left blank, shows a tendency in this direction. As a rule, however, the objects depicted are easily recognisable. At Ifon I found a duck and a hoe on the wall of a house, and a figure more like a platypus than anything else, proclaimed by its spots to be a leopard. A lizard drawn before a shrine in a village close to Enyai Market showed a resemblance to the animal; in the representations of chameleons and other animals on the osun, of which an example is to be found in the British Museum, we also find a considerable amount of stylicisation; but in this case we are hardly justified in speaking of the representations as decorative art, for the purpose was almost certainly magical. The present note deals exclusively with the design on walls; I propose to discuss the patterns of rings, bracelets, and other objects of wood or metal on some future occasion. N. W. THOMAS.

@ pleep

These are some Portuguese soldiers in Benin bronzes. You can see by their headdress and hair depiction that they are similar to the figures on that bronze on part of the Oba's palace:








[img]http://hum.lss.wisc.edu/hjdrewal/aa241g12.jpg[/img]


This one might be Dutch, since it's an 18th century pendant, but it was labeled as Portuguese:





This is a depiction of an Edo soldier with a gun:





Note that he is wearing an Edo style helmet and is dressed somewhat differently, although his "kilt' is clearly Portuguese, rather than Edo.

pleep:

^^ Well i had at first assumed they were actual bini soldiers?  it seems odd to me that foriegn soldiers would be standing on the palace of a benin king. And it is know that the benin kingdom manufacuted guns. (often with a defective lock).

So you think they were actually europeans?

1. Benin soldiers dressed differently. Benin artists did not depict Benin soldiers in European attire (though there is one exception to this I have seen, of a clearly black (Benin) soldier dressed in a European/Portuguese manner). I said earlier to ezeagu that I would post more of the Benin military attire in this thread, but I kind of forgot. 
2. Traders/foreigners would have gone to the palace. They wouldn't have stayed there though.
3. Yeah, they are Europeans. There are numerous depictions of Europeans in Benin art. There is even one piece of art that shows two Europeans fighting each other (based on a trade conflict between the French and the Dutch when they visited West Africa, I think). I'll see if I can find the image of the art and the relevant quote about the dispute.
4. There are depictions of Benin soldiers holding guns, but there are many more depictions of European soldiers holding guns.
5. The Benin palace was not guarded by two people with guns standing on a roof. In any case, the palace was huge, so this would have just been one building in a very large palace complex, perhaps even the building where the king received Europeans that visited. There are no statues of Europeans that are known (from eyewitness written descriptions or art) to have adorned any actual roof of the palace though, so their being placed on that roof for that piece of art is most likely just some symbolism (to represent some trade wealth or something like that) being used on the part of the artist.
6,  Contrary  to what we might assume, Benin was not big on guns. The role of guns was somewhat minor until the 18th-19th centuries, with the possible exception of the earlier Idah (Igala) war. Benin had acquired some cannon and some guns and as you noted, they could manufacture guns (see the section on weapons in H. Ling Roth's Great Benin), but the reason they were not big on guns is because they "failed" to convert to Christianity. That was the condition on which the Portuguese, and later the Dutch, would sell them guns - both R. E. Bradbury and Alan Ryder concluded this from their own research (it's not my original conjecture or anything, but the generally accepted consensus among scholars of Benin).

pleep:

Man. . . im so angry right now. Physics do you remember the bronze Box in the shape of a palace, with the two soldiers with guns on the roof?

That same picture was in my A.p world history textbook a while back and the caption said: Two Dutch Soliders guarding a (dutch ) outpost in Nigeria!

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-582176.32.html

That's messed up. The soldiers were more likely to be representations of Portuguese than Dutch, though there is a possibility that they could be Dutch. They were used as symbols of wealth and power by Benin artists (but there were also some bronzes of Benin warriors that were kept on top of palace buildings, in addition to the well known birds). You could always contact the author(s) of the book or the publisher. Every art book written on Benin acknowledges that those are not guards but mere decorative figures. Why did they even bother to bring up that picture (what was the context), if they didn't know anything about it? Clowns.

7. "Ivory Found in City." Courtyard of the Oba's palace, Benin City, February 1897, photographed by a Captain Walker. The object in the center of the courtyard, lying on a large brass cylinder, is a brass serpent head from the palace roof. R. K. Granville Archive Album 64.5, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.


From: Continuity and Change: The Ivories of Ovonramwen and Eweka II
                  Author(s): Barbara Winston Blackmun
                  Source: African Arts, Vol. 30, No. 3, Special Issue: The Benin Centenary, Part 1 (Summer,1997), pp. 68-79+94-96

4. Plaque. Bronze, 45.5cm (18". Reiss-Museum, Mannheim,
Volkerkundliche Sammlungen, IV Af 3107. Purchased in 1925.
The legs of the helmeted Ewa figure at lower left suggest the
turned-up legs of the royal mudfish figure.

1. Yam knife with handle terminating in a Janus memorial head.
Bronze, 19cm (7.5".The Field Museum, Chicago, neg. A99487,
cat. 210309. This type of knife was used to peel sacrificial yams
for the palace's New Yam festival.

The Art of Fasting: Benin's Ague Ceremony
Author(s): Kathy Curnow
Source: African Arts, Vol. 30, No. 4, Special Issue: The Benin Centenary, Part 2 (Autumn,1997), pp. 46-53+93-94
Published by: UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3337553 .

[img]http://2.bp..com/_ytgJBaeUgnk/SavSISkTxrI/AAAAAAAAAIE/g_UOCqQwv50/s1600/Untitled-1.jpg[/img]

Ododua headpiece. 18 century. Bronze, 33 cm (13''). Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz Museum fur Volkerkunde, IIC 8060.

The Alaafin of Oyo is a bleacher?

[img]http://thewillnigeria.com/thumbnail.php?file=Alaafin_of_Oyo_222612900.jpg&size=article_medium[/img]


Really?


I'm skeptical.

Anyway, jail Akala.

Igbo Carved Doors
Author(s): Nancy C. Neaher
Source: African Arts, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Nov., 1981), pp. 49-55+88
Published by: UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3336006

An Igbo chief's compound, 1913.

From:

Southern Nigeria: Some Considerations of Its Structure, People, and Natural History
Author(s): A. E. Kitson
Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Jan., 1913), pp. 16-34
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1778485

16th century, copper alloy, Edo people, Nigeria. Weapons and leopard teeth necklaces suggest warriors but their hairstyles suggest they are ritual specialists as well, one holds a cow head, may have sacrificed the animal to ancestors.

"98 & 99 Brass helmet masks for Ododua ritual, the one on the left representing a male and the one on the right a female. H 56 cm, 35.7 cm"


From The Art of Benin by Paula Ben-Amos

1. Nigeria allows dual citizenship

2. The U.S. allows dual citizenship

3. A Nigerian governor cannot be a dual citizen

4. Ajimobi is not a dual citizen



That's all.

ChinenyeN:

Alright, thank you. I'll work on that right now. Would you say that it is okay for me to leave the By 'Concerned Ngwa' part?

Personally if it was me, (if I were writing a correction to something relating to Benin, for example), I would leave out a "concerned Edo" phrase because it might be superfluous, but in this case, it might be important to include the fact that you're  a concerned Ngwa because you are speaking as someone who is knowledgeable about specific traditions and history relating to the Ngwa.

Leaving in the phrase would indicate that you're approaching the history from a position of somebody concerned about the distortion or ignoring of Ngwa tradition and history. So that phrase doesn't really weaken the appearance of the article and could actually lend it more credibility. (Just my opinion)

ChinenyeN:

Finished. Well, before I finalize, I just need a fresh pair of eyes to read through it and let me know what and where they would suggest for editions. Thank you.
Here's the link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/55956924/Bonny-Origins I just want to know if it is comprehensible or jumbled, etc.
The entire document is like 28 pages or something. So take your time. Don't rush through it.

Just looking at the first page I would immediately advise you not to present the write up the way you did.

1. There is no reason to sub-title it "a rebuttal to the Ijo." or to include "after all, some one had to do it." That alone may inspire doubt in your objectivity. (And you are objective, as you showed repeatedly in that "True Extent of Igboland" thread, so there's no reason to give any chance of an impression that you aren't.) There is probably a better sub-title that indicates that the article is meant to correct that history without making it seem like it could be a polemical.

2. There is no reason whatsoever to say the work is not a scholarly work. Just because something is not yet formally published in a journal or in a  book it does not mean one has to present some sort of caveat that it is not scholarly. Scientists do this all the time with working papers, design reports etc.

[img]http://www.veda.harekrsna.cz/connections/img/QueenOlokun_tilak.jpg[/img]

Dede1:

If the aforemention work on Bonny is precursor to this post: “Bonny :: Adopted Name - Ibani/Ubani :: Original Name - Igoloma :: Named After Curlew Bird :: Now Ijo”, I suggest you hold back.

There is no ethnic group called Ijo. This is derived from Jos what the Spaniards referred to “people of river” they met at the estuaries of Rivers Niger, Benue, Imo, Urashi and Utanmiri. The same thing goes to the appellation Brass.

You're right. There is an ethnic group called IZON, however.

http://nigeriavillagesquare.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-8433.html

^^^^^

The mislabeling of a group doesn't mean that ethnicity doesn't exist. The "Bini" never ever called themselves Bini, but rather Edo. The Japanese don't call themselves Japanese (a word which is derived from a Chinese mispronunciation of what they call themselves), the Isoko were known as the "Igabo" up until this wrong label was corrected. The Urhobo were called the Sobo, and the Yorubas are today called Yorubas, despite the fact that this is an outside label based on some erroneous Northern idea that the Yorubas are descended from some obscure Arab tribe.