20th c.
Carved wood
Without stand: 72" x 15" x 12"
Provenance: Allan Stone Collection, New York
The Igbo are one of Nigeria’s largest ethnic groups. Each Igbo village, defined by lineage, contains living quarters, dance areas for public performances, marketplaces and shrines for local deities. The deities, known as alusi, are tutelary or guardian spirits who are the founders of the communities or associated with the earth, rivers or markets. Alusi may be depicted as wooden figures and placed in shrines where they are the subjects of weekly and annual rituals that honor the deities who help a community or family solve problems. Conceived as a family unit, six or more figures are arranged carefully against the shrine’s interior wall. The principal figure—the “mother” or the “father”—presides over other figures that portray husbands, wives, children and attendants who are named for the founders of important lineage or communities. During the annual “festival of images,” the alusi are repainted and redressed by village women, while guardian figures wearing a profusion of adornments and regalia from different lineage are gathered and paraded through the town as a sign of respect. The most monumental Igbo wooden figural sculptures and houseposts are found in the Cross River communities. These large structures stand at the point of public access to the row-houses of major kindreds rather as sentries guarding the private spaces beyond. Figural groups in Abiriba meeting houses include a similar range of village types rendered in equally massive scale. Older members of the Igbo community still honor alusi today.
References
Cole, Herbert M. and Aniakor, Chike G. Igbo Arts: Community and Cosmos, University of California Museum of Cultural History, 1985, pp. 89–95

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