Art, Performance and Ritual in Benin City 9781474468589

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International African Library 37 General Editors: J. D. Y. Peel, Suzette Heald and Deborah James

ART, PERFORMANCE AND RITUAL IN BENIN CITY The International African Library is a major monograph series from the International African Institute and complements its quarterly periodical Africa, the premier journal in the field of African studies. Theoretically informed ethnographies, studies of social relations ‘on the ground’ which are sensitive to local cultural forms, have long been central to the Institute’s publications programme. The IAL maintains this strength but extends it into new areas of contemporary concern, both practical and intellectual. It includes works focused on problems of development, especially on the linkages between the local and national levels of society; studies along the interface between the social and environmental sciences; and historical studies, especially those of a social, cultural or interdisciplinary character.

Titles in the series: 1 Sandra T. Barnes Patrons and power: creating a political community in metropolitan Lagos 2 Jane I. Guyer (ed.) Feeding African cities: essays in social history 3 Paul Spencer The Maasai of Matapato: a study of rituals of rebellion 4 Johan Pottier Migrants no more: settlement and survival in Mambwe villages, Zambia 5 Gunther Schlee Identities on the move: clanship and pastoralism in northern Kenya 6 Suzette Heald Controlling anger: the sociology of Gisu violence 7 Karin Barber I could speak until tomorrow: oriki, women and the past in a Yoruba town 8 Richard Fardon Between God, the dead and the wild: Chamba interpretations of religion and ritual 9 Richard Werbner Tears of the dead: the social biography of an African family 10 Colin Murray Black Mountain: land, class and power in the eastern Orange Free State, 1880s to 1980s 11 J. S. Eades Strangers and traders: Yoruba migrants, markets and the state in northern Ghana 12 Isaac Ncube Mazonde Ranching and enterprise in eastern Botswana: a case study of black and white farmers 13 Melissa Leach Rainforest relations: gender and resource use among the Mende of Gola, Sierra Leone 14 Tom Forrest The advance of African capital: the growth of Nigerian private enterprise 15 C. Bawa Yamba Permanent pilgrims: the role of pilgrimage in the lives of West African Muslims in Sudan 16 Graham Furniss Poetry, prose and popular culture in Hausa 17 Philip Burnham The politics of cultural difference in northern Cameroon 18 Jane I. Guyer An African niche economy: farming to feed Ibadan, 1968–88 19 A. Fiona D. Mackenzie Land, ecology and resistance in Kenya, 1880–1952 20 David Maxwell Christians and chiefs in Zimbabwe: a social history of the Hwesa people c. 1870s–1990s

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21 Birgit Meyer Translating the devil: religion and modernity among the Ewe in Ghana 22 Deborah James Songs of the women migrants: performance and identity in South Africa 23 Christopher O. Davis Death in abeyance: illness and therapy among the Tabwa of Central Africa 24 Janet Bujra Serving Class: masculinity and the feminisation of domestic service in Tanzania 25 T. C. McCaskie Asante identities: history and modernity in an African village 1850– 1950 26 Harri Englund From war to peace on the Mozambique–Malawi borderland 27 Anthony Simpson ‘Half-London’ in Zambia: contested identities in a Catholic mission school 28 Elisha Renne Population and progress in a Yoruba town 29 Belinda Bozzoli Theatres of struggle and the end of apartheid 30 R. M. Dilley Islamic and caste knowledge practices among Haalpulaar’en in Senegal: between mosque and termite mound 31 Colin Murray and Peter Sanders Medicine murder in colonial Lesotho: the anatomy of a moral crisis 32 Benjamin F. Soares Islam and the prayer economy: history and authority in a Malian town 33 Carola Lentz Ethnicity and the making of history in northern Ghana 34 David Pratten The man-leopard murders: history and society in colonial Nigeria 35 Kai Kresse Philosophising in Mombasa: knowledge, Islam and intellectual practice on the Swahili Coast 36 Ferdinand de Jong Masquerades of modernity: power and secrecy in Casamance, Senegal 37 Charles Gore Art, performance and ritual in Benin City

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ART, PERFORMANCE AND RITUAL IN BENIN CITY

CHARLES GORE

EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS for the International African Institute, London

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© Charles Gore, 2007 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh Typeset in Plantin by Koinonia, Bury, and printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN ISBN

978 0 7486 3316 6 (hardback) 978 0 7486 3317 3 (paperback)

The right of Charles Gore to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All photographs © Charles Gore For other publications of the International African Institute, please visit their web site at www.iaionthe.net

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1 CONTENTS

Acknowledgements Frontispiece Introduction 1 History, Art History and the Edo Kingdom

vi viii 1 9

2 Shrines and Deities

31

3 Priests and Shrines

47

4 The Life Histories of Some Ohens

74

5 Artists and Artworlds

104

6 Songs for the Gods

134

7 The Parrot’s Tale

157

8 Art History and Artefact

179

Notes Glossary References Black and white plates Index Colour plates appear between pages 56 and 57.

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203 214 221 234 244

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1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to all the individuals who have helped me, though they number so many more than I can acknowledge. Among them I honour the memory of Dr Obi Igwara (1955–2002), a good friend (her family descended from a Benin prince who left the city) who encouraged me to visit Nigeria for the first time: she told me I would enjoy it. Sadly, in the time it has taken to publish this book others have died who I would also like to remember: Billy Omodomwan, master brasscaster of Oloton Lane, for his friendship and conversation (he died in 1999); ohen Ogun Nomayisi and ohen Ugheneze for their warm hospitality (they followed in 2004); and iye ohen Osagie (who passed away in 2005). I would like to offer thanks to the Oba of Benin for granting permission, at a palace audience in 1990, to carry out my research. I thank barrister Harriet Adimora and the Adimora family of Anambra state for their assistance. For their help, good humour, patience and comradeship in Benin City I thank Osawe Osaretin, Ossa Earliecce Idukpaye and Able Iyamu. There have been so many ohens who have helped me that I cannot record them all but I cherish all the ugie (avan and ason) that I attended and especially the annual festivals, akhue ebo and other events that I was lucky enough to be invited to experience. I thank Chief ohen Osa Amayo for his mentorship and sagacity. For their kindness, patience and wisdom I thank ohens Akpowa, Aitolekpenhae and Aibigie. My gratitude goes to Chief Engineer Ira Uzebu, Professor Joseph Nevadomsky and Dr John Aigbangbe for their generosity, and on a practical note to my half-sister Professor Georgiana Gore for putting me up at the outset in Benin City. I also offer thanks to the brasscaster Osarenren Ogbomo for his friendship in Benin and London; to my PhD supervisor Professor John Picton for his endless patience, good humour and incisive contributions; likewise to Professor John Peel; and to Mike Kirkwood for his cheerful editing. I thank my sons James and William for their patience with this project. Finally I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude and joy to be blessed that the Iyeye of Benin took me under her care. I end with the song always used to open the annual festivals of ohens: it celebrates the safe passage through the past year of all who attend the anniversary once more, and looks forward to the next with even more blessings.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

vii

Iselogbe Ogbe ima vbe dia ru-o, ise

Happy anniversary Next anniversary we also shall live to celebrate, blessings Iselogbe-e Happy anniversary Ima ghi ya ukpo ro ukpo These of this year so shall it be for next year1 A ghi mien ukpo ne ima ma setin ghi ru They will not see the year that we are not able to celebrate Ogbe ima vbe dia ru-o, ise Next anniversary we also shall live to celebrate, blessings Iselogbe Happy anniversary 1 Literally: we do not exchange year for year

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Ikhinmwin tree, the first tree to come into the world, which is planted whenever a new community or compound is established. In this process it becomes a shrine and has chalk designs as an offering to the deity (12/12/1991)

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INTRODUCTION

This study shifts the focus of attention from the world-famous royal art associated with the Edo kingdom, most notably ‘the Benin bronzes’, to the art traditions produced by the local Edo religion which underpins the legitmacy and power of kingship. Up to now researchers have made concerted efforts to study and understand the royal court art. A consequence has been the marginalisation of other art traditions in Benin City and the wider kingdom. This book is a study of the art of urban contemporary shrines and the creative processes by which they are realised, visually and in performance. Fundamental to understanding these visual traditions is the need to relate the practices of this rich and complex Edo religion to the practices of art. Despite the inroads made by Christianity in the twentieth century, and more recently since the 1990s by the Pentecostal movement, the indigenous religion flourishes along with the art forms associated with it. At the core of Edo religion is the physical possession of its priests and priestesses by the deities during public worship. It is these direct relations between the metaphysical and material worlds that shape the art produced at these urban contemporary shrines, and indeed the royal court art. This study explores the role of art in the local and dynamic Edo religion to offer new perspectives on the art history of the kingdom. By examining the trajectories of urban contemporary shrines and the ways in which they are configured, the study seeks to relate processes of change and innovation to the creativity and agency of individuals and thus to argue for a fundamental rethinking of the assumptions upon which Benin art history has been understood. Many preconceptions that shaped popular perceptions of Benin art need to be highlighted before further exploring the art worlds of the urban contemporary shrines. Benin art is perhaps the most widely known African art tradition. A number of factors have given it an iconic prominence since its initial international exposure. Until the British annexed it in 1897, the Edo kingdom was an autonomous and sovereign state, with a dynasty that can be traced back at least as far as the thirteenth century. During this period the dynasty and its palace organisation commissioned artefacts, examples of which have survived to the present day, in a variety of media. These include clay, wood and ivory, but it is for its bronze and predominantly leaded brass artworks – the Benin Bronzes – as well as its carved

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ART, PERFORMANCE AND RITUAL IN BENIN CITY

ivory that Benin art is best known. The Benin Bronzes were produced over a period of more than six hundred years, using the complex technology of the lost wax (cire perdue) method of casting.1 Thousands of these artefacts were removed from the palace by the British; many were taken as the spoils of war, while some were sold to offset the cost of the British campaign that led to annexation. It is a combination of complex technology and the sophistication of visual forms that capture the imagination of the viewer. Benin art is the expression of the royal and imperial power of an empire that was flourishing when the Portuguese first encountered it at the end of the fourteenth century. As Ezra (1992: 1) has noted, ‘perhaps more than any other art in Africa, that of Benin consciously invokes its history’. It is a court art that puts kingship and its institutions at the centre of Edo society. It is, consequently, an intensely political art that both legitimates and extends the authority of the Oba of Benin. Writing about the aesthetic dimensions of Benin art, Dark (1973: 70) notes that it ‘is rich in forms and decoration; it manifests an apparent compulsion to fill surfaces and treat form decoratively’, but its subject matter includes metaphors for a particular social and natural order. Furthermore, the artworks are themselves evidence for development and innovation in an Edo history of style. This is supplemented by a variety of dynastic oral traditions that have flourished in Edo society of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The discovery of this royal art and its removal to Europe transformed Western perceptions of African artefacts at the beginning of the twentieth century. Up to this time African artefacts were considered simply as ethnographic materials (with little visual interest or value) and were used as an index of a society’s attainments. Such was the impact of Benin art, and so clearly was it an art produced by a major civilisation, comparable to that produced in Italy during the Renaissance,2 that it changed Western attitudes and resulted in a new appreciation of the arts of Africa.3 As an autonomous tradition of African art that developed within the social and environmental matrix of the forest region in what is now Edo state in southern Nigeria, its pivotal significance continues to be felt today. For African and diasporic artists its independent development in West Africa, and its twentieth-century history of appropriation and enforced removal from the African continent to Europe and America, have powerful resonances. Many artists have drawn upon its imagery, in one way or another, for their own art practices. As most of these Benin artworks reside in museums in Europe and America, their present-day location raises the question of repatriation, particularly as many were produced for the Oba of Benin for religious purposes and the local Edo religion still thrives. Images of Benin art have been reproduced in a range of printed and electronic media, and sometimes they are used to assert Africa-related forms of identity. Even today it is still a

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INTRODUCTION

3

political art in its international contexts. Benin art therefore has remarkable and possibly unique features in Africa; it is both very ancient and yet also is maintained in a transformed kingdom to the present day.4 While this royal court art was for the most part located in the palace of the Oba, and many (but not all) of its forms were for élite use, it also embedded kingship in the wider Edo society by virtue of the metaphysical relationships established through the person of the Oba. Relations between the metaphysical and material worlds are at the core of the local Edo religion centred on personal, family and communal shrines, and the ways in which kingship is conceptualised are constituted by drawing on these ideas and practices to gain a hegemonic acceptance. Shrines are the basis of this religion and the art traditions of these shrines are at the heart of the sophisticated visuality for which the Edo kingdom is known. There has been an extensive literature on the Edo kingdom but only after 1897 was research (as opposed to surmise) instigated into various aspects of Edo society. In the main research was driven by the need of colonial officials to have at least some information on the people they governed. But it was the anthropologist R. E. Bradbury, working in the 1950s, who first conducted in-depth and substantial documentary research into Edo ‘society as it is’, and his incomparable work has yet to be surpassed. As Dark states, ‘his death at an early age in 1969 was a great blow to Benin studies and anthropology, for his command over the Benin data was very extensive. Few probably have attained such a depth and wealth of information for a culture as he did’ (Dark 1973: v). An important development from 1956 was the Scheme for the Study of Benin History and Culture under the directorship of Dr K. O. Dike at Ibadan university, with sponsorship from the Nigerian and British governments and the Carnegie Corporation. The purpose of this project was to reconstruct the past of an African state renowned for the depth of its historical traditions and cultural heritage. Despite a lack of conventional materials of historical research, scholars in various academic disciplines combined to provide a depth of research that satisfied the highest demands of modern historiography (Ryder 1977: ix). This impetus produced a series of in-depth publications on particular aspects of Edo society. Ryder (1977) focused on its history as recovered through European archives and oral tradition; Bradbury (1973) carried out in-depth fieldwork to produce the first systematic ethnography; and Dark (1973) drew attention to the corpus of artworks and the forms of production. This research was taken up by a new wave of scholars from America, most notably Paula Girshick Ben-Amos (1976b, 1980, 1995, 1999), Barbara Blackmun (1984, 1987, 1988) and Joseph Nevadomsky (1984a, 1984b, 1987, 1989), who concentrated predominantly on the royal arts of Benin City. They continued to carry out fieldwork in Benin City in order

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ART, PERFORMANCE AND RITUAL IN BENIN CITY

to elicit the social contexts of this art, drawing on anthropological and art historical approaches. They highlighted the heterogeneity of Benin court art and carried out in-depth studies of its iconography supporting their interpretations with ethnographic materials that derive from the latter half of the twentieth century. Their work remains centred on the Oba and his institutions, however, offering a perspective shaped by these institutions even when considering art produced by other segments of society. The broader reach of Edo art, beyond this royal horizon, remains marginalised by this perspective. The fieldwork on which the present study is based aimed to redress this by studying visual traditions produced at the grassroots level and from that perspective (Gore and Nevadomsky 1997; Picton 1997). It is part of this endeavour to show that royal art does not operate independently of these other art traditions, but rather draws on them in order to elaborate ideas about kingship and its associated authority. This is a study of the institution of urban contemporary shrines in Benin City, Edo state in Southern Nigeria and the production and use of artefacts within these shrines. It is an exploration of this ‘world of artefacts’, to paraphrase Danto’s (1964) concept of ‘artworlds’. These artefacts are made or utilised within visual traditions underpinned by the intentions of individuals while being shaped and validated by religious institutions. In many ways this ‘artefact world’ challenges the conventional parameters of Western art histories.5 It offers a very different account of artistic endeavour where creativity and agency lie not with the individual artist (as in the late Romantic traditions of European artmaking of the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries) but instead reside with the spiritual agencies and deities with which Edo religion is concerned.Yet the making of such artefacts within the contexts of these urban contemporary shrines brings complex and sophisticated visual interests into play, both conceptually and sensuously through apprehension. An ‘artworld’ framing offers a means of exploring the ways in which urban contemporary shrines configure a range of ideas and practices and bring together religious, visual and performative traditions within the same locus. The focus is on the visual traditions of the urban cults, their shrines and activities within Benin City. These cults centre on charismatic individuals and vary in size and the range of their practices. This necessitates maintaining close relations with several different shrines as well as varied levels of contact with a large number of shrines. By this means I explore a range of different practices at particular shrines, some of their commonalities and divergences of practice, and some of the conceptual bases that underpin them. I also examine how these practices were established, maintained and changed, and their dependence on extensive social networks within the urban environment of Benin City. These networks involve individuals in relationships not only with different shrines but also with many other

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INTRODUCTION

5

institutions that exist in the city. Individuals have a wide range of often overlapping roles, strategies and options in this regard. I explore the ways in which artefacts are utilised by individuals in the urban cults of Benin City as part of configurations of ideas and practice which they also shape. Part of the fieldwork’s scope was to explore the ways in which different individuals are able to innovate (a key ideological claim of modernist Western art movements), replicate or create within the social and religious configuration which is the basis of their art making. The research material was gathered at intervals from 1989 to 1998 (with a key period of twenty months in Benin City from 1990 to 1992) in order to avoid a single cyclic pattern of fieldwork and instead to engage with events over time, so that discontinuities as well as regularities might become evident. Thus the partial trajectories of certain individuals over time were encountered in the field, amid the urban environment of Benin City with all the problems that such a multiplicity of contexts and events engendered. Individuals participated in different roles and disparate contexts of practice. Social networks of both kin and other relations were dispersed over the city and beyond – to villages within the Edo-speaking areas, to other villages and metropoles within Nigeria, and beyond to other countries and continents. This dispersal became more pronounced during the course of research as the severe decline in the economy led many individuals to seek more prosperous parts of the world, especially Europe and North America. Indeed through this social competence in different roles and contexts, both locally and transnationally, individuals often use quite different frames of reference according to the context they wish to highlight. Differing significances can often be constructed by an individual in relation to the same events. Only those who have been fully initiated can participate to the full in shrine practices, and some bodies of knowledge are restricted to initiates. However all the information gathered here is in the public domain in that it is accessible to anyone who is prepared to attend the public aspects of ritual performance at shrines over a long period of time (indeed, this is one of the ways in which individuals come to be recruited for initiation). This ongoing process of fieldwork resulted of necessity in acts of partial interpretation by the author, and these are his responsibility alone. Even at best, the researcher’s models of individual actions and interactions are constituted in and thus circumscribed by the Western discourses in relation to which they are produced – those of art history and social anthropology, rather than those of the protagonists (who rarely have trained in these disciplines) in Benin City. An academic training shapes the author’s relations to locality and, as Bourdieu has noted, The anthropologist’s particular relation to the object of his study contains the making of a theoretical distortion inasmuch as his situation as an observer, excluded from the real play of activities by the

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fact that he has no place (except by choice or by way of game) in the system observed and has no need to make a place for himself there, inclines him to a hermeneutic representation of practices, leading him to reduce all social relations to communicative relations and more precisely, decoding operations. (Bourdieu 1977: 1) One purpose of this book is to move away from this kind of decoding interpretation to offer an approach that emphasises individual agency with its attendant possibilities and constraints in a complex web of relationships and institutions. The construction of narrative in the book has selected individuals and events where, at least in some instances, certain social interactions and relations can be indicated by such an approach. Accordingly, the book has been based on material that has been negotiated in social interaction with various individuals whose intentions, to a greater or lesser degree, have not coincided with the framing of the subject matter by the author. This is especially the case where much of the content of the material gathered has been underpinned by the concerns of individuals with the ideas and practices associated with the local shrines which frame, order and conceptualise a quite different domain to that of the discipline of art history – albeit that Danto’s concept of ‘artworlds’ offers a means to explore the visual and performative world of the urban contemporary shrine configurations. Nevertheless, some individuals who produce artefacts in these local contexts sometimes negotiate on terms more aligned to Western conceptions of art history. This may be due to their experience of arts and crafts education in schools and further forms of higher education that were introduced during the colonial era and developed by the postcolonial Nigerian state. It may also be due to their own individual and concrete actions in the material production of these artefacts, even while the contexts of use in which these artefacts are situated are often determined by notions of an agency located in the spirit world, erinmwin, constituted through local religious ideas and practices. A notable example of this is attribution of the statuary of deities found at some shrines to the agency of the deities and not the artists who initially created them. I begin with a brief survey of Benin City and the Edo kingdom to convey some of the local means of social organisation with regard to the rural and urban areas. The importance of the institutions of the Oba of Benin are underlined. As these subjects have been examined in detail by other authors such as Bradbury (Bradbury and Lloyd 1957; Bradbury 1959c, 1973a) and Ryder (1977), I offer a schematic outline with some suggestions as to how the Oba of Benin is situated within these localised social relations. I then look at local Edo definitions of shrines and the deities to which they are dedicated, outline the range of different shrines and their uses, and explore some of the local significances which are constructed in relation to shrines. Next I examine the institution of urban contemporary cult shrines in

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INTRODUCTION

7

Benin City, introducing the forms of organisation and strategies used by shrine priests and considering some of the ideas and practices that are integral to this institution. This is followed and complemented by a number of biographies of various priests, a sample of those related in conversation with the author and chosen partly to demonstrate the diversity of individuals engaged in this profession. However, they are not selected on the basis of providing typical or normative representations. Instead they present salient events selected by the priest as pertinent to his or her situation at the time of the interviews. They are a means to explore local ideas and practices relevant to these urban shrines. Some of the events may seem improbable to those accustomed to Western biographies, but they are a key means to understanding local ideas of personhood and possession by the deities which are worshipped at these shrines. In this way the making of meaning by individuals participating in these institutions can be understood. Individual biographies will also be referred to in later chapters as particular case studies in the exploration of the contexts of artefacts produced for these shrines. By this means some of the overlapping and interrelating social networks of the protagonists will also be suggested. After this I consider the role of artists who produce artefacts for these institutions. Some of the strategies they use in the production of their work are discussed. As with the urban cult shrine priests, various biographies of artists are presented – selected to indicate a diversity of production and use of strategies, as well as to situate the role of each individual artist and the artefacts they produce in local conditions at these urban cult shrines. My next topic is the role of songs used in performance by participants at shrines, often in conjunction with various artefacts. The ideas and practices of priests and priestesses are largely performative and do not rely on verbal exegesis. But song is an important part of the traditions of the shrines and offers a purchase on how significance is made performatively and contextually. I explore a sequence of songs performed at an annual festival in relation to the particular events that occurred. The meanings constructed by the use of song are examined within the conventions of its practice as well as the socially negotiated contexts of particular performance sequences. Then comes a chapter that examines the use of a particular artefact, the red tail feather of the African grey parrot. This feather adorns the heads of priests and priestesses as a marker of full initiation into the rites of the particular deities they serve. I analyse its imagery, comparing it to that of other feathers that feature in the ideas and practices of these shrines and examining how individuals establish different, and sometimes opposing, significances in relation to it. This has implications for other artefacts and also for the more customary objects of Benin art history such as, for example, the plaques and other leaded brasses. The concluding chapter looks at various contributions to a history

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ART, PERFORMANCE AND RITUAL IN BENIN CITY

of art. This is not an exhaustive review but merely a selection of those contributions salient to the arguments presented here. The chapter uses Ryder’s conceptual distinctions (1977: ix) of the field material available to researchers to explore some of the assumptions upon which research has been based. I then broaden this examination to look at various contributions to the art history of the Edo-speaking area, arguing that limitations inherent in theoretical models developed in relation to Benin have become underlying and uncritical assumptions in many studies of Edo society and its art history. These limitations in fact hinder the development of an art history of the area. The subject matter of contemporary urban cult shrines demonstrates considerable individual diversity and creativity in contemporary Edo society in Benin City. Deconstructing the accretion of uncritical assumptions, I suggest that historically and regionally there has also been local diversity and creativity, although constituted differently prior to 1897 and varying at different historical moments. My book concludes by suggesting that a deeper understanding of the Edo-speaking area will have to explore regional and local histories, both to further an understanding of the region and also to gain a deeper insight into the historical processes at the urban centre of Benin City. It is by these means that the local and regional art histories can be developed. Finally, a note on orthography: my inevitably frequent use of ohen, the Edo term for priest or priestess, has led me to treat it as a proper noun, using an English plural (ohens) to make its use in the singular and plural more easily apparent to the reader. The term Oba, the Edo term for the ruler of the Edo kingdom, is treated likewise.

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1 HISTORY, ART HISTORY AND THE EDO KINGDOM

The King’s court is square and stands on the right side of the town when you enter the gate from Gotton. It is as big as the town of Haarlem, and enclosed by a wall of its own similar to the town wall. It is divided into many fine palaces, houses, and rooms for courtiers, and it contains beautiful long square galleries about as big as the Exchange at Amsterdam, some bigger than others, resting on wooden pillars, covered from top to bottom with cast copper, on which deeds of war and battle scenes are engraved. These are kept very clean. Most of the palaces and royal houses in the court are covered with palm-leaves instead of shingles, and each is adorned with a turret tapering to a point, upon which are skilfully wrought copper birds, very life-like, spreading their wings. (Dapper in Jones 1998: 11). FIRST ENCOUNTERS WITH EUROPEANS

Much of what is known about the history of the Edo kingdom is dependent on European records from the fifteenth century onwards and Edo oral traditions documented in the twentieth century. Art, perceived for the most part as artefacts, was not of interest to European travellers except in terms of trade goods to be exchanged. The one notable exception was ivory carving in the form of decorated salt cellars, spoons and other articles commissioned by the Portuguese from artists in the Edo kingdom and other areas of the Guinea coast, such as Sierra Leone, as well as the central African kingdom of the Kongo (Bassani and Fagg 1988: 60). These commissioned artefacts demonstrated a European appreciation of the complex artistic traditions in the Edo kingdom at the time of the Italian renaissance. Some entered famous contemporary art collections such as those of the Medici of Florence, the Elector of Saxony in Dresden and the Duke of Tyrol in Ambras (Bassani and Fagg 1988: 53, 150). The confluence of Edo and Portuguese motifs (Bassani and Fagg 1988: 57) found in the Benin Afro-Portuguese ivory carvings highlights the complex interactions through which the Edo kingdom engaged in modes of production, exchange and consumption with European polities. The iconographic representations of the Portuguese in various mediums (such as brass and ivory) were to remain the only images

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of Europeans prior to the annexation of the kingdom by the British in 1897. They served as a local visual paradigm of encounters with all European trading partners, despite the decline of Portuguese participation in trade at the end of the sixteenth century and the consistent willingness of the Obas of Benin to trade with all comers, including the Dutch, English and French. The Portuguese first made contact with Benin at some time between 1472 and 1485 as their trading voyages edged further along the Guinea coast of West Africa. They encountered a kingdom that, under the Oba of Benin, was expanding territorially through military conquest and trade. Benin City, its urban centre, made a strong impression on visitors like Pacheco Pereira, who sailed four times in the last decade of the fifteenth century to ‘the great city of Beny [Benin]’ (Pacheco Pereira 1937: 125). Later writers like Olfert Dapper,1 writing for publication in 1668, extolled the urban and architectural achievements of Benin City and made favourable comparisons with Haarlem and Amsterdam (Dapper in Jones 1998: 11). According to Edo dynastic oral traditions of the twentieth century, the spatial plan of broad streets running out from the centre was instituted by Oba Ewuare, who is seen as one of the great fifteenth-century innovating rulers of the Edo kingdom (Egharevba 1968: 13–17). Oba Ewuare is credited with a major expansion of the realm and with the introduction of many of the major features of palace organisation, such as the introduction of red cloth and coral beads as part of the royal regalia. One twentieth-century oral tradition describes how Oba Ewuare wrested the coral beads from the sea deity Olokun.2 Bradbury (1959b: 278) suggested that this may indicate direct or indirect maritime trade with the Portuguese, noting that the Edo historian ‘Egharevba’s date for Ewuare fits in fairly well with the first exploration of the coast south of Benin by the Portuguese and it is likely that European goods arrived in Benin before Europeans themselves’. Caution is required, however, in seeking to understand the history of the Edo kingdom through twentieth-century dynastic traditions, oral and written, shaped as they are by the ideology of kingship3 as well as, more latterly, colonialism and in its aftermath the Nigerian nation state. A notable characteristic of these traditions is the tendency for certain pre-eminent Obas to accumulate extended attributions to their reigns and to serve as the exemplary protagonists for certain classes of events even if these took place outside the duration of their reigns. Literal interpretation of oral narratives is therefore inappropriate: they are, by their nature, mediated by the contemporary circumstances and contexts in which they are produced and reproduced. As such, they are not a record of historical events but a dynamic coalescence of various interpretations of past and present events, which may be conflated and otherwise altered in an ongoing process. However, there are elements that may be evaluated for historical purposes. For example,

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Akinola (1976: 21–36) has examined the way narratives of the accession of the present dynasty have been adapted and altered to apply to the context of contemporary regional politics in the late twentieth century, highlighting how rapidly seemingly ‘historical’ oral accounts can change. In Oba Ewuare’s case there is the further possibility that he could represent a dynastic shift in the accession of the Obas of Benin (Ryder 1977: 8; Darling 1984: 159; Picton 1997: 24). This may account for the extended ‘exile’ which he underwent prior to taking up the Oba-ship and the extensive degree of innovation which he introduced, including the restructuring of coronation ceremonies with the introduction of the bachelor’s camp (Egharevba 1968: 17: Nevadomsky and Inneh 1983: 50). Unfortunately European records do not identify the individual Obas that visitors encountered until Olfert Dapper does so in the mid-seventeenth century (Dapper in Jones 1998). Where identification does feature in European writings, it is difficult, prior to the nineteenth century, to connect names to the dynastic kinglists of oral tradition with any certainty (Bradbury 1959b: 269; Eisenhofer 1997). According to present-day dynastic oral traditions, the Oba is set apart from his people by a founding myth locating his origin in another dynasty based at the city of Ife, to the north-west. This Ife dynasty has a tradition as the mythic source of kingship across the entire region now identified as the Yoruba-speaking areas and beyond to Benin City and elsewhere. Ryder (1965: 28–9) and subsequently Thornton (1988: 351–62), have suggested that there may have been, at various times, similarly strong linkages with other kingdoms (possibly in the Niger-Benue region) which have become conflated with this particular oral tradition in Benin City. Bradbury (1959b: 283–4) has advanced a founding date for the origins of the Edo dynasty in the thirteenth century. Dynastic tradition holds that Oranmiyan, when he first arrived with his following from Ife, was unable to establish complete rule over the village settlements that comprised the area of Benin City. He left this task to his son Eweka, who was born of an Edo daughter of the chief from the village of Ego, near Benin City. At this early date the ability of the Oba to exert authority was constrained by the local chiefs who now make up part of Uzama n’Ihinron, the hereditary titled order that installs the Oba of Benin at coronation.4 From the end of the fifteenth century direct access to the Edo kingdom provided the Portuguese with some of the slaves5 required for the already burgeoning local slave trade at Costa da Mina (the coastal region surrounding the river Pra in present-day Ghana), as well as a variety of pepper, known locally as ehiendo (alligator pepper, Aframomum melegueta), that rivalled in potency, if not taste,6 the imported Indian pepper used in Europe. This suggested to the Portuguese the potential for a lucrative trade in pepper and other commodities (Ryder 1977: 31–3; Blake 1977: 83–4). The regulation

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of trade within the kingdom by the Oba of Benin, the ruler of a recognisably sovereign state in European terms7 with a monopoly on prestige goods and commodities, further enhanced these high expectations. The Edo kingdom offered the Portuguese the prospect of large-scale trade on a collective basis, an attractive proposition at a time when the European trade in West Africa was still based on time-consuming piecemeal transactions with many smallscale traders. Benin City occupied a strategic location that straddled three stretches of a hydrographic system that connected the interior with the coast. First, it overlooked the eastern end of a lagoon system that stretched westward to the River Volta on the Gold Coast that complemented the maritime trade of the Europeans (Thornton 1998: 19–20; Law 1983, 1989a: 213); second, south of Benin City the river systems fed into the Niger delta; and, third, the upper reaches of the lower Niger river were within striking distance to the east. These waterway systems were a key factor in Benin City’s ability to develop and exploit coastal trade near and far in a variety of commodities,8 as well as trading with the interior (Ryder 1977; Law 1983, 1989a; Darling 1981). The interaction with the Portuguese was one component in the efflorescence of the arts: the expansion of brasscasting, in particular, was aided by the trade-derived abundance of leaded brass in the form of manillas. The ‘lost wax’ form of brasscasting preceded the arrival of the Portuguese. That some castings, presumed to be early in style seriation ,9 are in a composite bronze alloy may indicate that Benin City was sourcing from West African sites in regional trade networks that predate European contact (Picton 1995: 338). However, there is also the suggestion that the plaque form, particularly in its rectangular shape and in the period indications of its style, was produced as a response to pictorial images presented in Portuguese books (Williams 1974; Bassani and Fagg 1988: 213). Caution is needed in making such inferences. Fagg (1970: 41) noted that forms from one medium often translate or transfer easily to another. The plaque form may have been acquired from other local traditions in clay, possibly in mud wall decorative friezes.10 What is likely is that the plaque form developed in brasscasting around this time and that the Portuguese were represented iconographically in the pictorial traditions of this form from its outset, as well as in free-standing leaded brass figures (Fagg 1970: 33). The Portuguese established a trading post at Ughoton,11 the outlying Edo settlement on the Benin river, through which their trade conducted in Benin City was channelled. However the supplies of pepper provided never matched Portuguese expectations. The trade was unable to compete with the much larger quantities that had become available from India at the beginning of the sixteenth century12 and occupation of the factory was relinquished (Ryder 1977: 38–9). Instead trade quickly focused on commodities that could be exchanged for gold at Costa da Mina: not only slaves, cloth

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and camwood dye but also highly valued stone beads known by the Portuguese as coris,13 which were imported via Benin through its extensive trade routes to the hinterland. Elephant ivories were also traded but initially in small quantities according to surviving shipping records, although this trade had begun to increase by the 1520s (Ryder 1977: 38, 61). In exchange the Portuguese offered a range of mainly prestige goods including cloth made in Europe and India, beads of glass and coral, cowrie beads, caps and manillas along with diplomatic gifts, such as a caparisoned horse sent by King Manuel in 1505 to the Oba of Benin (Ryder 1977: 41). Emissaries from Benin, including a chief from Ughoton, were taken to Portugal to visit the Portuguese court as part of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two sovereign states (de Pina in Blake 1942: 78–9). The manillas traded were initially composed predominantly of copper but the preference soon shifted to leaded brass, driven at least in part by an increase in the production of brasscastings in Benin City which was under the control of the Oba (Ryder 1977: 40). According to one tradition Oba Oguola, the fifth Oba of the present dynasty, who predates the advent of the Portuguese, is attributed with encouraging brasscasting specialists to settle permanently in Benin City (Egharevba 1968: 11). He is reported to have conferred the chieftaincy title of Inneh on their leader, thus acknowledging him as head of a corporate group of brasscasters. However, this tradition is countered by others that claim brasscasters already existed in Benin City from the time of the Ogiso, the mythic dynasty that preceded the incumbent ruling dynasty (Dark 1973; Gore 1997; Ben-Amos 1980: 17, 1999: 20, 2003). In some oral accounts Oba Ewuare is considered to have introduced the casting of commemorative heads and other large objects (Girshick BenAmos 1995: 28) and he is also associated with the Ihama lineage, conferring its title which is next in importance to Inneh. However, the later monarch Oba Esigie is also identified as a prominent patron of brasscasting (Egharevba 1968: 28; personal communication, Chief Inneh, 1998).14 From the outset the Obas of Benin were adept in exacting the most advantageous terms in trade negotiations by playing the different Portuguese trading interests off against each other (Ryder 1977: 45). Requests for religious instruction were linked to the desire for cannon and firearms,15 possibly encouraged by reports of the Kongo kingdom, whose king had converted to Christianity and who, as a consequence, had gained access to Portuguese firearms – de Barros noting in 1552 that the Oba ‘sought the priests rather to make himself powerful against his neighbours with our favour than from a desire for a baptism’ (de Barros in Ryder 1977: 46). In 1515 missionaries arrived in Benin City. Their arrival coincided with a war campaign the Oba was conducting some distance from the city. In 1515 the master of a Principe ship noted ‘the white men who are with the Oba at the war’ (Archivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo in Ryder 1977: 49), while

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in 1516 Pires, a Portuguese representative, had written to King Manuel (Hodgkin 1960: 100) that he and his entourage were accompanying the Oba on a war campaign. Some present-day Edo oral traditions describe the use of Portuguese soldiers to intervene in battles (Bassani and Fagg 1988: 187; Nevadomsky 1986: 44; Fagg 1970: 33; but also note Bradbury 1959b: 280).16 Europeans also made subsequent interventions and the Danish trader Ulsheimer described how, during his voyage in 1603–4, European cannon were used to assist an army sent by the Oba of Benin to seize and raze a rebel town near Lagos (Jones 1983: 24). The initial missionary presence was transient and its impact seems not to have lasted much beyond 1517,17 although the baptism of the Oba’s son and the sons of some chiefs is reported to have taken place (Egharevba 1968: 27–31; Pires in Blake 1937: 123–4). It is likely, however, that missionary expectations and interpretations of these conversions differed considerably from those of their Edo converts, whose religious experience was shaped by an open-ended pantheon of deities in Benin City. It was around this time that the sale of male and female slaves was split into separate markets to manipulate trading conditions with Europeans (Graham 1965: 20; Ryder 1977: 45, 65). Restrictions on the sale of male slaves soon became a complete embargo which was maintained until the end of the seventeenth century (Graham 1965: 20; Ryder 1977: 45, 65), indicating perhaps the demand within the Edo kingdom for male labour to exploit its plentiful land. The embargo ensured, for the most part, the kingdom’s autonomy from the exigencies of both the European trans-Atlantic and the inter-regional slave trade as it continued to develop along the Guinea coast. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries saw the greatest expansion of the Edo kingdom, stretching beyond Lagos to the west, north to the Igala region and east towards the river Niger. This expansion was accompanied by the development of complex political institutions through which the Obas of Benin ruled the kingdom. Many of these institutional changes were ascribed to the innovations of individual Obas (Egharevba 1968). A succession of Obas, from Ozolua to Ehengbuda, were successful military leaders. Internally within the core Edo kingdom, through the development and consolidation of non-hereditary titleholding associations, the Obas of Benin were able to bestow titles and offices on individuals. These were retained until the titleholder’s death at which time the title was once more at the Oba’s disposal. The Obas of Benin were consequently able to utilise the flexibility of these institutions to enhance their position at the centre of the polity. They did not depend on the consent of other constituencies, such as landholding lineages which were strong among Yoruba-speaking peoples (Lloyd 1968, 1971; Eades 1980: 93–102; Morton-Williams 1967). European descriptions of the arts of the Edo kingdom prior to 1897 are fleeting and provide few insights into their production or their local

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contexts of use and significance. The record of Welsh’s journey to Benin in 1589 recounts: The commodities that we brought home were pepper and Elephants teeth, oyle of palme, cloyth made of Cotton wooll very curiously woven, and cloth made of the barke of palme trees… They haue good store of sope and it smelleth like beaten violets. Also many pretie fine mats and baskets that they make and, spoones of elephants teeth very curiously wrought with divers proportions of foules and beasts made upon them. (Welsh in Haklyut 1926) Though this is also a clear reference to the Bini-Portuguese ivories, actual description of the ivories is unsatisfyingly vague. In the next century Dapper (in Jones 1998)18 and Sandoval (1956 [1627]), relying on others informants’ accounts, gave descriptions of the architecture of the city and palace as well as some fairly imprecise references to certain court art traditions such as brasscasting. At the beginning of the eighteenth century Nyendael’s account in Bosman (1967 [1705]: 463) described a large copper snake ‘whose head hangs downwards: This Serpent is very well cast or carved, and is the finest I have seen in Benin’. The same account tells how ‘Behind a white carpet we are also shewn eleven Mens Heads cast in Copper, by much as good an artist as the former Carver; and upon each of These is an Elephant’s tooth’ (Bosman 1967: 464) – a clear reference to the male royal ancestral altars. The silence of these European accounts on particular art forms does not necessarily mean their absence; as likely, it shows a lack of interest in such matters. T H E S E VE N T E E N T H C E N T U R Y : D U T C H T R A D E A N D R E N E WE D M I S S I O N A R Y Z E A L

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, as the numbers of merchant ships continued to increase, the Dutch began to supersede the Portuguese.19 The negotiation of trade shifted from Benin City to the riverine settlement of Ughoton; but other trading sites, populated predominantly by Delta peoples, also gained prominence.20 This enabled larger ships to have direct access and offered the advantage of attracting trade from further afield than Benin City. Edo officials and traders settled permanently at these locations and acted as intermediaries in the exchange and flow of goods to Benin City (Nyandael in Bosman 1967: 430–1). Commerce between Europeans and the Edo kingdom developed further, both in the variety of prestige trade goods brought into the kingdom and in the diversity of commodities exchanged. These now included impressively large quantities of cloth, including imports from areas beyond Benin’s direct control which were then sold onto other parts of West and Central Africa. Ryder (1977: 93) cites a single ship, the Beninreyse, delivering a

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consignment of 6,461 Benin cloths to Fort Nassau in Guinea in December 1663. Lack of cargo space forced it to leave a similar amount behind. Similarly, at Arbo from 1644 to 1646 the Dutch obtained more than 16,000 cloths and reported that the rival English trading post had bought even greater quantities. These cloths had blue or blue and white alternating strips, the separate strips sewn together to make larger cloths of varying sizes.21 Other kinds of cloths are also described by Dapper (Jones 1998: 18) such as ‘ambasis’, ‘calde’ and a more valuable ‘tijms’ (also referred to as ‘Cymons’ or ‘Simons’) that had a higher value in trade farther along the coast. Blue and white cloths were taken westwards to trade at Costa da Mina in exchange for gold and southwards to Gabon and Angola where blue cloths were exchanged for slaves and ivory. In the seventeenth century the European demand for cloth gave scope to Edo and non-Edo entrepreneurs to trade beyond the jurisdiction of the Obas of Benin, who were unable to enforce exclusive monopolies on particular trade goods. Moreover the close of the sixteenth century had been marked by the death of the last great warrior king Oba Ehengbuda, who, according to dynastic oral traditions, drowned when his canoe capsized while travelling between Eko, the settlement established by the previous Oba at the outlet of the Lagos lagoon, and Benin City (Egharevba 1968: 33). From this time on the Obas of Benin no longer took part in military campaigns but relied on their chiefs to wage war.22 The Oba now confined himself to public appearances a few times a year at important ceremonies (Jones 1983: 38; van Dantzig and Jones 1987: 229). Twentieth-century lists of kings suggest that in the second half of the seventeenth century royal succession no longer depended on direct descent or a secure dynastic connection to the throne. There were both struggles of succession between rival claimants and internecine conflicts between the Obas of Benin and eminent chiefs who sought to overthrow their authority (Egharevba 1968: 39; Nyendael in Bradbury 1959b: 273; Girshick Ben-Amos 1999: 40–2; Thornton and Girshick BenAmos 2001). At the same time, however, the Edo kingdom profited from the regional and inter-regional trade in cloths, involving neighbouring peoples and kingdoms such as the Nupe kingdom (as suggested by Ryder 1977: 94) and Ijebu Ode towards Lagos, as well as utilising the European coastal circuits of trade west to Costa da Mina and south as far as Angola. The wealth produced by this trade shifted away from the control of the Oba and provided a basis for factions or other groupings to contest his authority. A RESURGENT KINGSHIP IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUR Y

In the 1690s the Oba of Benin seized the opportunity to reassert his authority over the kingdom and curtail the autonomous power of the chiefs.23 He was not immediately successful and a conflict ensued that lasted some twenty years (Archivio della Sacra Congregazione di Propaganda Fide,

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Rome, 1696 in Ryder 1977: 114; Nyendael in Fage 1967: 466–7). However the Oba was able to mobilise support within the kingdom. Externally he supported Dutch trade interests and began to claim new trading monopolies that enhanced his economic and political capabilities. Dutch trade had increased substantially at Ughoton24 by the beginning of the eighteenth century, with an emphasis on the acquisition of ivory, and subsequently gum and redwood.25 This period saw a slow reconsolidation of the political authority of the Obas of Benin over their core domain and in dealings with European merchants, although they had less influence over the lower Benin river than previously. Slaves began to be sold with the lifting of the embargo but this remained an almost exclusively royal prerogative. Successful military campaigns were conducted by the Ezomo, who replaced the Iyase as the kingdom’s war leader, and enhanced the Oba’s authority, thereby providing an ongoing source of slaves. The Ezomo also acquired the right to trade in slaves and his title became hereditary.26 Internecine warfare with rival chiefs continued, however; in particular, the Iyase n’ Ode figures prominently in twentieth-century oral traditions as a source of protracted conflict, openly resisting the Oba from his regional base outside the city for many years (Egharevba 1968; Smith in Hodgkin 1960: 152).27 By the mid-eighteenth century a major part of the trade with Benin City was taken up by English and French trading interests who bought with them a wide range of goods – including iron bars, guns, gunpowder, mirrors, hats, cloth, tobacco, spirits, cowries and brass neptunes – which they exchanged for slaves and ivory as well as various dyestuffs (including blue and violet), cloths, gum and palm oil. However, much of the trade in slaves was gathered from the lower river and only comparatively small numbers of slaves, though on a regular basis, were obtained from the Edo kingdom, the fruits of its successful campaigns. It did not adopt or develop the large-scale slave trading and raiding that featured elsewhere in the Guinea coast region to meet the demand of the Atlantic slave trade. The reconsolidation of kingship and its political authority during the first half of the eighteenth century initiated a period of innovation in court ritual and art with an increasing stress on its religious attributes (Girshick BenAmos 1999). These attributes had always been in evidence but now became an even more important cornerstone of royal authority. New rituals were introduced that linked the ruling Obas to the origins of their kingship with the introduction of the rite of Ugie Ododua as part of the Agwe Osa ceremonies, at least according to twentieth-century oral traditions (Bradbury, Fieldwork notes R Series, n.d.: 58; Girshick Ben-Amos 1999: 11–116; Curnow 1997). In this rite a masquerade performs with brass masks featuring representations of bared teeth, an iconography with echoes in both the Delta areas (Foss 2004: 65, 104; Curnow 1997; Anderson and Peek 2002) and the

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north-eastern marches of the Yoruba-speaking area, especially Yagba and Akoko. The iconography suggests more diverse political and religious interrelationships between the Edo kingdom and neighbouring areas. Indeed an illumination of these longstanding political relations to the west is provided by the governor of Bahia in Brazil in 1807 who reported to Lisbon that the Oba of Lagos was subject to the Oba of Benin and needed his legitimation (Verger 1976: 235; Ryder 1977: 242–3).28 NINETEENTH CENTUR Y: A KINGDOM BYPASSED

The beginning of the nineteenth century saw a significant decline in the trade which flowed through Ughoton.The abolition of slavery announced by the British in 1806 and the British naval blockades to intercept slaving ships made the Benin river a less and less attractive place to trade. Trade in ivory and cloth had declined. Instead there was an upsurge in the commercial demand for palm oil used in the industrial production of European goods, such as soap and lubricants, and this trend became even more pronounced in the second half of the nineteenth century. By the 1840s British companies had established factories to conduct large-scale trade in palm oil in the lower reaches of the Benin river as well as the other rivers of the Niger delta (Ryder 1977: 239). The location of Ughoton so far upstream from the British factories marginalised the Edo kingdom from the commerce in palm oil. However its strategic positioning between the protectorates of Lagos and the Bight of Biafra was gaining the interest of consular and other British officials. As Ryder noted (1977: 246–7) there was a marked shift in emphasis in European attitudes and Benin City began to acquire a lurid reputation as the ‘City of Blood’ and ‘Golgotha, the City of Skulls’ (Burton 1865: 287). The taking of human life as part of ritual events had been recorded by earlier visitors to Benin City, such as Dapper and Nyandael, although the latter does not specify whether sacrifice included humans, but its relatively low incidence had been compared favourably to other parts of West Africa at the beginning of the nineteenth century.29 Captain Adams (Adams 1823 in Roth 1903: 63) observed at the beginning of the nineteenth century that ‘Human sacrifices are not so frequent here as in some parts of Africa; yet besides those immolated on the death of great men, three or four are annually sacrificed at the mouth of the river, as votive offerings to the sea to direct vessels to bend their course to this horrid climate.’ As the nineteenth century progressed there is more evidence from visitors to Benin City of an increase in the scale of human sacrifice, in the range of its methods of execution and in the categories of victims, with women now recorded as victims for the first time (Ryder 1977: 247).30 A further increase in human sacrifice, indicated in the reports of European visitors in the reigns of Oba Adolo and Oba Ovonramwen (Ryder

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1977: 249–50), may have been as much a product of punitive sanctions at a time of exceptionally prolonged civil war in Oba Adolo’s reign31 and of a factional struggle during the consolidation of power by his son Oba Ovonramwen after his accession. However, the uncertainty generated by military and political challenges to the Oba-ship and a need to assert a commensurate ritual and political authority may have contributed to the increase and development of new forms of human sacrifice (Ryder 1977: 15–20, 249–50; Rowlands 1993; Girshick Ben-Amos 1995: 50).32 In 1862 Sir Richard Burton, while British consul at Fernando Po, made a trip to Benin City which he wrote up in vivid detail in Fraser’s Magazine. We then emerged upon a broad space, which we afterwards called the Field of Death. It was indeed a Golgotha, an Aceldama. Amongst the foul turkey buzzards basking in the sun, and the cattle grazing upon the growth of a soil watered with blood, many a ghastly white object met the sight, loathsome remains of neglected humanity, the victims of customs and similar solemnities. (Burton 1865: 287) He was echoing similar earlier descriptions by Moffat and Smith (1841: 191 in Roth 1968: 63) who had visited in 1840. Ryder notes, however, that Burton misinterpreted much in his depiction (Ryder 1977: 248; Dennett 1906: 185, footnote 1). The scene he so vividly described was a place used to dispose of the bodies of criminals and paupers who had been denied formal burial. But in many other respects the observations of the scale of human sacrifices were confirmed by subsequent visitors like Cyril Punch, a British trader who developed good relations with Oba Ovonramwen (Roth 1903: 65–6). These perceptions about human sacrifice were not confined to the Edo kingdom alone, however, but also applied to other notable kingdoms in West Africa that British officials and missionaries had visited – Burton, indeed, had made a similar visit to the Dahomey kingdom in early 1864 (Wilks 1993, 215–21; Law 1989b: 402–4). Such writings justified territorial aggrandisement and expansion, expressly rationalised through a hierarchial construct of racial difference linked to the subordination of African societies to Europe. Arbitrary and inhumane ‘human sacrifice’ was a potent focus for constituting these discourses, with a stark contrast presented between the ‘civilising’ mission of British expansion and the supposedly barbaric practices of degenerate and decaying societies, such as the Edo kingdom, epitomised by their seemingly arbitrary taking of human life (Combes 1994: 41–2). Within the discourse of such contrasts, the disciplining and judicial features of ‘degenerate’ societies were elided, as were complex local conceptualisations that underpinned the taking of human life (these elided features sometimes overlapped in the individual case).33 Such arguments about human sacrifice and slavery provided a background to the advocacy of free trade agreements

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with the Oba of Benin that were intended to end his monopoly over trade within the Edo kingdom and undermine it as an autonomous polity (Ryder 1977: 265). The Berlin conference of 1885 consolidated British interests internationally with the recognition of a British protectorate over the ‘Niger districts’, although commercial rivalries between British and other European traders continued unabated in the region. Moreover, there were internal rivalries between the advocates of direct jurisdiction through a British administration of the Oil Rivers (including the Benin river) and indirect control through the chartered Royal Niger Company, which had established its bases on the river Niger. Galway, the British vice-consul, successfully concluded a treaty with Oba Ovonramwen after visiting Benin City for several days in March 1892. The treaty accepted the principle of consular intervention in both external and internal affairs within the kingdom (Ryder 1977: 273), but no attempts were made at intervention although the failure of the palm oil trade to expand caused concern to the British consulate. This was ascribed in British reports (Public Record Office, FO 2/51, 31 July 1892) to the ‘fetish rule’ of the Oba, who was able to exert a trade monopoly on various goods and commodities by ritual injunctions forbidding any dealings or commerce in that product except through the Oba’s agents. Despite his initial enthusiasm for direct military intervention,34 Galway counselled caution as such measures could disrupt all trade for a considerable time and work against British interests, particularly in the accruing of tax revenue to meet the costs of maintaining the Protectorate. A continuing debate among British officials about the need for some form of British intervention, whether military or political (Ryder 1977: 282, 286), did little to alter the status quo.35 In November 1896 the recently appointed acting consul-general, Phillips, discovered that the markets had again been closed by the Oba of Benin and began to prepare a military force, cabling the Foreign Office for permission to proceed. The reply again deferred the issue but meanwhile circumstances had changed profoundly. Captain Phillips and other members of his party had been ambushed and killed en route from Ughoton to Benin City. Phillips had decided to visit Benin City despite Oba Ovonramwen sending a message that he was unable to receive visitors during the ceremonial rites of Agwe. The Oba had used this tactic effectively in the past to put off unwelcome visits (Ryder 1977: 286). But Phillips was determined to press ahead. On 3 January a party of seven British officials, two traders and two hundred carriers arrived at Ughoton to commence the journey to Benin City. Despite having prepared for a military campaign, Phillips elected to visit Benin City on a peaceful mission, perhaps aware that the Foreign Office would countermand any military enterprise but wishing to claim credit for having the Oba receive him during his superior’s absence.

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Chief Iragbor Ologbosere, without the support of the Oba, organised a successful ambush of the British party soon after it passed Egbini on the road from Ughoton to Benin City, killing all but two of the British and about fifty carriers. Retaliation was swift: by 18 February the British Punitive Expedition had entered Benin City. Oba Ovonramwen fled, finally suing for peace on 5 August.36 It was then that the thousands of artefacts in brass, ivory, wood and other media were discovered at the palace, which individual members of the British Punitive Expedition removed as the spoils of war – although a cable was sent to the Foreign Office asking what to do with the plaques (the only artefacts mentioned). The reply was that they should be brought back to London and sold to raise money for the cost of pensions for those injured or killed. Oba Ovonramwen was offered a post as head of the chiefs in the administrative Native Council after a proposed induction tour of Calabar and other parts of the protectorate to learn how they were governed. Two days were allowed for the Oba to consider his proposal. He did not reappear at the appointed time and was captured by search parties later in the afternoon, forfeiting the offer. The result was the exile of Oba Ovonramwen to Calabar and his replacement by the chiefs of the Native Council until his death in 1914, when his son Prince Aiguobasimwin ascended the throne as Oba Eweka the second. E U R O P E A N B O D I E S O F K N OW L E D G E

Although there is a certain amount of archival documentation (see archival bibliography in Ryder 1977; Jones, 1983, 1994, 1995, 1998),37 it is evident that those European writers who actually visited Benin came at different periods with different expectations and agendas. They were, for the most part, controlled and regulated in their access to Edo society through their dependence on the centralised trading regimes managed by the Oba and his court officials. Their knowledge of Edo society remained constrained to say the very least. D. R. (known only by his initials), in the account of his visit published in 1602, stated that if only one were allowed to see more of it [Benin], as one is in the Cities of Holland, but this is forbidden by the person who always accompanies you; for one is not allowed to go out there. Some people say that this person goes along with you in order that no mishap may befall you, but even then, you are not allowed to go any further than he wants you to. (Pieter Marees in van Dantzig and Jones 1987: 227) This situation still seemed to prevail when Home (1982: 64) described how the British Punitive Expedition had to determine the accurate position of Benin City on a map before proceeding with their annexation of the Edo kingdom in 1897. As a consequence, apart from the artefacts themselves,

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the pre-colonial art history of Benin depends heavily on the few fragmentary and partial details recorded. Although textiles are more systematically documented as part of trade exchanges, no material evidence of them remains. It was the 1897 British Punitive Expedition’s discovery and removal to Europe from the palace of the Oba of Benin of over two thousand artefacts in wood, ivory and metal that pivotally changed Western perceptions of African artefacts. From the outset direct comparisons were made between Edo artefacts and the fine art traditions of Europe in terms of both their media and their context as court art (Read and Dalton 1899; Barkan 1997). Nevertheless, European encounters with the pre-colonial Edo kingdom helped to shape twentieth-century approaches to Edo society and art in Europe and America. Girshick Ben-Amos has argued (1999: 9–10) that the image of a kingdom that expands and then is in decline inflects this understanding. Her account of the development of new forms of Benin art in the eighteenth century deconstructs this narrative and highlights the ways these assumptions about Benin art history have persisted.38 In relating these visual innovations to historical events in the Edo kingdom, she perhaps does not take into account, however, how trajectories of art-making change over time in a dialectical dynamic with its own internal and self-contained history of forms, both in incremental and innovative developments (Wolfflin 1950). Similarly how one recuperates the past of another society is problematic. Girshick Ben-Amos (1999: 9–10) has argued that using ‘ethno-historical inquiries’ as part of the processes of fieldwork in Benin City in the latter part of the twentieth century provides a way to elicit ‘forms and meanings’. These are assumed to be retained over some two hundred and fifty years through political and social conditions – most notably the institution of kingship – that encourage retention. In contrast Bradbury commenced his seminal analysis of the brasscasting of the Ezomo’s Ikegobo (made for the shrine dedicated to an individual’s achievements through his own efforts) with a reflection on the interregnum of 1897–1914 and the processes of oral tradition, noting that This problem is, of course, being tackled 60 years too late, but it would be idle to suppose that anyone in Benin, even in 1897, would have been able, in the case of objects two or three centuries old, always to give an accurate account of the artist’s original intentions. Such accounts must always have been subject to the same modifying influences as other kinds of oral tradition. (Bradbury 1961: 129). As Nevadomsky (1997: 26–7) reflected in his overview of Benin studies in 1997, ‘In many respects the “Benin Kingdom” functions effectively as a near totalising cultural metaphor, one so powerful that scholars write as if it still existed’, and, as a persistent metaphor, it has served as a heuristic device that allows researchers to draw on twentieth-century dynastic oral

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traditions as if they were simply the concrete deposit and documentation of a past history of Benin. Such a procedure writes out the relationship of kingship and its court art to the communities that make up the kingdom. Furthermore, the exile of Oba Ovonramwen in 1897 and the remaking of the Oba’s authority in 1914 under a British administration poses a problem for this application of seeming continuity in ‘ethno-historical’ sources. As Picton has observed, in Edo, the weight of the corpus of data has allowed us to think that we are discovering the past when in reality almost all of what we have done is to take part in interpretive contemporary procedures – procedures that are part and parcel of a twentieth-century reinvention (reconstitution, reconstruction) of dynastic myth on the one hand, and European-American procedures on the other. In that case, the substantial part of our attempts at recovering an art history are no more than a participation in an Edo reinvention of itself, using the past to meet the requirements of the present … (Picton 1997: 20) Furthermore, such retentions (presumed or otherwise) need to take account of the processes by which communities may remember but also forget (Akinola 1976; Connerton 1989; Picton 1997). The ways in which historiographies of another society and culture are constituted do not necessarily correspond to Western modes of historiography, especially where conceptualisations of personhood and agency differ so markedly (Carrithers, Collins and Lukes 1985; Fortes 1959; and a critique in Piot 1999: 9–20) – as the exploration of the ideas and practices of local shrine communities demonstrates later on in this study. There is the risk of producing a Eurocentric ‘scissors and paste’ art history through a reliance on present-day informants and the partial, sporadic and mediated accounts of European visitors to Benin City. This methodological procedure is critiqued by Collingwood (1946: 256–82) in his historiographic appraisal of the authority invoked in seemingly ‘historical evidence’. If the past is a resource, the ways in which it is locally constituted, configured and deployed as part of the present needs to be taken into account. What is apparent from this brief summary of European encounters up to 1897 is how little scope it affords for any understanding of Edo society and its arts. We need, therefore, to sketch out some of the ways in which the Edo kingdom is articulated within Nigeria as colony and post-colony in the twentieth century. T H E E D O K I N G D O M I N T H E T WE N T I E T H C E N T U R Y

Benin City, the seat of the ancient kingdom, is now the capital of Edo state, one of the thirty-six states of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The contemporary institutions of kingship still have some salient features that are based upon forms of social organisation derived from the pre-colonial era. Clearly

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many of the institutions have undergone marked changes and discontinuities, both in the colonial and post-colonial eras. They have been profoundly shaped and reshaped by an interregnum of seventeen years, reconstitution under a British administration, and the advent of the Nigerian nation state. Moreover, many of these institutions were utilised by the British and, later on, by the Nigerian government in its formation and governance. These institutions coexist in their local regional sites as a subordinate political infrastructure in relation to the political government of Nigeria at national, federal state and local government area levels. Members of these institutions also often have overlapping roles in national and federal state organisations, empowering them to intervene in both local circumstances and affairs of national and federal state politics. Individuals in such roles are able to exercise patronage and to influence the allocation of economic resources, in terms of national and federal state funding as well as the supply of local services. Participation in institutions that have links to the traditions of the pre-colonial era can provide access to other networks of patronage as well as conferring status on individuals. The traditions of the institutions of the pre-colonial Edo kingdom, in their now modified form, also retain an important role in the lives and aspirations of the Edo people – as can be seen, for example, in the value placed on the acquisition of chieftaincy titles by individuals. These institutions, and the individuals who participate in them, are important arbiters of legitimacy and authority in political and religious affairs; in the shaping of the legacy of local histories and traditions; and in creating an Edo sense of identity among individuals that distinguishes them from people in other groupings. The importance of this sense of identity can be seen at national and federal state level where these regional identities, defined in ethnic terms, determine and order much of the political organisation and redistribution of wealth exacted by the Nigerian government. In 1992 the Edo sense of identity was further consolidated by the formation of Edo state from part of the previous Bendel state, which redeployed jobs and resources (determined by the federal allocation of state funding) to the advantage of groups and individuals within the newly formed state. Many features of the contemporary urban cult shrines that are the focus of this book have commonalities with the ideas and practices of other institutions associated with the history of the Edo kingdom. Members of the urban cult shrines are often linked to these institutions in a number of ways. The shrines with their followings have developed as an autonomous institution in the twentieth century. But they not only draw their legitimacy from the ideas and practices shared with other institutions, but in turn themselves contribute to the validation of these other institutions in their current contemporary circumstances. The Oba of Benin, for example, still holds a unique status that empowers his person to act as a concrete representation for and of the

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Edo people and their kingdom – and this role is still affirmed annually in the festival of Igue, now held during the Christmas holidays. The relevance of these ideas and practices is evident at a local level but on occasion can extend further. In 1991, when the Social Democrat Party (SDP) candidate Chief Oyegun was elected as governor of Edo state, the defeated National Republican Congress (NRC) candidate, Lucky Igbinedion, appealed to the national military council to invalidate the election on the grounds that the SDP campaign had continued until the day prior to voting, thus breaching the rules for the election of state governors. The NRC based its claim on an SDP television broadcast by Chief Isekhure that broke this rule. The NRC argued not only that this invalidated the campaign but also that Chief Isekhure, as the religious representative of the Oba of Benin, had coerced the population into voting for the SDP by playing on Edo fear of the local jujus – a term used to describe indigenous Edo shrines by the national press in their reports of the case. In the legal case that followed, the Oba of Benin was summoned to testify in court by Igbinedion – an unprecedented step, as it contested both the official status of the Oba as a first-class traditional chief, officially outside national politics, and his status as the head of the Edo people (to whom Igbinedion belongs). Instead of a lawyer representing the Oba of Benin, he personally came to the hearing, walking from the palace to the law court attired in ododo (the ceremonial cloth sometimes associated with ‘going to war’ in the pre-colonial era) and supported by a cheering following that increased with each step he took. This singular event, broadcast live on television, also showed the Oba being questioned by lawyers – an almost unthinkable development for the ordinary populace. Igbinedion lost his case – and his actions, in any event, had alienated the local populace (including his own followers) whose support he required to contest the election further.39 The local ways in which power, legitimacy and social advancement are contested within these conceptualisations of the institutions of the Oba of Benin are further accentuated in this series of events. On hearing of the political masterstroke deployed by the Oba, Igbenedion’s father, who holds the title of Chief Esama of Benin (and is one of the most powerful chiefs) re-attired himself in the same Ododo and marched to the law courts backed by his own followers who chanted support for him (personal communication, press secretary, Igbenedion campaign, 12 July 2003), articulating a (temporary) political opposition in terms of the rivalry of town chiefs with the Oba of Benin. An office such as that of the Oba of Benin is not a memorial to a bygone time but an active force in local and regional politics. It can lay claim to diverse bases of political support within the political infrastructures of the nation as well as having its own local constituencies of support amongst

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Edo-speaking peoples, from which it derives its particular authority and legitimacy. During the military regime of General Sani Abacha from 1993 to 1998 the Oba of Benin and comparable first class chiefs became an important instrument for legitimating the regime’s political and economic policies: they would be summoned collectively to the capital Abuja to recognise and publicly witness the enactment of some new policy. DEFINING THE EDO KINGDOM

The Edo kingdom is now identified as being coterminous with Oredo, Ovia and Orhionmwon Local Government Areas,40 with an estimated area of some 10,372 square kilometres. The peoples in this area have been in some form of relation with the Oba of Benin from at least the fifteenth century onwards. However, as Bradbury noted, there is no satisfactory vernacular term to designate the Benin kingdom or its people. Benin City is called Edo

The Kingdom of Benin (Forde and Kaberry 1967: 4)

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by its inhabitants and in certain contexts individuals from all parts of the kingdom will refer to themselves as ‘true evien Oba, “slaves” of the Oba, that is free subjects of the throne’ (Bradbury 1967a: 4). However, the same individual will also define himself in relation to his village or village cluster and the area in which it is located. Often an area is described in relation to the nearest major river that traverses it and is distinguished in terms of the near side or far side of the river as in, for example, iyeke-Orhionmwon (at the back of Orhionmwon river).41 The Edo kingdom has contained Edo-speaking and non-Edo-speaking peoples at various times, while some Edo-speaking peoples have remained outside the kingdom. Even in the core region it is possible to find divergent social practice and organisation, and varied Edo dialects between groupings with differing regional identities. Uniformity of culture, social organisation and language are maintained at the level of the village cluster within both the core of the Edo kingdom and the wider region: but it is the frequency of relations to be found between the core area and the urban centre of Benin City over time that defines that marked uniformity (Bradbury and Lloyd 1957: 18). LOCALISED FOR MS OF SOCIAL ORGANISATION IN THE EDO KINGDOM

Apart from Benin City, there are several hundred village settlements – some of which, like Urhonigbe or Udo, may once have been autonomous chiefdoms and centres of large populations, comparable in many respects to Benin City. These village settlements vary in size from twenty or thirty to several thousand inhabitants. The village unit is the widest unit for organisation of age grades, the minimal landholding unit, and the smallest unit from which formerly the demands of tribute were made within the kingdom (Bradbury 1967a: 8–10).42 In themselves, these villages are not associated with corporate kinship groups. Kinship affiliations betray an agnatic bias but the extent and depth of lineages remains shallow. This is because rights of inheritance and office holding pass from father to eldest son upon performance of the father’s funerary rites. Similarly, land rights are vested in the community of a village, rather than in its component descent groups; the elders of the village, the edion, distribute allocations of land to both members of the community and outsiders. The lack of common interests in land rights and political office militates against collective social organisation on this basis (Bradbury 1967a: 9). It is only in socially prominent families, where there are advantages in emphasising proximity of descent, that some form of collective lineage organisation and representation may be maintained. The male population of a village is stratified horizontally into age grades, presided over by the edion age grade (elders) of the village.43 The edion

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organise the lower age grades and form a village council for political and judicial purposes. The oldest man is known as the village odionwere and, in the absence of a hereditary chief (onogie), is the village headman. As the priest of the edion – a word which also refers to the collective deceased members of the village who reside in the spirit world – and also of oto, the land which the village occupies, he has powerful sanctions at his disposal as well as being the custodian of village traditions (Bradbury 1967a: 9). The onogie is a hereditary office, found at relatively few settlements, whose holder is formally recognised by the palace institutions of the Oba of Benin as the head of the village. In some villages there is also the ohen, the priest of the communal shrine of the village. In yet other instances the ohen is the only hereditary office, and has a role similar to that of the onogie.44 KINGSHIP AT BENIN CITY

The office of Oba of Benin, perceived as a longstanding and pre-colonial tradition, is at the centre of a series of offices and titles that secure a legitimacy of authority over the urban area of Benin and the village clusters that support this urban area. There are two palace orders of titleholders, the Eghaevbo n’Ogbe, (Ogbe is the royal area of Benin where the palace is based) and the Eghaevbo n’Ore n’Okhua (Ore n’Okhua describes the remainder of the town) (Egharevba 1968: 17). These two orders are broadly distinguished by their division into two separate graded classes of titleholders – those titleholders directly associated with the duties of the palace, and those titleholders of the town who have established independent positions of authority and influence by their own enterprise. Furthermore, Eghaevbo n’Ogbe administer the court of the palace by means of three associations, otu, which are characterised by different sets of duties in the palace. Although the various titleholders and their hierarchy are so grouped and identified at the Oba’s palace, however, they do not make up the entirety of these associations. Indeed, every man in the Edo kingdom has some kind of affiliation with one or other of the three associations, and all titleholders are members thereof. All free-born men in the Edo kingdom had and still have a nominal affiliation to one or other of the otu. However, full induction into any of the associations required initiation before the possibility of advancement through the major chieftaincy grades of the Eghaevbo n’Ogbe, or, indeed, acquisition of a title from the Eghaevbo n’Ore Okhua, the title order linked to the town as a whole. The Oba has the right to change the order of precedence of these hierarchies of titles, provided he does not disturb the ranking of the senior two titles of the association. All these non-hereditary titles are in the gift of the Oba when they fall vacant at the demise of the previous incumbent, although a few titles have passed to hereditary distribution by decree of particular Obas. The Oba may dispose of these as he wishes, although other titleholders expect

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to be consulted concerning their bestowal. However, the reigning Oba is unable to revoke a title or office held by an incumbent which has been awarded by his predecessor. The organisation of the otu palace associations in many respects parallels the age-grade system of the village communities in the Edo kingdom. It is perhaps the age-grade system that provides a model for them. This agegrade system of stratification is found among north-west Igbo-speaking peoples, north-east Yoruba-speaking peoples and Akoko-Edo-speaking peoples (but not among the Ebira-speaking people). The number of grades can vary, but the idea of progression through the necessary statuses that permit title-taking is common to all. The system of stratification inherent to the age-grade system in the Edo kingdom provides a model for the elaboration of court hierarchies and a means of inducting both Edo- ands nonEdo-speaking peoples. P OWE R A N D T H E P O L I T I C A L O R G A N I S A T I O N O F K I N G S H I P

Much of the literature on kingship in the Edo kingdom assumes a hierarchy of order stemming from notions of an ‘absolute power’ of the Oba of Benin who is described as a ‘divine king’ (Fagg 1970; Bradbury 1959b; Ben-Amos 1995: 12). This paradigm of hierarchy appears to correspond to, and perhaps ultimately stem from a European model of feudalism (for critiques of such models when applied to Europe see Brown 1974; Reynolds 1994).45 Graham (1965: 320, 323) is one of the few researchers to distinguish between ‘the state of Benin’ and ‘Benin proper’ (differentiating between the political system and the populations under its sway) and further to argue that historically ‘the Benin state has always been decentralized’. In the twentieth century much of this hierarchy assumed by researchers derives from the top-down arrangement created by the British administration within the framework of indirect rule, and subsequently within the strata of governance of the Nigerian nation state. As such, the ethnographic evidence mainly captures modes of twentieth-century governance; and its application to prior historical contexts needs to be evaluated critically. T H E M E T A P HY S I C A L D I M E N S I O N

The organisation of the palace institutions centred on the office and person of the Oba and validated his authority at the urban centre of the kingdom. However, there was also a consistent historical development of the authority exerted by the person of the Oba, and in another dimension. This authority of the Oba is derived from erinmwin (the spirit world). The word erinmwin is the plural of orinmwin (corpse or dead body) (Agheyisi 1986: 111). It is a fundamental Edo belief that erinmwin, the spirit world to which the dead belong, is in close and intimate contact with the material world, agbon, in which it continuously intervenes. Indeed, notions about events in agbon are

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considered to be predicated on relations to erinmwin, although the ways in which these are interpreted by individual agents are open to argument. In the instance of the Oba of Benin, his unique relationships to erinmwin is exercised not only on behalf of himself and his family but also as the personification of the various groupings of the city of Benin and the other parts of the Edo kingdom. Indeed, the dealings of the Oba with erinmwin are varied and extensive – involving both deities which are exclusive to him and others with whom communication is maintained in conjunction with particular social groupings outside Benin City, such as the ohen of communal village shrines. Thus the Oba’s legitimacy is not only maintained by his office, and the offices that depend on it, but also by the unique spiritual relation that he sustains, in his very person, to the worlds of both the living and the dead. These relations are defined primarily in metaphysical terms, but it is on these same terms that all claims to legitimacy are grounded – whether of the family, ward, guild, village or kingdom. This can be seen, for example, at the installation of an Oba, in the way in which his person is redefined in terms of his now unique (and disparate) relations to different communities in the kingdom (Nevadomsky 1984b: 48–9). Similarly, in many of the annual rites that are held at the palace (such as Igue, for example) the actual person of the Oba is sanctified and fortified to enhance his unique relationship with the metaphysical and physical domains over which he has authority. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, however, kingship is not restricted to this metaphysical context and the Oba is regarded as the ‘royal father’ of all religions practised within the Edo kingdom.

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2 SHRINES AND DEITIES

Having flagged the importance of erinmwin (spirit world) in conceptualising kingship, personhood and agency at the end of the last chapter, we now examine the ways in which shrines feature in configuring this metaphysical domain. Many, but not all, spiritual agencies are identified and defined through the different kinds of shrines. At a more general level this range of shrines maps some of the complex ways in which erinmwin is delineated. Furthermore, individuals place themselves in particular relationships through the concrete materiality of shrines and their associated artefacts, linking the individual to this metaphysical world; also, by the same means, individuals place themselves in social relationships. This is most obvious in the relations between ohens (priests) and their clients, but many other social relations are enabled. This chapter focuses on the categories and contexts of shrines in their concrete materiality. Shrines mark out a physical area that is differentiated from other spaces by the presence of the deity. Ome (young palm fronds) are used to demarcate this space. There are usually restrictions on access, with varying degrees of enforcement. The shrine itself may be either a part of the natural physical environment or constituted with material artefacts, or a combination of both elements. They are found in different social contexts and, as such, have differing historical, political and regional trajectories with all the multiple references that these can entail. Some are central to kingship in the Edo core of the kingdom and underpin its legitimation, as Nevadomsky demonstrates in his accounts of the coronation of the incumbent Oba in 1979 (Nevadomsky and Inneh 1983; Nevadomsky 1984a, 1984b). SHRINES IN THE DOMESTIC HOUSEHOLD

Many different kinds of shrine, each with its own history and sphere of reference, are found in domestic households. Christianity has had an impact on their distribution and/or maintenance but, where they are maintained, one can generally expect to find one or more shrines – most typically the erha, the shrine dedicated to the deceased father and through him to prior forebears, which plays a central role in the domestic household. It is passed on to the eldest son on the death of the father and after completion of the full burial rites. The senior son legitimates his claim to his deceased father’s

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authority by funerary rites that include adding a wooden rattlestaff1 to the erha.2 Failure to perform these rites can invalidate his claim as successor, making it possible on his death for close relations to claim succession for themselves (Bradbury 1965: 98). The head of the family intercedes with the deceased (and his forebears) to intervene in erinmwin on behalf of all patrilineal descendants, although the brother nearest in age to the deceased can also claim a role as he represents the descendants of the junior brothers of the deceased. Similarly, the oldest man and other elders of the patrilineal line settle serious disputes and represent members in external dealings. It is also possible, and often preferable, for male descendants of deceased younger brothers to set up a separate erha to their own father rather than maintain a subordinated ritual role to the eldest son of the eldest brother, an arrangement that offers little advantage to them. This leads to a constant process of fission of shrines. The prestige and status of particular families can mitigate this fission, however, as there are political and social advantages in maintaining what are often nominal links with such descent lines. But descent lines are so shallow that only in exceptional cases are such claims asserted, whether factually or fictionally. This is evident in the Uzama n’Ihinron hereditary titled order and most notably in the instance of the Oba of Benin, where a depth of descent is advanced in the construction of ideas and practices about kingship. An annual festival known as eho is held each year between October and November to honour the erha and offer sacrifice. At this festival all the patrilineal descendants of the erha shrine present themselves (and their wives) to the shrine. Where there is a hereditary title involved, previous holders of the title are honoured separately (Bradbury and Lloyd 1957: 55). In some households where members have a high social status or hold a high-ranking title, there are also shrines to the deceased mothers of past and present heads of the household. This features most prominently in relation to the queen mother of the Oba of Benin (Bradbury and Lloyd 1957: 55; Kaplan 1997a). In some households there are other shrines dedicated to various powers present in the spirit world. The head of the household or his predecessors may have set up shrines to uhunmwun (the head). The head, as the seat of judgement, is believed to determine an individual’s fortune: a shrine to the head may be set up in recognition of the good fortune that it has brought to a successful individual or in order to avert misfortune in contrary instances. This process is either initiated directly by the individual or identified as appropriate after consultation with a diviner. Thanksgiving can be offered to the head at any time and there is also an annual celebration, Igue, where offerings are made to the head. Another shrine may be set up to ehi, the spiritual counterpart of the living individual and the source of his or her destiny and lifepath.3 During

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the period of fieldwork ehi was also known as ‘star’ in pidgin English and equated with Orunmila, found in the Yoruba-speaking areas with a similar set of ideas and initiation practices in which there is a ritual ‘washing’ of palm kernels to discover the particular ehi of an individual (for a description, see Bascom 1969; as applied in Benin, see Ibie 1986). The shrine consists principally of a container in which the palm kernels are placed, often located in a domestic space that is not so visibly marked out by ome or other spatial markers as other shrines. Another shrine may be set up by the head of the household to obo (the arm) which is considered to represent the capability to accomplish success. It was associated particularly with warriors in the past but is also set up by wealthy and successful individuals (Bradbury 1961: 133–5). In many respects it is very similar to ikenga shrines, also dedicated to the arm and found in the Igbo-speaking areas (Boston 1977).4 In many households a shrine is set up to Osun (the deity of medicines). These Osun shrines – sometimes there are several in the same household – are set up for various purposes such as to protect or defend the occupants, especially the children of the household, from physical illness or spiritual injury. Personal initiation is not required for the use of Osun shrines, which are set up by an obo (native doctor). They belong to the head of the household, who uses them to fortify members of the household by bathing, drinking or other processes. For the wives of the householder there is also Olode, a shrine of an ikhinmwin tree that is planted in the married womens’ quarter. Disputes between women within the household family (or extended family residing within the household) are resolved at this shrine, whereby an aggrieved wife can testify to the benign intentions of her actions in the presence of all the women of the household. More problematic disputes, such as those between wives and the head of the household, may have further recourse to erha (the shrine to the father), particularly at the time of its annual ceremony in October and November – where, for example, wives testify to their faithfulness to their husband in the past year. Deception at either of these shrines results in illness or death to the errant wife or her children. Other shrines that may be found in the household are personal shrines held by the head and other members of the household. Men often have a personal shrine dedicated to Ogun, the deity of iron. Men’s activities – as hunters, warriors, or in any occupation that uses metal tools – are under the guidance and protection of Ogun. Today these occupations include those of bus driver, soldier, barber, or any other contemporary activity that makes use of metal. Shrines to other deities are acquired by individuals in the households for their own personal use, as appropriate to their circumstances. The various wives of the head of the household and other resident women have separate shrines to Olokun, the deity of the sea and rivers who controls

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fertility and ensures the successful bearing of children. This is a key concern of women as it allows a wife to establish herself in her husband’s domestic household with the relative security that the bearing of children provides.5 Whereas Ogun is predominantly set up as a shrine by men, women set up personal shrines to Olokun in the domestic household of their parents or husbands. This gendered contrast between Ogun and Olokun shrines may have been more pronounced in the past.6 The contrast also varies regionally. In areas such as Urhonigbe, Olokun is the communal deity and is served by all members of the community with the ohen (priest) of the village shrine being male (Izevbigie 1978). The role of Olokun, the deity of the water spirit world who brings wealth and fertility, is often compared to that of the Oba of Benin, partly because of his associations with long-distance trade derived from the Atlantic coastline. At one level domestic shrines are used as a means of marking out and legitimising social relations within the family, as well as a means of embedding more general notions of identity and determinacy in relation to deceased family members. They can also be utilised to serve as a means of protection and security within the family and against outsiders. They are predicated on the ways in which claims to political and social authority are exerted in the (often polygamous) immediate family and the more extended family. This can be seen, for example, in the burial rites and funeral observances that define the (usually) first-born son inheriting his father’s rights and titles and the erha shrine. The assertion of these rights defines the roles of the male members of the family – the direct male descendants of the deceased, for example – in the isoton processions during the burial ceremonies. COMMUNAL VILLAGE SHRINES

At each village there is a shrine to the edion (collective ancestors of the village), who include the original inhabitants and all the elders who have since lived and died there (Bradbury and Lloyd 1957: 56). The term edion can thus refer both to the elders of the village and to their predecessors in the spirit world. The odionwere (the senior elder of the village) is the priest to the edion and derives much of his authority from this relationship, whether he is the principal authority of the village or not. Similarly oto (the land) is worshipped in close relationship with the edion. Oto sustains the rightful inhabitants of the land, with whom it is in a direct relationship that outsiders do not enjoy. However edion is also used as a specific term of reference to the deceased predecessors and, in particular, to the attributed founders of any corporate group. It can be applied to village or town wards or to specialised professions, as well as within the domestic household. The palace associations have their own shrines to edion. There is also the edion of the entire Edo kingdom, Edion-Edo, which is under the guidance of chief Esogban, who has as one of his titles the Odionwere-Edo. Villages or village clusters have a

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shrine dedicated to the ihe (the deity associated with a particular locality), which is organised to serve the village or village cluster as a collective whole. These communal deities are often characterised as individuals who metamorphosed into a particular feature of the environment – such as, for example, the local river – when they passed into the spirit world. The village has a special relationship to the deity (underlined by the interaction of the village with the particular physical feature of the environment associated with the deity), who protects them as a community in the spirit world as well as punishing transgressions. This relationship is mapped out in material terms by the communal shrine having two locations, one within the village and one some distance outside, providing a conduit for accessing its spiritual energies, resources and possibilities both within the context of village life and within the different context of its forest environment.7 Furthermore it frames the village and its trajectory at the centre of a specific local cartography of time and space (and on occasion in relation to the movements and migrations of communities within such a cartography). These shrines have appointed priests known as ohens. The role of the ohen can vary in different villages in relation to other figures of authority in the community such as odionwere (oldest man) or enogie (hereditary chief). The means by which shrines are constituted and maintained also contribute to the formation and definition of local regional identities and particular bodies of knowledge. One example is the Ighuen regional cluster made up of fourteen villages that have common historical, political and social ties dating, according to oral traditions, from (at least) the time of Oba Ewuare. The villages all have a community shrine dedicated to the deity Okhuaihe. The extant narratives of Okhuaihe seem to indicate that he allied himself in a special relationship to the then dispossessed Oba Ewuare in his struggles to gain the Oba-ship of Benin. Okhuaihe helped him succeed to the title of Oba, providing political support and spiritual assistance (Egharevba 1951, 1974). This has resulted in complementary relations between the Oba and the Okhuaihe shrines. In fact the ohen of Evbiekoi, who is the recognised head of all the Okhuaihe ohens and who in the 1990s sought to claim the title of ‘Oba’ of Evbiekoi,8 is not permitted to visit Benin City since death (in terms of a strong spiritual prohibition of his ohen–ship) might ensue if he were to meet the Oba of Benin. However, the other Okhuaihe priests perform an important set of rites at the palace just prior to the Igue festival of the Oba of Benin. THE INSTITUTION OF THE OBA AND SHRINES

The Oba and the institutions of the palace exert control over the various localities of the heterogeneous Edo kingdom. These relations vary in a spectrum from those under his direct control to those with which he has

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only indirect or tenuous connections. One can argue that historically the institution of Oba-ship has been predicated in part on its development of a centralised social and political authority over different peoples, regions and localities through claiming a legitimate ritual authority.9 This has been achieved by different strategies and interactions with local communities. The Oba of Benin, as the ruler of the Edo kingdom, has developed complex and overlapping relations to many shrines through the institutions which underpin his rule and authority. The Oba has elevated his royal shrines, dedicated to his forebears, to stand for and so encompass the erha shrines of each household. In a similar manner this encompassing set of relations is constituted in the Oba’s ceremony to his head during the Igue festival,10 which is then followed by every household conducting a similar ceremony to the head. The Oba’s Igue stands for, and so benefits, the entire Edo kingdom. The organisation and use of shrines at the domestic and village level in the region, and the notions of spiritual legitimation upon which these practices are based, enable the Oba of Benin to extend these notions to his office and person. These claims each encompass and legitimise a history of the institution of Oba-ship. Historically, the Oba of Benin has recognised and physically brought shrines to the palace, where they are maintained. Indeed, Obas like Ewuare are depicted in dynastic oral traditions as also destroying many ebo and ihe shrines. Similarly, many Obas have designated and recognised particular community shrines in villages, both in the environs of Benin City and in the Edo kingdom, as ‘shrines of the Oba’ such as the communal shrine at Idunmwun-Uhunmwun (see Chapter 4). These shrines are in a special, privileged relationship to the Oba. Such oral traditions often indicate not only relations between the Oba and a shrine, but also historical relations with the social grouping associated with that shrine. Whether this is elaborated on or merely acknowledged depends on the present-day standing of the shrine and its ohen with the present-day institutions of the Oba of Benin. The Oba also recognises certain hereditary ohen titles of villages or village clusters where the acceding titleholder presents himself to the palace for legitimation. Similarly, the Oba settles disputes between claimants contesting a hereditary title. At the palace the Oba confers titles within his institutions on particular ohens, although the designation of such a title and its duties may be relatively autonomous of the titleholder’s profession as ohen. Consequently, ohens can be aligned to the Oba through various offices conferred within his institutions. There has also been a tradition of ohens gaining recognition directly from the palace by presenting themselves at the court to be tested by an ordeal known as saibo (reveal the secret) whereby the ohen is challenged to find and/or describe a concealed object. Success in this task confers recognition by the Oba of Benin and his patronage. However, this

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practice had fallen into abeyance during the reign of Eweka II. The acquisition and maintenance of particular relations to these communal shrines, through coercive measures and spiritual authority, has provided one means for the Oba of Benin to arbitrate between different regional constituencies. By these varied means, the institution of the Oba-ship has been able to secure and maintain legitimate social, economic and political power over the Edo kingdom as a whole. The Oba’s relations to communal village shrines underpin the legitimacy and exertion of that power. URBAN CONTEMPORAR Y CULT SHRINES

Some shrines are developed by charismatic individuals to extend beyond the context of a communal village, family or private individual shrine. They acquire a public standing or prestige that attracts a following of devotees. These shrines may be developed from personal shrines, inherited from the family or derived from communal village shrines, and in some instances from the importation of a shrine from another region or community. The means by which deities and shrines are acquired often depend on the particular biographies of the individuals concerned, although these experiences are informed by some common ideas and practices. For example, a deity may be acquired from a village community shrine on the basis of family connections and inheritance or, in other instances, by laying claim to a village shrine that has fallen into abeyance – often this demands, before a successful installation can occur, a redefinition of the role of the shrine, the individual’s laying claim to it, and the establishment of new obligations and relations to the village community. Whatever the complex biography, individuals who have developed shrines practise full-time to become economically independent. Usually the shrine is owned by the ohen within some area of his or her compound or dwelling place, although sometimes the shrine is at a more distant location – such as, for example, the communal village shrine when the ohen holds it on behalf of the community. In seeking to resolve personal misfortunes or afflictions, individuals sometimes discover through consultation of an oracle that they need to set up a shrine to mediate in a positive way the influences and actions of a particular deity. In other instances, individuals are considered to be in such danger from agencies in the spirit world that they require the protection that a deity affords. In order to ensure success in the individual’s life, recognition of the deities concerned is demanded through the installation of shrines to each deity considered to be involved with the individual. This form of acquisition is the first stage in an individual becoming a fully-fledged ohen. THE MATER IALITY OF THE SHR INE

Some shrines are nothing more than an area of the natural physical environment (especially at rivers).11 They are identified by the charismatic expe-

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riences of the individual concerned or through divination, or perhaps both. In the cases of communal village shrines these have been identified initially in the mythic or historical past.12 Most shrines are constituted materially by means of an assemblage of things, some naturally occurring, some humanmade. These constitute an installation that is the product and subject of ritual activity, and the assemblage can be understood as a trace of the developmental trajectory of a shrine and its ohen that enacts over time a relationship between him or her and the deity to which it is dedicated. The naturally occurring things can include leaves, stones and a range of other objects such as ulelefe, a distinctive type of termite mound in which the top layer overhangs. The artefacts are either ready-made and purchased from the market stalls that specialise in these matters (Nevadomsky 1988a), or commissioned by an ohen from an artist or from other ohens, or made by the ohen concerned. Shrine installations also include things presented as gifts by clients and devotees at the behest of an oracle interpreted by the ohen, or as a token of appreciation for a task accomplished by the ohen. They also include the remains of sacrifices, usually the head of the animal. The incorporation of objects into a shrine assemblage is shaped by two factors. First there are those objects that feature because they are identified with a certain deity as part of its associated conventions of ideas and practice. Second, there are other objects which are placed in these assemblages that have no prior given relationship to a particular deity. Their placement is legitimated as part of a ‘deposit’ of social and ritual relationships (Baxandall 1972) enabled by the context of a shrine configuration and the deity to which it is dedicated. For example, shrines dedicated to Olokun contain some key objects that define the shrine as that of Olokun but also, as crucially, define the ohen in a specific relation to the deity. Thus an Olokun shrine requires a pot that contains water from the river that is visited at the commencement of the initiation (designated by oracle) along with various objects placed inside it. In the course of the initiation, the initiate acquires uleku (an Olokun pendant), worn about the neck and consisting of coral beads, agate beads and cowries with a small bell attached. In the context of Olokun shrines, coral and agate are associated with the sea and rivers, respectively, that are the domain of this deity. Their use in the uleku design and their prestige attests to its owner’s wealth, prosperity and success – all blessings bestowed by the Olokun. Coral beads are also associated with kingship, and one highly valued form of coral was imported from Mediterranean sources. Coral has multiple and overlapping significances and references. In an oral tradition that articulates the dynastic succession of the Obas of Benin, Oba Ewuare is said to have gone under the sea to wrest coral beads from Olokun (Bradbury, Fieldwork notes R Series, n.d.). Thus the power of the Oba is both contrasted and

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identified with that of Olokun to substantiate a spiritual, political and social authority to which the Oba and his institutions lay claim. Thus there is a complex articulation of relations with the use of a much-prized material over which historically the Oba asserted control. New titleholders are presented with a single coral bead as a mandate from the Oba of Benin. The highest ranks of titleholders can wear the odigba, coral collar, and the udahae, coral headband, but these are not the property of the titleholder (at least notionally) but must be returned on their death to the Oba. Similarly, the Edaiken during one part of the accession ceremonies holds in his mouth a long strand of coral hanging down from the udahae band which he wears. This context of use signifies his extraordinary wealth: he even consumes coral beads (Nevadomsky and Inneh 1983: 48). In the period of fieldwork coral used by ohens as part of their ritual regalia was obtained without reference to the Oba of Benin or his institutions. Its presence asserts the power and spiritual authority of the individual ohen, who claims a direct connexion with the deity. This is acknowledged in a common saying that Oba n’ame no se rre oke: Oba of the sea is greater than the one of the land. The ideas and practice associated with the coral beads are not simply the constant reiteration of defined, substantiated relationships of power and authority constituted within a unitary framework of kingship. Individual agents utilise coral in an ongoing dialectic that negotiates relations between different contexts of ideas and practice. The spiritual power and efficacy of a shrine is dependent on a few key objects that define and articulate the relations of an individual ohen with the specific deity: in the case of Olokun, for example, these things include the water drawn from the river and the leaves associated with the deity which have been macerated in this water (Imasogie 1980). Other objects found in shrines are an elaboration or reiteration of this basic and fundamental relationship between the ohen and the deity. The relationship between the ohen and the deity of the shrine is one of mutual support and benefit, with the latter providing material benefits through intervention in agbon (the physical world). A successful ohen will have many prestigious sacrifices at the shrine – such as a cow, for example, with the giving of the head for the ebo (referring to both shrine and deity) to feed on. After a ceremony where sacrifice takes place the ohen and devotees eat the cooked meat of the sacrifice. The skulls of cows sacrificed indicate in concrete terms the efficacy of the deity and ohen (Barber 1981) and are incorporated into the shrine assemblage as a trace of that ritual process. The ohen also renews his or her relationship with the deity through such events. The successful ohen will secure a permanent dwelling place for the ebo (shrine and deity), often building a house for this purpose. Similarly, the ohen may wish, or be instructed by the deities, to have statues constructed to represent them. These may be built by the ohen or commissioned from someone else.

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SHRINES AND PLACE

Shrines through their placement within rural and urban landscapes both articulate and mediate relations between the material and spiritual world. They contribute to the making of the social spaces or cartographies through which individuals move, perhaps typified by the example of the small saplings of ikhinmwin trees found outside a surprisingly large number of buildings in Benin City: these trees, as well as being a shrine in themselves, flag the presence of other shrines to be found within or in the vicinity of that particular building.13 Irrespective of their attributes and the ways in which they may relate to a certain domain – to the water spirit world in the case of an Olokun shrine – shrines are conceptualised as an inherent part of the landscape and for this reason are seldom moved outside the Edo-speaking areas once set up. Personal shrines are moved around this landscape when the shrine owners move to new accommodation or new places. When someone travels outside the Edo-speaking areas, shrines are usually left behind in their last location or in the care of the ohen who has a ‘parental’ role to that individual (one of the ohens who initiated that individual, for example). Although locality is an important component in constituting shrines and the communities that are enabled by them, these communities are underpinned by a far more extensive spatial network. The numbers of members that make up a community of devotees at a shrine fluctuate to a degree, depending on circumstance, but they give little indication of the wider social networks that fan out across Nigeria, Africa and the other continents. The numbers that are inducted into any moderately successful shrine in a given year are considerable. There is also the cumulative increase with the passing of each year in the number of members, whether they are active or latent in shrine affairs (even relatively small shrines cite memberships that reach four figures). Some become active participants on a regular basis while others may participate on an ad hoc basis or not at all if the problem or affliction is redressed. Many join to gain the protection a shrine affords for travel to other parts of Nigeria, Africa or other continents, and membership may be part of a pragmatic range of protections acquired for travel, alongside those acquired from Pentecostal churches. A significant number of those who travel to the outside world maintain links to the community engendered by the shrine and from time to time may require advice or services from the ohen to address difficulties they encounter abroad. They will send gifts or money in recognition of the support and aid the ohen has given, sometimes as a one-off intervention or on a more or less regular basis as in the case of ohen Aitolekpenhae (see Chapter 4), to whom a shrine member now residing in Japan sends remittances. The regional and international mobility of these shrine members, and the services that they draw on as they negotiate their encounters abroad, demonstrate the ways in which these shrines,

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although conceptualised as part of a localised Edo landscape, participate in global flows and at least in part are shaped by them in the transnational services that they render (Marcus 1995; Piot 1999). SHRINES AND THEIR SEMANTIC FIELD

The word ebo is defined by Agheyisi (1986: 37) as a noun meaning either ‘a god; deity’ or ‘symbolic objects instituted to represent particular gods and deities’. Melzian (1937: 48, 87) prefers to stress the man-made aspect of ebo, in contrast to the word ihe which he explicates as a deity whose shrines are believed to have been instituted by the deity itself; the ihe mostly correspond to rivers and are believed to have been human beings who transferred themselves into those rivers … (Melzian 1937: 87) It is apparent that the word ebo can be applied to embrace a range of differing contexts. These vary from direct reference to a deity (or deities) to naturally occurring objects associated with the deity, and to installed objects associated with the deity in a sacred area. These characteristic features are perhaps best described by the word ‘shrine’. And the process of setting up such a shrine to a deity is described as ko ebo, to plant a shrine. However, the word ebo can also refer to the manifestation of the deity through the ohen (priest) of that shrine or other participants. This is especially characterised in the expression ebo zoy, meaning that the deity picks out or chooses, acting through a specific individual and in terms of ritual performances related in particular to possession of the individual by that deity. I did not find during fieldwork in the 1990s that the distinction between ebo and ihe was as clear-cut a contrast in the Edo language as Melzian indicated in the 1930s.14 The ways in which the deities, and the relations between them, are conceptualised differ considerably between individuals. Wide differences are to be found even among the Igie ohens (chief priests), who are the full-time priests of shrines that they maintain. Some individuals (and some ohens) consider all deities, with the possible exception of the deity Osa, at one level of significance or another, to have been individuals in the material world who at some time turned into deities – often being associated with features of the physical environment such as rivers, lakes, hills and so on. The use of overlapping terms that are not contrasted absolutely, with an attendant interpretive slippage, is not necessarily a new phenomenon.15 However, it may be that with the long-term dissemination of Christian ideas and practice in Benin City (with the advent of British jurisdiction from 1897 onwards), the deity Osa, often described as the supreme or high God, has been defined in this context to correspond with Christian notions of God, with the consequent demotion of the other deities. In some villages, by contrast, one can still locate local cults devoted

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to the worship of Osa in a manner no different to the worship accorded other deities. In many instances the contrast which Melzian drew between ebo and ihe depends on a situational context rather than an absolute contrast. It is apparent, however, that the word ebo for deity can claim a prior legitimacy to ihe. In many oral narratives, such deities designated as ebo preceded ihe and participated in the initial ordering of the world. The term ihe has also been used to describe deities who historically have been identified more concretely with a particular geographic locality and the villages of that locality – something that is less evident with deities such as Ogun, who is identified with a very extensive regional area that even reaches beyond the bounds of the Edo kingdom (Barnes 1997). Nevertheless, it is also apparent that the word ebo is bound up with notions of the presence and action of deities in agbon (the material world) as well as being located in erinmwin (the spirit world). This also distinguishes it from the word aro, which is used to describe the site of a shrine (Melzian 1937: 11). The word aro locates the physical place of the shrine and is followed by the name of the deity that qualifies it descriptively: aro Osa (shrine of Osa), for example. The use of the words ‘shrine’ and ‘deity’ to describe some of the significances of the term ebo clearly divides its range of references into more discrete categories. This conventional translation is not entirely arbitrary, however, in that it is one that is used by most Edo individuals when referring to these meanings in English and pidgin English. In practice, therefore, this is an established convention understood by English speakers in Benin City, although translation from Edo to English can be put to different uses by individuals, depending on their intentions and the audience addressed. T H E R O L E O F A G E N C Y I N T H E S P I R I T WO R L D

Erinmwin is distinguished from agbon. In some contexts a contrast can be drawn between erinmwin as the spirit world and agbon as the world that human beings inhabit while alive. In other contexts the relationship between the two can be depicted as complementary or overlapping, with causation in the physical world deriving from agencies in the spirit world. Its terms of reference can be used as a means of describing legitimate and illegitimate relationships of power which are attributed to particular individuals. However, notions of legitimacy and precedent are rooted in the metaphysical agencies of erinmwin, who sanction the exertion of that legitimate authority and acquiesce in its mundane outcomes. For example, the holder of an erha shrine acts as an intermediary between the deceased predecessors in erinmwin and members of the patrilineal descent group. The deceased members are considered to act on the descent group and are capable of causing fortune and misfortune, depending on their relationship

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to the descent group as maintained through the intermediary of the senior son. Edion describes those who precede in seniority and, in the context of erinmwin, the edion are the collective dead who can intervene in the affairs of a family, ward or village – and, in some instances, in the affairs of the Edo kingdom. This form of relationship constituted between the owner(s) of the shrine and the metaphysical agencies accessed provides a means for resolving conflicts between individuals who bring disputes to a particular shrine. Such individuals present to the shrine their interpretations or claims about a dispute. Legitimate intentions and actions carried out by an individual have no accompanying consequences. But harmful, malign or illegitimate intentions and actions incur the anger of the ancestor, deity or metaphysical agency with which the particular shrine is associated. The transgressor is identified by the misfortunes and afflictions he or she subsequently experiences, brought about by the anger of the metaphysical agency (which may be short-term or last many years). The specific causes of these events may be confirmed by consulting an oracle, which will identify the transgression, the metaphysical agency responsible and the actions required to redress the situation. Individuals make an ongoing pragmatic assessment of the attendant consequences of their own particular courses of action, which may be revised at a later date in the light of further events or their assessment of other individuals’ intentions and actions (for a general discussion of the negotiation and resolution of disputes and the fluid, often indeterminate processes by which they are identified, conceptualised and managed, see Moore 1995; Bohannan 1957, 1969; Gulliver 1979). Negotiations take place when determining and interpreting events, and individuals can reject the interpretation offered at a given shrine or oracle. Multiple strategies can be adopted by a protagonist in a dispute, utilising the resources of a range of different shrines as well as Pentecostal churches and such institutions as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Rosicrucians or even Hare Krishna temples to determine and resolve the problems. Protagonists undergo not simply a judicial transaction but a process that may involve therapeutic holistic healing. Individuals position and reposition themselves through these often overlapping, ongoing social processes, which are both participatory and contingent.16 The ways in which deities are delineated plays an important role in ideas about personhood and agency. The deities are conceptualised as human-like beings with extraordinary powers who happen to dwell in the spirit world. Special relationships can be developed with them by individuals who have a special ability, or at the instigation of the deity in question. Through this privileged relationship individuals can influence the actions of the deities in the physical world and, at times, persuade them to intervene in the affairs of human beings. Thus deities can act either of their own accord or at the behest of individuals who enjoy this privileged relationship.

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However, this ability of agencies in erinmwin to act in the material world, agbon, is not confined merely to a set number of deities. Not all the deities are known and the conventional suggestion in Benin City that they number okpa ne uri (two hundred and one) is a metaphorical designation that they are too numerous to be counted. Sometimes a portion of sacrifice to a known deity will be left out on the ground for those unnamed deities, spirits and other spiritual agencies (see below) that have not been singled out through the specific donation of the sacrifice. Another class of agents in the spirit world are azen (witches). Typically, they are defined as malevolent beings in the spirit world who, while still living as people, were able to join the society of witches. In exchange for offering the witches the life of a close kinsperson, power in erinmwin is conferred. They are associated with the night, when they are thought to carry out their acts of malice and destruction, and hold their meetings on or in the Iroko tree. Individuals are sometimes identified as witches and various actions (usually of an anti-social nature) are attributed to their agency. To discover whether a person is a witch or not, aggrieved parties can apply for adjudication by other competent parties, which can include ohens, native doctors, the Oba and the palace institutions, or other religious institutions such as the Pentecostal churches. Some individuals publicly claim to be azen or omwanabe (practitioners of witchcraft). Usually they claim to be ‘white witches’ (the pidgin English term) and that they act for the benefit of clients in the same way as ohens and obos (native doctors). The use of a term such as ‘white witch’ may be a development informed by the traditions of Christianity, which may have modified local indigenous notions of witchcraft: the Aladura and latter-day Pentecostal churches, in particular, have often been concerned with such issues. Like some ohens and native doctors, ‘white witches’ sometimes act in an anti-social manner to further the interests of a client. Conversely, individuals who are perceived as hindering or blocking the interests of an individual are sometimes described in terms of witches and witchcraft. It is evident that the contexts in which these terms are applied highlight complex notions of power. The obo (native doctor) is another class of individuals able to intervene in the spirit world. The obo relies on the power of leaves, which circumscribes both their physical and spiritual powers. An obo is distinguished from an ohen because he or she does not have personal relations with a deity in the spirit world. Although some leaves may be used by an ohen in connection with a particular deity, a native doctor will use the same leaf for different purposes, eliciting a physical property and spiritual efficacy distinct from that of the ohen. However, these properties cannot be elicited – even after knowledge of particular uses of leaves has been attained – until the user has performed okpobo (o kpe obo) or ‘washing of hand’. This is the initiation

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an obo undergoes to gain the power that is in the leaves. It is a power that is gained or conferred from the spirit world from the edion ebo and edion ewaise, the first (eldest) native doctors and the first (eldest) diviners. The edion ebo and edion ewaise are not regarded as deities but as individuals who preceded today’s practitioners and have considerable power in the spirit world through their achievements. With their assistance an obo is able to intervene in the spirit world and so influence events in the material world. The obo, because of his or her own standing in the spirit world, is also able to influence the actions that azen (witches) and other similar agencies take to determine events in the material world. This is achieved through sacrifice and prepared medicines. Some individuals have the ability to intervene in the spirit world through their own independent and autonomous strength, but remain unrecognised and unaligned to any particular class of agency in the spirit world. Such individuals only reveal their power when challenged in the spirit world. Ordained priests of other religions, notably Christianity and Islam, also have a recognised standing in the spirit world, and are able to intervene in the course of events through their spiritual efficacy. Suitably qualified members of other faiths in Benin City – such as, for example, the Bahai and the Rosicrucians – also have a spiritual standing. However, local concerns about witchcraft or the intervention of the deities are most usually dealt with by specialists in these ideas and practices, such as ohen or obo, although some Aladura and Pentecostal churches claim expertise in dealing with these matters within a different set of religious ideas and practices on witchcraft (Gore 2007a). SHRINES AND CHRISTIANITY

The (Anglican) Church Missionary Society established a permanent presence in Benin City in 1902, some five years after the British Punitive Expedition of 1897, through the personal efforts of Bishop James Johnson. The Roman Catholic Société des Missions Africaines followed suit a year later (Ayandele 1966: 158). In 1923 the Baptists built a church on Mission Road in Benin City (Atanda 1988) and in 1924 the first Roman Catholic church was built in Benin City, although an earlier site acquired in 1899 had been cancelled by the colonial authorities in 1901 (Egarevba 1968: 92–3). Ayandele (1966: 158) further notes an apathy towards Christianisation among the local Edo population, in contrast to the Yoruba- and Igbospeaking areas; he attributes this, at least in part, to lack of commitment in the local Christian missions, who invested few resources. The administration built secular schools and gave little support to mission initiatives.17 This may have been a factor contributing to the long-term prevalence of local religious ideas and practices centred on shrines. Similarly, kingship was reintroduced during the colonial period (Igbafe 1979), and within the

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post-colonial Nigerian nation state the kingdom participates in the ongoing formation of a collective Edo-speaking identity linked to Edo state’s access to the resources distributed by the Nigerian government. Notions of kingship overlap with the ideas and practices that constitute shrine configurations. Various Christian religious revivals have taken place over the course of the twentieth century but the biographies in Chapter 4 highlight how at least some participants in these revivals in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s reverted back to the local religion. Nevertheless, under the impact of these Christian revival movements, and especially the Pentecostal movements of the 1990s which define themselves in emphatic contrast to a pagan past (compare Meyer 1995, on Ghana), shrines are absent from many households or have restricted access and visibility.18 Shrines retain their salience where inheritance or title is determined by completion of burial rites, especially in the case of the erha shrines, and occupy a prominent space within the household layout in these instances. Christian revival movements in Benin in the 1990s have, in the main, embedded themselves in the metropole. Their permanent presence, along with other mainstream forms of Christianity, is more uneven in village communities. Many locations have no churches at all and, where churches are present, these are often due to a particular individual’s efforts rather than collective participation by the village community. Communal village shrines as a consequence remain a key part of village life. But they also offer a cultural repertoire and resource for individuals in Benin City that is maintained by the frequent movement of Edo people between Benin City and the rural areas.

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3 PRIESTS AND SHRINES

Kingship in the Edo kingdom is constituted through the office and person of the Oba of Benin through whom a relationship is set up to erinmwin (the spirit world) with the Oba standing as a unique figure on behalf of the entire Edo kingdom. However it is not only the Oba who finds his authority located and legitimated in erinmwin. This domain of the dead is in fact accessed by a great and varied number of ritual practitioners. It is to one class of these practitioners that I now turn. The word ohen is used in the Edo language to describe a priest who worships on behalf of a community or as a Christian minister, according to Melzian (1937: 140), while Agheyisi (1986: 106) translates it as ‘priest’ or ‘religious minister’. During the 1980s and 1990s, the period of my field research, in the common parlance of Benin City the word ohen referred to the priest or priestess of the shrine of one or more local deities, unless the word was qualified in some way. Its usage indicates that the individual has engaged in a relationship with at least one of the deities of erinmwin. This is generally achieved through initiation by other ohens,1 each with his or her own expertise and knowledge of the spirit world. The achievement of this privileged relationship to a deity confers power upon the ohen, influence in the spirit world through the intervention of that deity, and thus the ability to shape the outcome of events in agbon (the material world). The ohens responsible not only ensure the success of the initiation but also legitimate the authority of the new ohen. They are regarded as the fathers and mothers of the ohen in his or her new status. They vouch for the legitimacy of the novice’s involvement with the spirit world and in his or her social interactions with ohens and participants at other shrines. This sense of a parental relationship is maintained in social relations, usually until long after the initiation, and there is mutual support at important ceremonies held by both parties, where deference is always shown to the ohen who performed the initiation. In some circumstances, however, it is possible for ohen to acquire shrines through the direct intervention of the deity. In these cases, the deity usually takes the individual to its spiritual domain, often for lengthy periods of time, to be instructed in the required rites. An individual may be carried into the forest by ehoheziza (the whirlwind) and remain in solitude for months or

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even years before returning to human communities again. Returning, the individual may seek to be initiated into Eziza, the deity whose domain is associated with the forest, by other ohens. Or, as an alternative course of action, the individual may set up a shrine to Eziza without assistance (especially if the sojourn in the bush was very lengthy). In these instances the shrine is brought in from the forest by the ohen alone, attesting to his or her exceptional powers and unique relationship with the deity. This procedure lacks the legitimacy provided by established and successful ohens acting as ‘spiritual fathers and mothers’ to support claims of spiritual authority. But this form of initiation does not incur the costly expense of an initiation by other ohens. H OW O N E B E C O M E S A N O H E N

There are various ways in which an individual discovers that he or she is to become an ohen. 1. The office may be passed directly to his eldest son by a male ohen. This is often the case where the shrine is dedicated to a communal deity in a village or village cluster like Idunmwun-Uhunmwun (see Chapter 4), although there is a great deal of variation in how villages organise community shrines at different locations within the Edo kingdom. Often junior members of a family that has a particular shrine are initiated and inducted into its knowledge as part of their family patrimony but, on occasion, a shrine will be passed to more a more distant relation who has shown a prior interest and involvement. 2. In some communities and wards all males at puberty (or at an earlier age) are initiated into the service of the communal deity as a rite of passage (van Gennep 1960). This is more prevalent within village communities and the nature of the initiation and the deities involved can vary considerably (for the example of Ekho, see Bradbury 1973c). Initiation takes place as a collective community event and provides a generalised blessing and protection for the individuals who pass through it rather than induction into the specialised knowledge of ohen. Such initiation does not lead to ohen status. It provides a marker of collective identity in terms of age grade, gender differentiation and relations between different village clusters. Often there is an initiation into Ogun (the deity of war and iron) for boys which is linked explicitly to male activities that necessitate the use of metal implements – whether in farming, the martial professions or specialised contemporary skills (drivers, car mechanics, barbers).2 Similarly, girls are often initiated into the service of Olokun prior to marriage, as Olokun (the deity of the sea) is associated with wealth in children and goods and therefore ensures fertility as a prerequisite for marriage.3 However in Benin City this remains a diffuse and variable means of conceptualisation and depends very much

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on individual and family links to particular village cluster communities. 3. Another way in which someone becomes an ohen is through experiencing protracted suffering and hardship. The causes for this may be diagnosed through the consultation of oracles. There are many forms of oracle to be found in Benin City which may be consulted through ohens as well as ebo (native doctors) and other individuals who claim an authority in the spirit world – self-professed witches, for example. These oracles are usually consulted when an individual is experiencing some hardship and difficulty, or when a decision has to be made on a particular course of action. There is no obligation for the client to conform to the guidance expressed. This is dependent on the client’s confidence in the diviner. The consultation of the oracle may diagnose that an individual’s difficulties are caused by a deity. In such cases initiation may be advised to the client, sometimes as a matter of great urgency. Some individuals are conceptualised as being born into agbon with an accompanying deity or deities. These deities must be recognised and served by that individual if he or she is to lead a successful and fulfilled life. The more the individual disregards these deities, the more he or she will suffer. In such cases, consultation of the oracle will determine which deities are responsible for troubling the individual and the particular steps that should be taken to redress the matter. Sometimes an individual may be advised by oracle to undergo initiation in order to gain the protection of the deities from malevolent spiritual agencies, such as witches. 4. Apart from private consultations of an oracle, an individual may attend a ceremony of an ohen where he or she is instructed publicly to undergo initiation by the ohen possessed by the deities. Or, at one of these public performances, an individual may be involuntarily possessed by the deity during the music and songs for that deity. When this occurs, the dance steps that are performed and the particular responses of the individual to certain music and songs also indicate to the onlookers which deity has intervened. Even in such situations, however, the individual does not necessarily take the advice of the ohen – deterred by a reluctance to participate or the great expense that initiation can involve. In November 1991, the cost of a seven-day initiation into Olokun was something in the region of 5,000 naira,4 a substantial outlay at that time, although the cost and the degree of elaboration enacted in the initiation ceremonies are open to negotiation. Where there has been a history of hardship and problems, the deity involved is often determined, in part, by the kinds of hardship that the individual has experienced. A history of suffering illness that paralyses or hinders the ability to walk is often ascribed to agencies in the water spirit world. Many ohens of Olokun have experienced these problems of paralysis prior to initiation. In some cases it can also be attributed to Mami Wata,

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another deity associated with rivers and water, or is a case of ogbanje,5 a child or person with personal difficulties caused by a physical linkage to the water spirit world (usually requiring the retrieval from the river of the object that ties the individual to the water spirit world). Women who experience difficulty in bearing children are usually required to undergo initiation into Olokun, the deity who determines fertility and children. Women are held responsible for the conception and sex of children and a lack of children can result in divorce. Consequently Olokun plays a major role in the worship of deities by women. Indeed there are some oral narratives that describe the commencement of Olokun worship in terms of the husband obtaining a wife and children through sponsorship of the initiation into Olokun of the prospective wife. It is also possible for the other deities and spiritual agencies to intervene in a woman’s life to prevent children, and they may have to be placated by initiation or some other means, such as sacrifice. In a similar fashion, cases of madness or strange behaviour are often associated with Ogun and can require initiation into Ogun to restore the individual to a fuller participation in the community. INITIATION

The Edo word used to describe initiation is akhue ebo, usually further qualified to describe the length of the initiation. Akhue ebo means ‘bath of the deity’. The initiate is bathed each morning and each evening of the initiation with a mixture of water, locally occurring chalk6 and leaves associated with that particular deity. During the process of initiation the deity is considered to enter and, to some extent, inhabit the body of the initiate. To be initiated is to be known as the ovien (slave) of that deity, indicating that spiritual power and legitimacy stems from the deity and not the subservient individual. The relationship is also conceptualised as a form of marriage. Powerful ohens have this ability to participate in the spirit world as an innate gift or talent, which is seen as deriving from their birth into the world accompanied by the deities. But it is also recognised that some individuals acquire their power with a deity solely from the use of the leaves during initiation. If this is the only means to maintain a relationship with that deity, it is considered to wear off over time. Indeed this notion can also be used to question the legitimacy and abilities of an ohen. Each deity has a distinctive form of initiation, requiring a body of knowledge that remains exclusive to its initiates. These bodies of knowledge are based on sets of ideas and practices pertaining to a deity, but also on the cumulative experiential knowledge gained by each ohen in his or her own unique relationship with that deity. Such knowledge is acquired from a variety of sources: from the various ohens who conduct the initiations, divinations and oracles, as well as from the dreams that provide a link between the individual and the spirit world through which the deities can commu-

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nicate directly. The diverse ways in which these bodies of knowledge are obtained contribute to a wide variation in how initiations are performed. This wide variation involves several factors. Ohens from different areas have developed differences in the way particular bodies of knowledge are constructed. The names and attributes of plants can vary from one locality to another. There can be different ways of conceptualising a deity, its place in the spirit world and the various practices that are particular to it. Another factor is the extent to which an ohen has been instructed into the practices and knowledge of the deity by the ohen who conducted the initiation. Important, too, are the ways in which the ohen’s understanding of the deity has developed through the ideas and practices he or she has accumulated since initiation. This last factor is important in that the personal relationship that the ohen has with the deity empowers and legitimates the practices of the ohen, whether these conform to prior practices or introduce innovations. This is explicitly recognised by ohens, who claim a unique knowledge and practice – even when their practices appear quite similar to those of other ohens. Indeed, very similar practices can be used for very different purposes by different ohens. Several ohens participate in an initiation and a range of expertise is at hand to ensure a successful outcome for the initiate. This range can be drawn on by the new ohen after his or her initiation. There are many forms of initiation to suit the requirements and circumstances of the individual: abbreviated three-day initiations, the standard seven-day version, and the more elaborate fourteen- and twenty-one-day initiations for individuals who intend to become full-time practitioners known as Igie ohens (chief priests).7 The initiation rites are configured around a seven-day cycle that is linked to the Lower Niger tradition of a four-day week. Each series of the cycle starts on the same day of the week (with the first day preceding the seven-day cycle, as the Edo counting system starts from one not zero), so as to have the same propitious day devoted to that deity to accompany each phase of the initiation and ensure success.8 Sometimes it is necessary to repeat an initiation to renew a link with a deity. Or a deity, approached for the first time, may be so powerful that the ohen requires several initiations to acquire the lesser spirits and powers that are its followers in the spirit world. During the seven-day sequence which the shorter initiations encapsulate or the longer initiations elaborate, there are certain elements that are considered necessary to achieve a successful initiation – although these elements vary from deity to deity. Prior consultation of the oracle (to find out what requirements have to be performed to gain a successful outcome in the spirit world) can alter the conditions that have to be met for an initiation, while prior relationships to the officiating ohen can influence the negotiation of costs and the elaboration of necessary elements.

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SETTING UP A SHRINE

In order to set up any shrine to acknowledge and serve a deity, an individual has to be initiated. However, in some circumstances, where full initiation is not yet sought, an individual can undergo a simple ceremony of introduction to the deity. Its requirements depend on the officiating ohens and the deity (as indicated by oracle consultation). A dedication to the deity is made with an appropriate sacrifice and the setting up of some elements of the shrine. This is performed in order to allow the deity to enter the life of the individual with the undertaking that full initiation will follow at a later date. A distinguishing characteristic of this form of initiation is that the specific name of the deity that the individual personally acquires is not discovered (a key process of initiation is identifying which aspect of the deity has been made manifest in the individual). In the case of initiation into Olokun, after purification a visit is made to the appropriate river (as advised in the consultation with the oracle), where the initiate bathes and offerings are made to Olokun and his followers. Water is carried back to the shrine of the officiating ohen in the pot, which is set up as the principal component of the shrine. Depending on the urgency and intensity of the relationship between the initiate and the deity, an ugie avan (afternoon dance) is held where the individual dances and is possessed by the deity. Sacrifice of a chicken (or goat) is made by the officiating ohens at this new shrine and the cooked meat shared out among those present. This form of initiation is in, a sense, a preliminary offering to the deity to prepare for the full initiation that will follow at a later date. Similarly, it is possible to set up a preliminary shrine to Orunmila which, in Benin City, is described as Edaiken – named after one title of the designated heir of the Oba before his accession. This is the first of three stages of initiation into Orunmila, one in which the palm kernels are buried in palm oil.9 In the Edaiken form of Orunmila, the number and combination of palm kernels used during full initiation remain undiscovered. Consequently, knowledge of the nature of the personal ehi (spiritual counterpart) that guides the individual remains unknown. T H R E E - D AY I N I T I A T I O N

Some individuals are unable to undergo full initiation because of expense or lack of time. In these instances it is possible for the officiating ohens to compress a seven-day cycle of initiation into three and a half days. It is not as elaborate as the seven-day or longer cycles, and certain elements may be lacking – fewer participating ohens (thus reducing expense) and, inevitably, fewer events. A celebration (ugie) is held on the first day and the first and third nights, and by the end of the third-night event the initiate acquires the name of the deity. An individual who undergoes this form of initiation cannot usually claim the authority accorded to an Igie ohen (chief priest).

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There are also other short initiations that compress the entire three-day cycle of an initiation into a two-day period, commencing in the afternoon and finishing the following day. Not all ohens perform this kind of initiation and it is often regarded as illegitimate and improper; those that do perform it claim that they are capable of doing so because of their superior powers, expertise and privileged relationships with the deities. These initiations may be undertaken when there is very little time (such as, for example, when someone is about to travel and the oracle demands initiation to protect the individual). It is also used when a very powerful deity still troubles an individual, even after full initiation, and further repeat initiations are required to harmonise relations between that individual and the deity. T H E S E VE N - D AY I N I T I A T I O N

This is the standard length of time for initiation. It starts on the day most propitious to the deity in question. The individual stays at the shrine of the ohen who is to take charge of the initiation for its duration (although some individuals hold it at their own abode at further expense) in the company of other initiates. This is so as not to enter erinmwin (the spirit world) alone without the legitimising witness provided by the other initiates. When the initiate is not performing some ritual, he or she remains in seclusion in the shrine and does not have contact with individuals from outside – except on the payment of a fine. The initiates also have a strand of young palm frond, tied about the wrist, which links them to the spirit world. In some shrines the initiates remain hidden under a white or red cloth (depending on the deity) and a bell is rung to warn the uninitiated not to look at them. The first step is to consult the oracle to find out who should conduct the initiation and the range of sacrifices required to ensure a favourable response in the spirit world to the enterprise. The initiation commences with a purification of all participants. This removes any ill intentions and impurities from the body so as not to desecrate the shrine and the deities. A bunch of selected leaves are used in conjunction with a one-day-old chick to brush the participants as they pass through seven chalk circles invoking the various rites to be undergone. Such acts of ihonmwengbe (purification of the body) occur at the beginning of any important ritual to prepare the participants, especially the principal protagonists. The initiate is now spiritually ready for initiation. At each stage the initiate is expected to offer a sum of money to pay for the various events that are about to occur and for the other services, such as the cooking of the sacrifices. At the end of the initiation these sums are divided, according to seniority, between the various assisting ohens and devotees who have stayed throughout the entire initiation. These payments (and their generosity) often determine the degree to which the initiate is instructed in the practices of the deity, although this is not usually extensive. There are set

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sacrifices that are made on the appropriate days of the initiation, although if these are proving beyond the means of the initiate equivalent substitutes can be offered instead, providing there is a close relationship with the ohen. Thus in Olokun practice four goats are offered during an initiation, commencing with a male goat which is a compulsory sacrifice at the preliminary visit to the river. But it is possible for one or two of the goats to be replaced by sea turtles, which are described as sea-goats10 in the water spirit world of Olokun. An important aspect of all the sacrifices is that the initiate offers a small prepared meal made from them to the deity of the shrine that he or she is in the process of setting up. This underlines the mutual support that is given in the relationship with the deity. At the beginning and end of each day the initiate is bathed with a mixture of leaves dedicated to the deity and coated in native chalk. As the ceremonies progress, he or she is possessed by the presence of the deity both through the ritual actions that are undergone and through the power of the various leaves, infusions of which are also drunk. At set intervals there are public dances on some afternoons and some nights, where the initiate dances to the music of the deity and subsequently to the other deities (who are considered to attend such spiritual occasions), encouraged by the ohens and helpers as well as well-wishers. It is through dance that the deity makes its presence public. This possession in dance is conceptualised as ebo zoy (the deity chooses or picks out). Some older ohens interviewed stated that these dances did not begin until the third day in the 1940s and 1950s, whereas nowadays it is customary to dance on the first night of the initiation. During these performances the initiate is possessed by the deity as he or she dances to its drumbeats and songs. The initiate is encouraged by the assisting ohens and onlookers, who beat calabashes with beads strung around the outside (as well as some of the instruments appropriate to that deity, such as metal gongs in the case of Ogun), and by the increasing tempo of the music. The musicians drum the rhythmic patterns and cross-rhythms of the deity in time to the dance steps to help the performance and encourage the deity to possess the initiate. At the same time songs about the various attributes of the deity are sung and those deemed to be favoured by the possessed initiate are repeated; often as many as fifty times in a row. The deity is finally considered to possess the individual when there is a total engagement by the participant between the patterns of the dance steps made and the rhythms of the music, even if these are not the conventional steps usually associated with a given phrase of music. There is a notion that the dancing, music and song please the deities and attract them to visit the occasion and subsequently to possess the individual performing (although they can also impose this possession on someone, irrespective of whether they are already initiated or not). At some stage after the first public performance, the initiate calls out

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the specific name of the deity that has possessed him or her: as we have seen, there are many names that describe each particular manifestation of a deity. These may describe a particular attribute or power of the deity or one of the supporting deities to the main deity – each of the principal deities in the spirit world is conceptualised as surrounded by chiefs, wives and supporters, much in the manner of the Oba of Benin or some high-ranking chief. In the case of the deity Olokun, for example, there are various associated names that also describe local rivers. These rivers are conceptualised as wives or supporters of Olokun: the river Orhionmwon, for example, known with the praise name no saibo. This is a major river on the road to Abraka where many sacrifices are offered. Orhionmwon no saibo (ne o sa ibo) means ‘Orhionmwon, one that reveals secrets’. She is a powerful deity in her own right as well as being able to intercede with her husband, the Olokun, known as Eze ne ughegbe (‘the river the mirror’), which similarly describes a specific geographical locality. The name Orhionmwon indicates a powerful ohen with a deep knowledge of the spirit world. The praise name saibo can also refer to a test some ohens undertook before the Oba of Benin – last performed in the reign of Eweka II, according to Madam Odigie (see Chapter 4). At the palace the ohen would be tested to name correctly a concealed object or be declared a fraud. If successful, the ohen would be recognised by the Oba and have the right to sacrifice a cow annually at his or her shrine, which in theory could be demanded from the palace (once every three years). Some of the elaborations of initiation ceremonies can include a similar test or revelation, as in the fourteen day initiation into becoming a native doctor. Many references and resonances are carried in the name Orhionmwon no saibo: applied to a particular ohen, it can only be understood through knowing the biography of that particular individual. There are different sets of references for names used in relation to other deities. For example, an ohen of the deity Eziza may have the name uyi ekpen, ‘respect (of) leopard’, as the leopard is considered the most powerful animal of the forest and is often described as the king of the forest, while ekpen is also an honorific name of the Oba of Benin. An ohen with this name lays claim to great prestige and status in the spirit world. Experienced ohens may undergo several initiations in a particular deity and acquire several names of the deity, thus claiming even more power in the spirit world – though the length of time spent in each initiation may vary, as has already been noted. The calling of the name is a key event in the initiation cycle. But in some instances during the appropriate ugie (dance) the initiate is unable to find a name, even after protracted dancing. This can indicate that there are difficulties in the spirit world which the officiating ohens have to resolve. If a name is not found by the end of the initiation cycle, it has to be repeated in its entirety. This situation is usually resolved without recourse to a new

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initiation cycle, however, as the initiate is encouraged more and more by all participants, during public performance and indeed at other times, to find a name as the initiation progresses to its climax. There may also be other events during the initiation such as sun-spotting, where the initiates gaze directly at the sun in order to gain the ability to see in the spirit world. There is often some instruction in a method of divination. Both ohens and native doctors can be diviners. In the case of Olokun this is known as fi Olokun (to play Olokun) which in its basic principles is the use of four cowries and the combinations they make when they face up or down after being thrown. Many other cowries are also in the Olokun tray, with a variety of small brass objects such as canoes, a human figure and so on, as well as a few small denomination coins, the ensemble dependent on personal preference. The way these fall in relation to the four cowries provides further insights into the particular problems confronting the client. This cowrie-based divination is similar to a basic form of divination using the four quarters of a kola-nut, which may also be taught. In the instance of Orunmila initiation, the divination method exclusive to Orunmila, known as akhue-khue, is taught: this uses a chain with eight seeds of the akhuekhue plant. This is the divination method derived from Ifa divination practised in the Yoruba-speaking areas and the divination continues to use the Yoruba language, constructed in poetic verses.11 Instruction in any form of divination is often cursory, however, as the initiation is considered only the beginning of the process of becoming a full-time Igie ohen. The initiate has to earn further instruction by serving the officiating Igie ohens as an owaise (attendant or helper). After three months the initiate holds an ugie avan (afternoon dance or celebration) and is then able to bring the shrine to his or her own compound or place of worship. The novice is expected to assist the initiating ohen for a further period of three years (according to the Edo counting system, which commences from one instead of zero) as an owaise (assistant), after which time another thanksgiving celebration is held. The initiating ohens tend to teach slowly and experientially, as their knowledge and expertise is conserved as a resource that should provide economic benefit. If an Olokun initiate wants to learn which plants are used for Olokun initiation, this is a knowledge that the initiate has to pay for separately from the experience of initiation. This privileged knowledge is not dispensed freely to initiates, but rather is acquired by services rendered – particularly as the initiates can in time become competitors for clients. The relationship between the initiate and ohen is determined by their social relations and negotiation. For example, if the initiate makes a commitment to stay close to the officiating Igie ohen by remaining a long-term member of the shrine, then this knowledge will be more easily available. It is acquired experientially over time, in such services as gathering particular plants for a medicine

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1. Ohen Aibigie dancing in the spiral dance of Eziza, the deity of the forest, during his annual festival (28/11/1990)

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2. Mr Ogiebor standing in front of the erha, shrine to his father and grandfather (who were famous chiefs) (13/11/1991)

3. Community Olokun shrine at Evboesi built at the beginning of the reign of Oba Adolor (22/02/1993)

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4. Ohen Adigbe emerging from the inner sanctum of his shrine to perform publicly at his half-yearly Ogun festival (7/07/1991)

5. Ekpo masquerade coming out to celebrate during new yam festival of ohen Adigbe (14/09/1991)

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6. The shrine ohen Adigbe had built to house the deity Mami Wata (22/06/1995)

7. Every third annual festival ohen Adigbe visited the Iye n’Oba, the Queen Mother, as part of his celebrations (9/12/1990)

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8. Ohen Aibigie seated at his shrine (24/06/1995)

9. Entrance to Nekpenekpen Olokun community shrine within the boundaries of Benin City (10/08/1990)

10. Mr Osaremwida Ehidiaduwa, the Ohen of Nekpenekpen, possessed by Olokun during the annual festival held to the deities (12/11/1990)

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12. [right] Ogun statues built by Mr George Oni for the shrine of Madam Idahosa (12/09/1991)

11. [left] Mr George Oni, the ohen Nomayisi possessed by Ogun, the deity of iron, during which he beats his head with egogo, the metal bells associated with this deity, while dancing on burning charcoal embers (3/09/1994)

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13. Mr George Oni, the ohen Nomayisi, during possession at the weekly day of worship (8/07/1995)

14. The shrine of Madam Odiah, ohen Aitolekpenehae, with the statues moulded by the artist Mr Efeobasota Osunde (26/03/93)

15. Madam Odiah, the ohen Aitolekpenehae, during the weekly day of worship with her devotees (18/10/1991)

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16. Madam Asiruwa Iyamu, ohen Osagie, at her Olokun shrine moulded by Mr Samuel Asonmwonorrirri (15/01/1997)

17. Madam Edeki Odigie, the ohen Akpowa, offering a sacrifice of a goat to her Olokun at the beginning of her annual festival (14/02/1991)

18. Madam Edeki Odigie, the ohen Akpowa, during possession at her annual festival (27/02/1991)

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19. Five youths being initiated into the deity Ogun by Madam Odigie, the ohen Akpowa, during her festival. Potions are placed in their eyes in order to assist them to see into the spirit world (20/02/1991)

20. Madam Aimienho seated at her Olokun shrine (22/01/1991)

21. The shrine to Eziza, deity of the forest, of Madam Aimienho (22/01/1991)

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22. Madam Mercy Osughe, the ohen Ughe ne Eze, during a consultation of her oracle (12/12/1991)

23. Madam Mercy Osughe possessed by Eziza, the deity of the forest (17/12/1994)

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24. Madam Dorcas Idahosa, the Iyeye of Benin, at her Ewere festival (17/12/1991)

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25. Two devotees at the beginning of their initiation into Olokun at the shrine of ohen Adigbe (5/12/1990)

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prepared by the Igie ohen. Younger family relations of an ohen are often regarded as the heirs to this knowledge and are inculcated with it if they show any interest. Each year an annual festival (based on the first or most important deity in the celebrant’s view) is given by the initiate at the same time of year as the initiation. This annual event usually becomes more elaborate as the ohen achieves popularity and success. Indeed, an ohen can demand attendance and material support (whether in money or in kind) from those ohens that he or she has subsequently initiated. The annual festival of an ohen celebrates all the deities that he or she has acquired, with a day devoted to each. There is also a day devoted to the giving of medicines and protection to all members of the shrine. The length of time and actual sequence of events varies from shrine to shrine, depending on the experience and fame of the ohen. It can range from a modest one-day affair to an elaborate and costly fourteen-day event that displays the power and prestige of the ohen and the community of the shrine to visiting ohens and their followers. Each annual festival since the initiation is counted. Thus ohen Adigbe gave his fiftieth annual festival in November 2003, in itself testifying to his expertise and power, acquired by many years of intimate experience of the spirit world and an accompanying success in his practice. The three-and-a-half-day initiation compresses the seven-day initiation into half-days. Fourteen-day and, more rarely, twenty-one-day initiations are held for individuals who are initiating as full-time ohens. These establish the credentials of the fledgling ohen as an Igie ohen (chief priest) beyond any doubt or contestation. It is an elaboration of the seven-day initiation with more sacrifices and various rituals as deemed appropriate by the officiating ohens. The fact that the initiate is bathed with the leaves for a much longer period of time and the greater elaboration of ceremonies, again with the same purposes, confer more prestige and power on the initiate and fully situate his or her status as a full-time practising Igie ohen. WO R S H I P

Ebo is the Edo word that semantically refers to both the deities and the shrines. The shrine consists of an inner sanctum where the artefacts that constitute the shrine are placed and which usually has access restricted to the ohen and the ewaise (the attendants) of the shrine (Melzian 1937: 137). Also there is often an additional adjoining space (either a larger room, courtyard or open space) where the ohen and his followers can worship, conduct divination sessions, and hold meetings or any other appropriate group activity. Over time a successful ohen develops a core following of worshippers – from a few family members to a considerable number of devotees. The regular day of worship usually consists of an ugie avan (afternoon celebration) which is calculated on the Edo four-day week (on

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a day considered propitious to the main deity or deities being worshipped), occurring either once an Edo week or every two Edo weeks. This practice has been influenced by the European seven-day week which governs the work of most people in Benin City, however, and as a consequence some ohens elect to have their ugie avan once a European week (on a Saturday or Sunday), or once a European fortnight. The bare minimum of worship that occurs, if nothing more elaborate is required, is the presentation of the ohen and all attending followers to the ebo (shrine and deities) seven times. They move forward and backwards from the shrine in each instance, during which time seven songs are sung to the deities. This is a salutation to the deities and, more generally, is considered to bring good things to the shrine from the outside world through these embodied to-and-fro movements. The forward movements are considered to represent events that occur in front of the ohen, while the backward movements represent events that may not be directly visible or apparent at that time (and are conceptualised spatially as behind the ohen). These good things can refer to a wide range of events: blessings from the deities, a visitor coming to the shrine, the bringing by one means or another of wealth to the shrine, the bearing of good news and so on – different ohens construct different significances appropriate to their personal circumstances (such as, for example, a client coming for oracle when the ohen is in need of money). Similarly, in kola divination, if four open quarters are thrown, one of the meanings attached to that combination is the approach of a visitor, indicating the approach of good fortune. Indeed, it is an established practice for ohens to remain, for the most part, at their shrines, because of the spiritual restrictions that apply (see below, pp. 61–3) and because the services they provide are, by their nature, centred on the shrine. They are dependent on the approach of visitors for their livelihood. If an ohen has a following, it is customary to hold an ugie avan in which the ohen and some of the devotees perform. It is also possible for visiting ohens to perform if they choose to (or in some instances if the deity spontaneously possesses them to perform). The performance and rituals elaborated in an ugie avan vary considerably from one ohen to another. At some shrines the preparations made for the ohen to appear in public can become part of the performance – even the donning of attire, assisted by the ewaise. The attire worn by ohens can depend on which deities are being emphasised. More prestigious clothing is worn on important occasions such as festivals and is often made at great expense (Gore 1998: 78–9). The followers wear less elaborate attire, usually predominantly red or white. The dress that an ohen wears at a public performance is known as adaigho. It has been prepared and fortified spiritually by being buried (with other offerings) for fourteen days at an ada (crossroads) where spiritual powers and azen (witches) gather. Prior to performing, ehiendo (alligator pepper) may be chewed and spat

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as part of the preparatory process to actualise the powers of the ohen for a public performance. Ehiendo activates ritual contexts through its association as a hot substance and also because, when extracted from the pod, it is found with many other seeds. These are numbered as uri na okpa (two hundred and one) a figure that is used to denote an unquantifiable number and represents all the deities, both known and unknown. The alligator pepper seeds are an offering to propitiate all the deities. Similarly an ohen may lick the awase (a pebble-sized medicine) that often represents ebo (the deity and shrine) so that everything uttered by the ohen will come to pass. When absent from the shrine an ohen will carry the awase to represent his or her shrine – a part standing for the whole. At the end of the performance the ohen then has to lick palm-oil (in this context used as a substance closely associated with blood, which the deities will accept as a mediating offering) to permit the awase to cease its effects. The conventions of public performance are structured in an order of precedence of performers, with the most junior member of the shrine opening the proceedings. This sequential appearance of devotees from the shrine culminates in the performance of the Igie ohen and articulates a series of ritual events and significances that ensure the successful appearance of the deities invoked through their possession of the ohen. The youngest members of the shrine, usually children related to the ohen, dance to the drummers and the followers beat bead-strung calabashes. Then various followers with designated roles may perform to prepare the way for the ohen, although this ordering varies substantially from shrine to shrine and depends on the members present. Each shrine also has a number of titles awarded by the ohen during possession by the deity to individuals in recognition of their loyalty and special services to the shrine. For example, when interviewed in September 1991, ohen Osagie (see Chapter 4) listed a sequence of titleholders appearing during a performance. The first to appear in the dance arena are the eyeye (the infants and younger initiates of the shrine) who open the dancing, sometimes carrying a long cane made from the plant uwenrhien-otan (squirrel whip, Glyphaea laterifolia) that is used for driving out evil spirits both spiritually and physically. It is also carried by individuals during their initiation into Olokun. At other times these canes rest on the shrine. This is followed by the titleholder awan (tongs associated with Ogun and having associations of forcefulness) who seeks out any evil spirits lurking in the vicinity or bad medicines used to test the ohen. This individual is well protected with medicines to ward off any dangers. Ahode (the opener of the road) follows and dances with the long cane Uwenrhien-otan. The next to appear is igheghan, the (little) bell, that is considered to sound from the spirit world. This dancer, with attached bunches of igheghan on the costume, signifies the arrival of the deities from the deep waters of the spirit world in which they reside. The reference to

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the deep waters is particularly appropriate in ohen Osagie’s case: as well as Olokun, some of her other deities such as Ogun ne ame (Ogun of the water) are also from the water spirit world. Next to dance is a follower with the title of Edogun, named after an important title at the court of the Oba, accompanied by songs that plead with him or her to pull the asa (shield) from the ground to allow people to pass and, in this context, permit the ceremony to continue. This is based on the Edogun’s role as one of the chiefs who command the military forces of the Oba and who remove the asa to initiate an attack or to allow free passage during warfare. Thus the event in the song is used as a way of describing and entreating the removal of spiritual obstacles which may otherwise hinder or prevent the appearance of the deities. Then the performance by obele (the paddle) brings the deity from the water to the public arena. Finally, the Igie ohen performs. This is an order of appearance of titleholders for ohen Osagie that usually is only fully realised at her annual festival, when most of her devotees are obligated to attend and give their full support. Thus in practice the sequence is more arbitrary and depends on those individual titleholders who are attending. But it does provide a set of conventions that shapes performances generally and in that sense is adhered to by most ohens on public occasions. After the titleholders, the ohen emerges from the inner shrine: the songs and pleas have brought out the deity to perform. The ohen commences by offering crushed orhue (native chalk) to all present, especially visiting ohens, as a way of publicly greeting everyone, including all attending spiritual agencies and deities. During the performance the native chalk powder is also thrown at the performing ohen by members of the shrine and visiting ohens in order to welcome and encourage the deities. The ohen is possessed by each of the deities into which he or she has been initiated (usually in the same chronological order of initiations, although it can be articulated in other sequences, especially if the ohen has undergone many initiations). The ohen sings and dances the appropriate steps to the drumming (usually the ema drum) and the beating of the ukuse (the calabash gourds strung with beads). These are the principal means of producing music for ceremonies at shrines, while bells are rung at appropriate moments to summon the deities. The songs are taken up by the followers, who will often repeat the refrain many times when this elicits a favourable response from the performing ohen. The ohen may speak or sing of events that will occur and advise of precautions to prevent various dangers. Individuals who attend (irrespective of whether they are members or not of the shrine) may be singled out for personal direction from the deity or will present themselves in order to find a solution to personal problems. At the end of the performance the ohen will retire to the inner shrine and

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the possession by the deity will cease. In some instances, members of the shrine may consult the deity in these somewhat more private surroundings for personal counselling. After the ohen has retired, visiting ohens may perform; it is also possible for onlookers to be possessed and perform at any time. Such possession is usually encouraged as it testifies to the powers of the ohen who then guides the situation. There are occasions, however, when an element of competition enters and someone in possession is upstaged by another individual’s unexpected possession! RESTR ICTIONS THAT OHENS ADOPT

An ohen can be subject to a wide variety of restrictions, known as awua erinmwin (prohibitions of the deity), that have to be observed in order to serve the deity (Melzian 1937: 14). Awua describe all restrictions practised by an individual. They can be held by members of the same extended family or by a larger community such as a village and village cluster, often in relation to a family or communal shrine. Awua often include an injunction or taboo against killing or eating particular animals and consuming or preparing certain foodstuffs, but they also cover other activities. These restrictions vary considerably at different shrines, although ohens with communal village shrines may find that they are regulated and upheld by the village community (or its elders) as well as by their own personal efforts. An example of this can be seen in the case of ohen Aitolekpenehae (see Chapter 4), who is also the ohen of the Okhuan community shrine at the village of Irokhin. She was approached by the elders of the village and told that it was inappropriate for her to visit and perform at the celebrations of other ohens, apart from those of her fellow Okhuan ohens within Irokhin’s village cluster. At the shrine of Idunmwun-Uhunmwun, another community shrine on the outskirts of Benin City, the ohen is regulated by particular restrictions: he is not permitted to perform away from the shrine apart from at the Oba’s palace; he must not see a corpse, drink alcohol or wear European clothing; he may not visit outside the shrine without a special invitation or appointment; and menstruating or pregnant women cannot cook for him (only three months after childbirth may a wife resume her duty of providing cooked food for him). Women are not usually allowed entry to a shrine during menstruation. Neither sex is permitted entry to a shrine if they have engaged in sexual intercourse, until they have cleansed themselves through bathing (there is a common and general practice of bathing after sexual intercourse which is adhered to by most people in Benin City). Similarly, in some instances a spouse is not allowed to live with the ohen on a permanent basis, as this would incur the displeasure and jealousy of the deities. This is something that is negotiated and legitimated between the couple and testifies to the powers of the ohen. Female ohens who have not reached the menopause

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do not worship or practise during their menstruation and are supposed to remain away from the shrine (although this can be difficult and the arrangement may be adapted if their living space is in close proximity). The shrine space, however it is defined in its individual instances, is marked out as a sacred space that is linked to the spirit world. The deities require special observances that individuals break at their peril. Transgression of these restrictions can have serious consequences, to the extent of causing death in some extreme instances if measures are not taken to expiate these transgressions. In less serious cases these usually consist of a more or less elaborate process of purification, depending on the circumstances of the incident. In some instances more elaborate remedies are required to placate the deities of the spirit world. For example, in 1991 ohen Aitolekpenehae appeared to catch her step while performing at an ugie avan. If an ohen falls during performance, this is considered to indicate death within the coming year. Ohen Aitolekpenehae did not actually stumble and recovered to perform at the peak of her powers. Towards the end of her performance, the deity in the person of the ohen identified three women followers who had broken the restrictions of the shrine. They had attended on the day of worship while menstruating and participated in the activities of worship, contrary to the usual practice at this shrine. Although female members are permitted to observe this shrine from outside it during the time of menstruation, they remain seated at the entrance in their ordinary dress and should take no active part in the proceedings. Ohen Aitolekpenehae, while still in possession, identified and removed these three women from the shrine. They underwent immediate purification rites as part of the ongoing ceremony with the sacrifice of a white hen, the breaking of an egg, and bathing with Osun water. The ohen also underwent bathing and purification. The next day she visited the river to sacrifice a goat and underwent other purification rituals. By the time of the next ugie avan four days later she had singled out the principal culprit, who was held responsible for the sequence of events. This was one of the three women, who had made love without bathing afterwards prior to her participation at the shrine. This follower had to undergo penance, kneeling at the shrine with her hands bound with ikhinmwin leaves while each member of the shrine whipped her with the Uwenrhien-otan cane that is found on most shrines to ward off bad spirits. The woman had to present further sacrifices and gifts to make up for her offence; she also had to persuade the Igie ohen to intercede for her in the spirit world, begging forgiveness from the deities. She received a lenient treatment for her transgression as she is a loyal and dedicated follower of the ohen. However, this was a serious incident, conceptualised as precipitated by evil spirits (such as, for example, witches)

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and possibly jealous rival ohens seeking to attack ohen Aitolekpenehae in the spirit world. In the months after the incident, the ohen did not don her religious attire but remained in ordinary dress. Although she began to sing and dance in ordinary dress after a few more ugie avan had elapsed, it was clear that at one level these were not public events but private interventions by her deities during the weekly ceremony of worship. She did not perform in a public way until her annual festival was held (at the commencement of a new year for her shrine), where she demonstrated in performance and possession her prowess and supremacy over the spiritual agencies that had been seeking to test her. The incident and the lengthy reparations that had to be made testified to the great strength and potency of her spiritual powers. PERSONHOOD AND SKILLS

Ohens acquire diverse bodies of knowledge. The notion that some individuals are born with certain deities, which they are compelled to recognise, is part of a wider conceptualisation that all individuals are born with part of their person, known as ehi, remaining with Osa the supreme deity, the final arbiter of agbon and erinmwin. Ehi guides the person through the world and determines some of the constraints and possibilities in that person’s life.This is not a form of predestination but rather is an active interaction between the ehi, other agencies in erinmwin, and the individual as he or she deals with physical events in agbon. Ehi is a constituent of personhood. Notions of the person are open-ended and subject to reconfiguration through new linkages and alignments to spiritual agencies, such as initiation into one or more deities (on personhood, see Carrithers, Collins and Lukes 1985). Some forms of illness are diagnosed by divination as resolvable through initiation into the deities identified as either the cause and/or remedy. Initiation and its apprenticeship offers a dynamic means to rearticulate notions of the ‘person’ through holistic performative processes in a new individuated configuration that address the overlapping physical and spiritual aspects of illness (see case studies of ohens in Chapter 4, for example).12 Therapy and holistic healing are part of the processes of reconfiguration. An acknowledgement of the possibilities of an individual being born with deities provides an important means of mediating and interpreting events and experiences. When deities are not recognised by an individual who has been born into the world with them, they can subject that individual to great suffering and hardship. This can range across a variety of illnesses, barrenness in women, strange behaviour, perceptions of another unrecognised or spirit world, disappearance into that spirit world for often lengthy periods of time, personal misfortune and poverty. Often these events are not attributed to the deities, despite being diagnosed through an oracle, and are disregarded until such time as the individual decides to articulate events and experiences in this particular way. Through initiation, past expe-

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riences are reconceptualised and then they can be utilised by the ohen as skills with which to assert spiritual capabilities and powers. For example, a skill in dancing when young may then be reorganised within the role of an ohen to demonstrate evidence of exceptional capabilities and powers in the spirit world. Similarly an ability to see events in the spirit world, whether in dreams or in waking life, is problematical if not legitimated in some way. This is particularly acute if it occurs in childhood, as the child may be diagnosed as a witch, as under attack from witches, or as ogbanje, a person who is linked to spirits from the river. Yet these events can be developed by an individual as a legitimated past experience through initiation as an ohen. Thus the process of initiation, and the path it opens, can become a means of reordering and re-articulating experience and capabilities. It can also be a means to consolidate or enhance status as an ohen. An ohen is noted for his or her powers in the spirit world, which can be achieved through many means dependent on the particular capabilities and talents of the ohen. These skills are uniquely combined by the individual and define his or her particular and special relationship to the deities. This emphasis on the individuation of skills and abilities, which are legitimated by the deities, provides a means to compete with other ohens for followers and clients. These are social skills oriented towards the building up of an extensive clientele that will use the services of the ohen on a permanent or temporary basis in return for some form of economic gain or reward.13 SHRINE COMMUNITIES

The most important means by which an Igie ohen builds up a regular clientele is the development of a community centred on his or her particular shrine. The appropriate day of worship at the shrine brings regular devotees, and casual onlookers also participate in the activities of worship. Membership of a shrine gains an individual the protection of the Igie ohen, who can intercede on the individual’s behalf in the spirit world. Together with protection, the Igie ohen also offers an overlapping range of expertise and services that support the individual. This sense of protection and support is important. Life is insecure in Benin City, where the average income was about 80 naira a week at the end of 1991. Although by 1998 this had risen to some 1,000 naira, massive inflation over this period meant that people had less spending power than at the beginning of the decade, denying them access to many of the resources available in the city – such as hospital medical care, for example. Individuals are vulnerable to sudden acute poverty,14 illness and mortality. For example, in the event of illness the expense of consulting an ohen is far less than using the medical services,15 and in crisis situations payment to the ohen may be deferred when funds are unavailable.16 Many ohens have a considerable knowledge and expertise in the use of plants, not only for

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their spiritual efficacy but also for their physical properties in the treatment of various illnesses (Osifo 1989). The actual cost of treatment is open to negotiation, especially where an individual is a member of the shrine. Also, as importantly in terms of local conceptualisations, the underlying causes that produced an illness in an individual are addressed by someone who has the power and abilities to redress this situation in the spirit world as well. Similarly family life can be extremely competitive where the first-born son inherits the majority of his father’s estate, particularly in the instance of polygamous families. If the father of the family dies, relatives can seek to assume control of resources at the expense of the children of the deceased. This competition for power and resources in the polygamous and extended family is recognised and can be conceptualised in terms of the spirit world. Thus one of the defining attributes of azen (witches) is their willingness and intent to prey on family members and to offer them up to other witches in the spirit world. Notions of witchcraft are used in complex conceptualisations of power, with its use as a legitimate exertion of power or an illegitimate abuse that harms. Moreover these conceptualisations provide a basis for action, such as in the formulation of medicines and charms that are made to effect various intentions, both beneficent and malign. Ohens, as eminent practitioners in the spirit world (as well as native doctors), participate in these complex conceptions of power. This is made explicit in the practices of some ohens and native doctors, who sacrifice to azen and also make medicines in order to harm individuals at the behest of their clients. These actions are considered spiritually dangerous for the ohen concerned and can lead to accusations of being a witch (but this is a claim that an ohen may play on to testify to the strength of his or her power). Nevertheless, all ohens have expertise in exercising their own spiritual capabilities to the advantage of their followers and clients – although usually by the more legitimate means of redressing a wrong or harm that has been brought to bear on their client through witchcraft. The protection and bodies of knowledge that an ohen offers against witchcraft are an important strategy for individuals in withstanding the forms of harm to which an individual can be subject in his or her dealings with others, in close as well as distant social relations. In order to enter into a prolonged relationship with an ohen, with all the benefits that accrue, an individual may elect to join the community of a shrine as a permanent member. An individual joins either by getting initiated into one or more of the deities under the guidance of that ohen, which then defines their relationship, or by being initiated as a member of the shrine (or both). He or she is inducted into the rules and regulations that govern that particular shrine. An individual is not restricted to membership of a single shrine, although the amount of time needed to participate at each shrine is perhaps a limiting factor. However, the private affairs of a shrine

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are not disclosed to outsiders and are enforced by spiritual sanctions that result in serious consequences (such as death) to any member who reveals its affairs. The conditions of entry vary from shrine to shrine and each ohen constructs his or her own requirements as to membership. These usually consist of a sum of money – between 50 and 100 naira in the early 1990s – to be presented to the shrine, along with lengths of red and white cloth, a sacrifice of an animal (usually a fowl), schnapps (the drink favoured for presentation to elders and ritual contexts), quantities of native chalk, and other small items. An ohen such as Aitolekpenehae asks for a much smaller sum of money – 50 naira in 1994 – and the presentation of two china plates, which makes membership very easy. This testifies, as she herself points out, to the fact that her principal deity is Okhuan, a communal village deity with a membership subject to the needs and demands of the village community. Consequently membership requirements have to be within the means of the villagers, with their more limited cash resources, as well as the urban population for whom she caters in Benin City. The fact that ohen Aitolekpenehae asks so little highlights her extraordinary powers as the source of her economic benefit, which does not depend on high membership fees. By way of comparison, ohen Aibigie (see Chapter 5) has a large following both in Benin City and the villages that surround it. He asks for red and white cloth, schnapps, 100 naira and a coil of orhue (native chalk) for membership – all fairly standard demands. But each member is photographed and given an identity card that they wear to identify themselves (especially on important occasions such as at his annual festival) in the manner of a corporation such as the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company in Benin City. Thus his strategy is to emphasise the contemporary urban aspects of his community. Villagers who join his community can feel that they have an ohen well-versed in the ways and demands of urban life to afford them protection (Gore 2001). Ohen Nomayisi (Chapter 5) offers very low consultation fees for his members compared to non-members, with a saving of thousands of naira per consultation.17 The new member is inducted into the shrine through a more or less elaborate ceremony that includes bathing with the protective and healing waters from the pots of the deities. There may be incision with protective medicines as well as rituals particular to that ohen and the deities that he or she serves. The new member is instructed in some of the hidden knowledge that pertains to that shrine and the ways in which members conduct themselves, which are not revealed to outsiders. However all shrines insist on cooperation and mutual support between members, both at the shrine and outside it. The fundamental injunction is not to harm other members of the shrine. This is enforced by the ohen, to whom members can bring matters of dispute to be resolved.

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Members are encouraged to attend on the day of worship but this is not compulsory. Often small fines are charged for late arrival, although the enforcement of these rules is not always rigidly maintained. At the beginning of the ohen’s performance members will present themselves, offering a sum of money and touching their heads to the ground in respect. At some shrines this sum of money is a fixed amount while at others the amount varies according to the means of each member. This provides a steady source of income to the ohen that supplements other earnings gained on a more irregular basis. Members are encouraged to participate through singing refrains in response to the songs commenced by the ohen and through dancing as part of the community, although in some instances a follower can become the centre of attention during possession. Women members are encouraged to play the calabashes adorned with plastic beads to beat out the rhythm of the dances and counterpoint the drumming – although at times they also play them without other musical accompaniment. These are public performances but members have exclusive access to the inner shrine and some of the private events that an ohen may hold at such a performance. For example, at the end of his performance in the public arena ohen Adigbe (see Chapter 4) retires to the inner sanctum of the shrine to prophesy and bless members of the shrine community. Members who attend regularly often have titles conferred on them by the ohen, usually announced during a state of possession. These titles range from those based on the chieftaincy titles of the court of the Oba18 to titles that are embedded in the spiritual activities of the shrine – such as, for example, the title and use of the obele (paddle) with which the holder may herald the entrance of the ohen during the performance. Titles such as obele and ukhurhe (the rattlestaff) are named after artefacts used at the shrine which the titleholder looks after on behalf of the ohen. These titles, and the roles that are specified with them, usually require that the titleholder has undergone initiation and so is privy to the significances his role entails. As the ohen is possessed by the deity during performance and can have no recollection of what has transpired, there is a titleholder, usually aghonghon (shadow), ehi (individual’s spirit counterpart) or egbe (body), who has the role of informing the ohen of the deity’s actions afterwards. It is usual for such a titleholder to stay in close physical proximity to the ohen during performance and the actual title of such individuals is conceptualised to reflect this relationship. Such titles can refer to physical or spiritual attributes of the ohen to underline the closeness of the relationship, although the actual titleholder responsible for this duty can vary from shrine to shrine. At some shrines notes are taken of the utterances of the ohen, especially where this concerns the advice given to clients. The number of titles, the particular titles held and the roles assigned to particular titles can all vary at different shrines. An individual can hold titles

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at different shrines but only holds a single title at any one shrine, although it can be changed if the deity possessing the ohen so wills. It is also possible for more than one individual to hold the same title – such as, for example, iye ne ebo (mother of the shrine). This can be a means of maintaining continuity in some of the roles that are performed at a shrine where there is a turnover of individuals attending on a regular basis. The legitimation of these titles derives from the deities who confer them. The use of titles that are common to the court of the Oba is seen as reflecting the domain of the deities rather than that of the Oba. A convention of performance is the sequence of appearance of titleholders who dance prior to the advent of the ohen who owns the shrine. Although subordinate to the spiritual power of the ohen, these particular titleholders assist in the possession of the ohen by the deities. Their titles and the duties or services required of them during a performance are a means of defining various relations to the spirit world of the ohen possessed by the deities. Their participation in this process underlines the sense of spiritual community which is developed through their privileged relations with the ohen. These particular titleholders usually have a closer relationship to the ohen than other titleholders who are not so intimately involved in assisting the ohen in the spiritual matters of the performance. The giving of titles by the ohen marks individuals out as members of the shrine in a more public way than mere membership. It also confers privileged access to the ohen and the spiritual knowledges and benefits that the ohen holds. Their use helps define overt social relations to the ohen and between individuals within the community of the shrine. These titles also define and organise the community in relation to other shrines and other institutions that may engage with it. They hold individuals to the sense of community, created as it is by the ohen and legitimated by the deities. Indeed, this ordering parallels the forms of ordering in the spirit world of which it is considered a reflection. The ohen uses the events at the shrine to foster the sense of community. On the day-to-day level there are the daily and weekly activities of the shrine; while at the other end of the scale is the annual festival – the performance of which reflects the prestige of both ohen and followers. It is a public demonstration of the spiritual power of the ohen and his shrine through performance; elaborate new costumes are displayed for the first time; members contribute their tithes (greater contributions are expected from titleholders); food and drink are distributed to visiting guests (according respect to visiting ohens and their followers in particular); and a variety of events throughout the festival dedicate it to the different deities. However an ohen and the shrine can also celebrate other events that are appropriate to its members. The ohens of different shrines develop different celebrations. Many shrines have a new yam festival, prior to which members

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are not permitted to eat from the new annual crop of yams. This is based on the new yam festival celebrated in Edo villages, when new yams are eaten for the first time in the annual cycle. Most families in Benin conform to the time observed in their particular village – the dates can vary by up to a few months between different villages. However, some shrines also hold their own independent new yam festival, and the date of celebration may differ considerably from the one observed in members’ own villages. The new yam festival at a shrine consists of a celebration during which new yams are offered cooked to the deities of the shrine as pounded yam, and then shared out to be eaten by all attending members of the shrine. After this they can eat old or new yam according to taste. In instances where an ohen maintains close relations with a community village shrine at his or her village, that shrine may be informed of any festivals held by the ohen, who usually holds the festival after that of the village shrine. In Benin City Igue is the major festival held by the palace institutions of the Oba and is the core of ritual ceremonies associated with kingship.19 Amongst the principal ceremonies performed is that dedicated to the head of the Oba of Benin, which is concerned with reconstituting and renewing for another year (to the next Igue festival) his ritual and physical powers. The head is considered to stand for the successful destiny of an individual (and family) and, in the case of the Oba, this is extended beyond immediate kinship ties to incorporate all members of the Edo kingdom. Through the Igue festival the fortune and well-being of the Edo kingdom is ensured in the person of the Oba. This festival is followed by the Igue ceremonies held, first, by the Oba’s relations, then by the chiefs of the kingdom, and finally by the remaining Edo households. It is also held at many shrines, in most cases after Igue has been performed by the Oba. Some ohens with urban followings hold Igue festivals after that of the Oba of Benin. The ohen holds it on behalf of the community of the shrine, so gaining protection and good fortune for them in the coming year. Ohen Ikpiname holds her Igue festival during the first week in January after the celebrations of the Oba have finished. It is held independently of but in continuity with the annual Igue festivals. Her ceremony serves her head (as the seat of good fortune and destiny) in the spirit world and, through the communal worship of the shrine, her head is linked to those of her followers for the coming year. Ohen Uhuname is an extremely prominent ohen with a large following. Significantly she holds her Igue Olokun prior to that of the Oba, although after that of the communal village shrine of Urhonigbe, which is one of the major centres of Olokun worship. This underlines the legitimation that Olokun confers on her practice as an ohen. On the day of her Igue festival, the concluding part is a celebration of Ewere. Ewere is the final event in the Igue ceremonies held by the Oba of Benin, which end with the presen-

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tation of Ewere leaves as a blessing to the Oba. It is a beneficent leaf and has various oral traditions connected to it. According to some oral traditions, it is also the name of a wife to Oba Ewuare associated with virtue and goodness (Egharevba 1968: 17–19). The celebration of Ewere conflates the authority of the Oba and the continuity of the kingdom with the reign of one of the most pre-eminent past Obas. It measures out time in relation to the past, encapsulating contemporary events within historical narratives of the ruling dynasty. At the Igue of this shrine these references are evoked at the end of the ceremony through the presentation of Ewere leaves to the shrine by its members, which are then redistributed by ohen Uhuname. Ohen Aitolekpenehae also holds a festival to Ewere, although in her case it is held after that of the Oba. But she does not hold a full Igue celebration. She holds it as a private affair, as a member of the royal family (a descendant of Oba Eweka the Second), rather than in her role as an ohen on behalf of her shrine community. At the end of the year she holds a candlelight festival through the night to one of her deities to mark the closing stages of the year for all initiates to that deity. However, she also holds Ewere as a general celebration of the ending of the year at her shrine, in which all members invoke good fortune and blessings for the coming year. She held it at night on 4 January 1992, with the entire community of the shrine carrying burning brands to the ramparts of Benin City nearest to her shrine, and casting them into the ditch. This is the casting out of misfortune and evil from the previous year – sometimes linked in oral narratives to Ubi, the elder sister to Ewere who brought misfortune and strife to the Oba’s palace until her banishment (Egharevba 1968: 17–19). Ewere leaves are brought back from the ramparts to be presented to the shrine and then shared out to the members. By way of comparison, in January ohen Adigbe holds a remembrance to his father at his shrine which all members attend; this event parallels eho, the annual remembrance festival to the deceased father held by families in the months of October and November. It is the creative use of events both at the shrine and in the wider community that establishes and defines a communal identity for individuals as members of a particular shrine. However, the ways in which these events in the shrines relate to other social contexts can vary considerably from shrine to shrine. Members can participate both at the shrine and, as members of that shrine, in the wider community, extending a form of fellowship (see Peel 2000: 58–9 on the relationship of this fellowship to kinship in nineteenth-century Yoruba-speaking areas). Often the community of a shrine will attend public events as a group in which an individual member participates in one role or another, such as at births, marriages and funerals. And, as we have seen, events are held at shrines that parallel other activities held in the wider community. The Ewere festival of ohen Aitolekpenhae is autonomous of other Ewere festivals but, as a relative of the royal family, she can claim an

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authority and knowledge that supports her practice in a way that trumps other ohens who do not have these kinship connections. At their shrines ohens are also able to introduce or create innovative new events, often oneoff affairs, as appropriate. They do this for the deity or on behalf of a member or members – in some instances to counter some unexpected setback. Such innovations are not imposed unilaterally by the ohen, as he or she is dependent on the support of the members of the shrine. It is possible to alienate supporters, who always have the option of seeking out other ohens, and who may already be the members of other shrines. The skills of social negotiation are exercised by ohens, who seek the support of their devotees but also need to impose the authority and legitimation of their deity on the proceedings. For example, some ohens with a young following of devotees always hold a full discussion about any event that is going to take place. The contributions (financial and material) of the devotees are assessed by the members. The previous shortcomings of certain contributions made by individuals are highlighted and, in some instances, penalised. In determining the annual festival for 1992 at one shrine it was decided to combine it with the new yam festival as the cost of the separate events was deemed too high by the members. However, the next time an afternoon celebration was held the ohen, during possession by the deity, informed the members that the annual festival would be held separately from the new yam festival. Thus the power of the deities was underlined, the prestige of the shrine maintained and, most important of all, the members’ acquiescence secured, despite the considerably higher costs involved. Another means by which a sense of community is created is in the attendance and participation of shrine communities at other shrines. Where there are close relations between two ohens, mutual support is usually shown through attendance at one another’s ceremonies. The visiting ohen will often perform at the shrine, backed up by his or her supporters. Where several ohens are in attendance at such an event, there is often a sense of competition between them and their sets of followers. Different sets of followers will compete to outdo one another in participation and display. Where two ohens are close, their supporters will combine together (although remaining distinct spatially at the celebration) to support each other and diminish the performance of another competing ohen, who may lack such a large following or the approbation of other ohens and their supporters. For ohens who perform, there is always the possibility of being upstaged in a public space; and as a result, devotees leave them to follow another ohen. DANCE

It is through dance that the deities most easily possess their ovien (slave), the ohen who serves them. Through the course of the performance, the ohen ‘s relationships with the deities and the spirit world are made manifest in the

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public arena. The key enactments of these relationships are in the dances that are performed by the ohen, who is seen to be possessed by the deity. The drumbeat and the songs sung by the ohen as he or she performs the appropriate dance steps marks out each possession by a deity. The dancing is conducted in bursts which are terminated by the performing ohen or drummers. These can be for a few minutes, or of longer duration. It is during the ohen’s engagement with the dances he or she performs that the deity asserts itself; this is assessed by onlookers – often critically, as practitioners themselves (even if they have not attained the status of Igie ohen or even ohen). A keen interest is displayed by onlookers, who will evaluate these skills and distinguish the exceptional performance of an individual possessed by the deities. Different qualities of performance are evaluated and appreciated in different ohens.20 Ohens can dance in quite different ways to the same conditions of music of a particular deity. The use of styles of dance by the performer can be informed by other local and regional traditions of dancing.The emphasis is on the individual skill of the performer and the way in which different elements of the performance are combined together. An ohen may emphasise the ability to dance, whereas another may emphasise skills in song or other ways of constructing the performance, such as prophecy. Ohens who are skilful dancers may combine together the different dance patterns of the deities to greatest general appreciation, however, and such skill is a suggestion that the ohen is pre-eminent in the ways of the spirit world. Although dance styles vary a great deal, a few commonalities are described as appropriate to each deity. The dance for Olokun is usually characterised by gracefulness (achieved in many different ways across a range of styles), even when the dancer is turning in the circles that signify the full possession of the deity. Moreover, a lack of gracefulness in Olokun dance invites criticism from onlookers, although it is still legitimated by the possession of the deity. Ogun dance steps are delineated more vigorously and are often informed by local village dances performed by the iroghele (young men) age grade. Again wide variations are found. Eziza dance steps are characterised by turning movements which are much broader and wilder than those of Olokun and are associated with the whirlwind that is ascribed to Eziza. There is a balancing on one leg as the ohen spins around (Eziza is often described as having only one leg). Isango dance steps can be similar to those of Ogun but emphasise rapidity of movement. A characteristic of Isango dance is the rapid shaking or pivoting about the axis of the neck. However ohens of Isango who have attained the high grade Bayano Araba characterise the dance in the slow stately steps that represent an Oba or chief. Dance at shrines is a means of worship and is distinguished from dance in other more secular contexts. Possession by the deities is the defining characteristic through embodiment. In the worship at shrines, reference to

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sexuality is overtly excluded and the restrictions that apply to ebo (shrines and deities) hold as a convention to participants. Thus at an ikpowia (wake keeping) in 1992 a large group of devotees from a particular shrine attended, among them one wearing her shrine uniform.21 When she began to dance to the popular band that was playing Yoruba Afro-Juju, in a way that had flirtatious overtones, the other members of the shrine remonstrated and made her change her attire. This was to avoid the pollution of the shrine uniform which would then be unsuitable for worship at the shrine without incurring the anger of the deities. Yet in dance at shrines there may be reference to other traditions of practice such as, for example, the use of syncopated stepping motions of a particular fashion in disco dancing which is used by some younger ohens (1991–3) as a means of leaving the public arena. In some instances, other more longstanding traditions of dance and music, such as egbo (a praise song and dance form), may be introduced into the proceedings as an interlude to please the deities and onlookers. But the dance, the music, its rhythms and the use of particular instruments associated with the deities distinguish it from some other traditions. CONCLUSION

This chapter has focused on urban contemporary shrines and their communities as institutions within the environment of Benin City. It has highlighted how personal shrines are developed by charismatic individuals who successfully utilise a range of abilities and skills that enable them to practise as full-time Igie ohens through the communities that centre on them. In so doing the organisation and the conceptual structures that underpin them have been emphasised, tracing elements of a common trajectory or a shared social biography through which an individual becomes an ohen. This perhaps diminishes the importance and significance of the personal agency and charismatic skills of these individuals, as well as the ways in which they creatively realise their unique gifts and capabilities. To counter this emphasis, the next chapter explores the life histories of a small sample of ohens, selected for their differing life histories as recounted to me in interviews, in order to draw attention to the creative processes of individual agency that is a vital adjunct to their profession. Some elements which feature in these individual life histories, however, suggest commonalities that legitimate their status as Igie ohen.

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4 THE LIFE HISTORIES OF SOME OHENS

The previous chapter considered the institutional means by which individuals become full-time ohens, whereas this chapter focuses on the particular trajectories through which individuals realise these aims. Having sketched out some of the institutional organisation of urban contemporary shrines, I explore through biography how these individuals both use and enable the fluidity and flexibility of institutional frameworks. These are creatively developed and adapted by charismatic ohens over time and in response to changing personal circumstances and wider social conditions. Individual biographies are described as presented by these ohens in interviews throughout the period of fieldwork and by observer participation in some of the events which feature in these narratives. These biographies present partial interpretations of the actions of particular individuals, but are a means of exploring how various ohens come to understand their experiences and develop their ideas and practices. They are also used to examine the social processes through which these processes are legitimated. The case studies do not seek to provide a typical range of ideas and practice; instead they indicate some of the possibilities available within the urban environment of Benin (although the reader may discern commonalities that suggest a particular range).1 They adhere to the narrative framework presented by the ohens (and, in the next chapter, artists) as far as possible. The choice of ohens presented has been made on the basis of differing pathways to becoming a full-time practitioner and highlights the ways in which skills are creatively redeployed within these new circumstances as well as how prior experiences are recontextualised. They are also selected to show individuals at different phases of their careers as full-time ohens. A further dimension is provided by the many networks of ohens in Benin City who participate in the round of annual festivals that commemorate the first induction of the celebrating ohen into a formal relationship with his or her deities. There are also other events in which visiting ohens participate, such as initiations, the new yam festival, and half-yearly and other celebrations as defined and organised at any particular shrine. For this reason the selection of ohens in this and later chapters focuses on a particular associational network and seeks to sketch out some of the relationships engendered within it.2

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Male ohens are presented first in no particular order and no implicit or explicit ranking can be inferred from the sequence: different ohens offer different skills, capacities and fields of expertise, which are evaluated in relation to particular needs and circumstances at a given moment by a client or devotee. Some ohens are presented in the following chapter on artists as a lens for exploring the creative overlaps between the role of artist and ohen (but these ohens are as pre-eminent and skilled in religious terms as those that feature in this chapter). Female ohens are then presented to highlight the ways in which religious ideas and practices are a site for changing gender relations (see also Gore 2007a). The three male ohens presented here offer very different examples of how someone can become an ohen and the differing, but sometimes overlapping, ways in which the process can be validated – whether through kinship, direct descent or directly from the exceptional spiritual gifts of the individual concerned. C H I E F S O L O O S A A M AYO

Chief Solo Amayo is an experienced and mature ohen in his late fifties. He is known as ohen Adigbe (‘Ten Junctions’), which refers both to his prominence in spiritual matters and the presence of the spirit world at ada (road junctions). Offerings are frequently made at road junctions (where there are three or more forks in the road) to propitiate various spiritual forces, including witches and other malevolent agencies that operate in the night. Adigbe is also one of the principal names of Ogun in the oral narrative that describes how Ogun was the first deity to reach the earth by making a pathway from the spirit world on behalf of the other deities. The many powers of ohen Adigbe are emphasised by his ohen title of a crossroads with ten forks. His grandfather was an Ogun ohen priest to Oba Ovoramwen prior to the advent of British rule in 1897. His father did not follow the same profession but allowed ohen Adigbe to be initiated into Ogun and the other deities while he was still a young boy. In his early twenties, however, Adigbe served mass at a local Catholic church for three years, then joined the Church Missionary Society to train as a minister and also teach at their school. After another three years, he left to become a minister of the Church of the Cherubim and Seraphim, an Aladura church. He considered their use of music and prophecy more relevant to addressing the needs of Benin congregations. In private counselling to members of the congregation, he also used to prescribe herbs and medicines to supplement the support of prayer and prophecy. Then another minister of the church prophesied that his power from Ogun was higher than his power from the church. This event suggested that he should worship the deities rather than remain in the Christian faith.

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Many of the local Aladura churches in Benin City acknowledge the spiritual powers of the various local deities that are worshipped and claim to provide a protection or remedy to counter these interventions in the lives of worshippers. In some instances, however, the ministers will concede that an individual’s life is bound up with the worship of the deities and advise the individual concerned to leave the church to follow them. Some time after this prediction, Chief Solo Amayo was in a procession through the streets of Benin City to herald the presence of the church when he was possessed by Ogun. As a consequence, he left the Cherubim and Seraphim in order to become an Ogun ohen. He spent another fourteen days renewing his links with the deities in further initiation that supplemented his earlier childhood introduction to the deities. He is still often described in English as ‘the minister who became an Ogun ohen’. He has acquired many deities in the course of his practice, although he has ten principal ones as befits his name. Besides Ogun, Olokun, Okuada, Isango and Eziza, he also has that of Ikpekpe, the cemetery,3 a protective power gathered from the plants that grow in the cemetery (and those places in the bush where the dead are buried). Ikpekpe also enables him to communicate with the dead. He has various manifestations of Osun, the deity of leaves; Osun Uloko, Osun Isi Okha and Osun Iyenomai. He has been initiated into Osun Uloko, which affords protection from witches and other malevolent agencies, but he brought Osun Isi Okha from the bush unaided in a large pot. This has healing and protective properties and okha (silk-cotton tree, Ceiba Pentandra) is often used in protective medicines as it exudes a sap which covers cuts or wounds in the trunk of the tree. He also inherited Osun Iyenomai from his step-father Ugiagbe, a noted native doctor who was without issue. Although an experienced ohen, he still invokes the blessings of Jesus Christ in prayer alongside those of his deities, which is indicative in itself of the range of his spiritual powers to members and clients. He is also a member of the Reformed Ogboni Fraternity, an institution set up in 1912 by Yoruba intellectuals (most notably the Reverend T. A. Ogunbiyi) that was inspired by the example of Freemasonry. In the 1940s and 1950s membership, or not, defined oppositional political affiliations that led to outbreaks of violence (Bradbury 1968), although nowadays such connotations are residual. On joining his shrine, all members are given a medicine called Uwu ehi ere ogbe erhan no re ikpekpe, ‘It is natural death that kills the tree in the cemetery’. This is interpreted as meaning that all ill intentions will be ineffective and that one will attain one’s own natural death despite all the dangers that might hasten it. This emphasises the immense protection that ohen Adigbe is able to afford his members through his extensive powers – which include, especially, that of the cemetery. Members of the shrine are enjoined not to harm one another on pain of suffering serious spiritual

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harm. Infractions and disputes between members are resolved through the arbitration provided by ohen Adigbe. When clients approach ohen Adigbe, schnapps and kola are presented and the client is vouched for to the members of the shrine. If a client wishes to become a member of the shrine, schnapps, kola nuts, fowl, red and white cloth and money are presented. Ohen Adigbe then becomes a spiritual father to the new member. But there is a further category of membership at the shrine whereby an individual takes on the kinship obligations entailed in a filial relationship to Adigbe, including annual donations of antelope, money, mineral drinks, kola and so on. Such a member also has to perform the duties of a nominal sibling at his funeral and has a right to inherit from his estate (although the bulk goes by right to the eldest natural-born son). In 1992, four men and five women were in this close relationship with him within the community of the shrine. Ohen Adigbe started celebrating the annual festival in honour of the deities some fifty years ago (as of 2003). The length of time over which it has been completed annually highlights his efficacy and power as an ohen in an uncertain world. He is also a noted obo (native doctor). Over the years he has developed a large following at his shrine and an extensive clientele who come to him in times of need. He has been a member of the Iwebo association of the Oba of Benin for twenty-four years and holds a title in the Ifiento, the bodyguards who accompany the Oba on public occasions to ward off spiritual dangers. Although ohen Adigbe is a successful ohen, his commitments to his devotees and clients and the time this takes up has up to now precluded his taking a higher rank. He had close connections with the late Iye n’Oba, the queenmother to the Oba, whom he assisted in her successful installation at Uselu when she gained the title. She often consulted him on matters that require his expertise. Every third year (biannually according to the Edo system of reckoning) he used to visit the Iye n’Oba at Uselu to celebrate an ugie avan, afternoon celebration, of his annual festival as a mark of respect to her. He has developed a strong sense of community in the shrine, assisted by his mother and his many wives (although not all participate in its activities) who help in any necessary preparations for an event. Many of his neighbours in the Ugbekun quarters are also longstanding members and titleholders of his shrine. He has many male members who occupy leading roles in its organisation, known collectively as the ewaise, spiritual helpers, who assist and participate in the preparation and administering of medicines and other specific ritual duties. Some of them are full-time igie ohens in their own right but take a secondary role in relation to ohen Adigbe in order to gain the protection, support and sanction of such a prominent ohen – one who will attend their own ceremonies and events with a large following. The ewaise maintain the authority of the shrine on his behalf. Through the duties that

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they perform for ohen Adigbe, they also gain a recognised depth of expertise in the matters of the spirit world which stands them in good stead in their own practice. Ohen Adigbe has a range of skills at his disposal such that, for example, in his former young owaise Shaky Reggie, he had one of the bestknown drummers and dancers in Benin City. It is exceptional for an ohen to have so many active male members in the community of the shrine and it is indicative of his high status and expertise. Public performance is an essential component of an ohen ‘s skills. Ohen Adigbe has a reputation as an exceptional dancer and states that he can dance continuously for his entire annual fourteen day festival if it is demanded of him by the deities. His mature dancing combines a fluid skill with his exceptional singing, for which he is also renowned. Ohen Adigbe uses songs in many contexts. During possession by the deities he frequently sings as a means of answering clients’ public pleas for assistance with the problems that beset them. The songs are from the Edo-speaking areas and further afield – the Igbo Ukwani area, for example, from where his father had taken a wife. He also improvises around the musical arrangement to contribute new lines and verses – even new songs on occasion – to add to his already extensive repertoire. These abilities in public performance demonstrate the legitimacy and authority of his spiritual power and augment its claims to the wider public who may have occasion to consult him, whether in private or during public performance. Public performance during the regular bi-weekly worship (alternate Sunday afternoons) is elaborated in many ways. The preparation of ohen Adigbe for the act of worship and possession by the deities entails his bodily purification and preparation with various medicines such as the licking of the ekhuae, or medicinal charm, so that everything the ohen speaks during the performance happens as he told it.4 His limbs and face are coated in orhue, locally occurring chalk, by particular followers prior to his entry into the outer arena of the shrine. He is greeted by the followers, commencing with his mother who is the iye ne ebo (mother of the shrine) – this title is held by four other members of the shrine, as is the case with some other titles, to maintain continuity. Some of the titleholders of the shrine perform various duties with different artefacts that define to an extent their role as titleholder. Thus the titleholder ughegbe (mirror) will hold a mirror to present to ohen Adigbe, who looks into the spirit world with it before proceeding with the performance. The order and roles vary depending on which members are present, and every so often new titleholders with new roles will be introduced into the performance. The use of artefacts elaborates the powers and standing of ohen Adigbe as well as creating a sense of community and participation among the members of the shrine. Artefacts are also used in conjunction with the songs, and he often carries the small wooden paddle of a canoe to which he attributes inspiration for many of the songs he performs.

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At his annual festival in 1993, ohen Adigbe acquired a new deity, Mami Wata, which was installed as a shrine. Among the artefacts of this shrine are a small replica of a coffin and a plastic doll that signify the power and presence of Mami Wata. With possession by Mami Wata another set of ideas and practices was introduced into his performance, with different dances, songs and roles for the participants (Gore 2007a). In 1996 he set up a separate room for her shrine. Despite his considerable experience and expertise, there is always the possibility of innovation and change in his ideas and practice as an ohen. The accumulation of such sets of expertise enhances his status and prestige, while providing a flexible and accommodating framework with which to cater for the needs of his followers and clients. MR ANDREW OBASEKI

Ohen Ogun Aibigievbogigban (popularly known as ohen Aibigie) is a young ohen in his early forties who has developed some aspects of his shrines unaided. His ohen name means ‘do not step on ogigban’ (a thorny plant), which highlights his spiritual capabilities but also references his associations with the bush (where the ogigban, also known as ‘wild yam’,5 grows) and the medicines that he sources there. As a young boy, he described how tears of blood would appear when he was beaten and initiation into Ogun was prescribed by divination as the solution to this problem. So while he was in primary school grade five, his mother ensured he had the preliminary initiation into Ogun in his village at Oko, on the outskirts of Benin City. He was fully initiated as an ohen into Ogun on 12 December 1972 in a seven-day ceremony. He did not inherit any shrines from his parents and acquired his skills as an ohen independently from childhood onwards. He discovered from his dreams which actions to perform and the medicines to bring in from the bush. After his second initiation, he used to live alone in the bush in a small hut for weeks on end while he learnt the uses of different leaves. During this time he also performed the various dances of Ogun as a solo artist with a cultural dance troupe in order to subsist.6 In 1975 he went alone into the bush for several months and returned with Eziza, which he directly installed. It is a claim to power that is directly legitimated by the deity. He has been successful in socially negotiating this legitimacy and consequently has an acknowledged direct and privileged link to the deity. In the same year he was initiated into Olokun by Madam Odigie (see later in this chapter and Chapter 6), who now holds the title of iye ne ebo (mother of the shrine). He also has Orunmila, Ikpekpe (the protection of) the cemetery, Obalofun (which he describes as the powers of the bush at night – a parallel and comparable power to Eziza – and which again he brought in from the bush by himself), Okokomo, Odede and Eubarunouban. Later in 1983 he acquired various Osun medicines. He performs

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several oracles as part of his repertoire of divination, including Olokun, Kola, the akhue-khue method of Orunmila, dreams and mirror divination. He has a titleholder called ughegbe (mirror), who provides a mirror for him to look into the spirit world at the beginning of his performance during the public ceremonies (see ohen Adigbe above). As he has matured as an ohen and the efficacy of his spiritual power and medicines has gained wider recognition, he has been able to compare with other ohens the mastery of particular spiritual powers and bodies of knowledge. He has stated, however, that this could only be done when he had been accepted as a colleague with a proven mastery over such spiritual matters, with a following that attested to his public standing. The first annual festival of ohen Aibigie, as opposed to the one-day celebrations that any initiate can hold, was held in 1983, some ten years after his initiation into Ogun, and was a major step in the development of his large and popular shrine. Ohen Aibigie has gained a large following through several means. First, he can invoke a large number of deities when he has to deal with the problems of clients and members, and thus has the authority to deal with any contingency. He has a reputation for strong medicines and protection, especially against witches and other malevolent agencies, which he builds upon through the acquisition of further deities brought from the bush to his shrine. His shrine also has prominently displayed many of the powerful and potent medicines which protect his members and attest to his (often dangerous) spiritual powers, as these medicines can carry risks to its practitioners. He has stated that not one member’s life has been lost since the consecration of his shrine. He is also an extremely skilful and charismatic dancer when possessed by the deities, combining different body movements from different deities into the same dance patterns so that, for example, Olokun movements are combined with the footsteps of the obo, the native doctor. This ability, when possessed by the deities, establishes a prestige in dance and underlines, in the public arena, the spiritual power and the relationships to the deities that he holds. His dance abilities in performance are keenly appreciated both by his followers and other onlookers. As there is competition between ohens (supported by their followers), his ability to outshine many rivals through his exceptional capabilities in dance has helped gain him a large following. But it also makes him a popular figure at the ceremonies of other ohens, where his performance can be a highlight of the event, despite the risk of his overshadowing other performers. As a young ohen he attracts a number of young, single women in Benin City. Ohen Aibigie is adept at preparing medicines and charms to suit their needs and requirements, enabling their wishes or desires in the spirit world. He also attracts a number of followers from the villages that surround Benin

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City and ensures their safety spiritually and materially when they visit the city. The practices of his shrine meet the needs of the young and economically disadvantaged who live in the urban environment. His popularity is enhanced by his extraordinary ability to dance, the issue of identity cards for members (similar in form, as we have seen, to those of an important company or corporation) with its associations of modernity (Gore 2001), the large numbers of young female supporters that surround him, and the provision of potent medicines to assist his followers to overcome their difficulties. However, despite his large following of devotees, his comparative youth during this period of his life leaves him in a vulnerable position that could be contested by other ohens. Although he is very popular with his young female supporters, his practice of bringing in deities from the bush by himself can discourage some clients from using his services or joining his shrine. They fear the dangerous power revealed in the iconography of the medicines (and deities) that are brought from the bush with their potent visual and material tropes (for central Africa, see MacGaffey 1977, 2000).7 The presence of independent women in his shrine, with the connotations that this has in Benin City, can also deter some older clients. Part of the social biography of ohens is that as they mature they acquire the presence of older and highly knowledgeable members of the shrine, who testify to the experience and skill of the presiding ohen with whom they could otherwise compete in terms of seniority, experience and knowledge. They also provide a substantial support to the ohen and the community of the shrine by leading the ceremonial activities, especially in the general preparations for particular occasions such as initiation and the annual festival. In the instance of singing, the responses of the less well-known songs publicly demonstrate their deep knowledge of the deities in comparison to other shrines and enhance the prestige and status of the ohen. In order to circumvent the difficulty of youth, ohen Aibigie maintains good relations with certain older ohens – such as Madam Odigie, who initiated him – as their experience and seniority help to underpin his legitimacy in comparison with other ohens of the same age. Similarly he claims ohen Adigbe, an extremely experienced ohen, as a spiritual father although he has not been initiated by him for any deity. Through the mutual support that they demonstrate by attending each other’s major ceremonies, ohen Aibigie is able to project a depth and authority in his own powers. Ohen Adigbe, in return, gains in ohen Aibigie the support of a young but powerful ohen whose public performances at his shrine will entertain his own supporters. In a sense, this entertainment and display through the performance of ohen Aibigie is a reward offered by ohen Adigbe to his followers for their participation and support of him. When in June 1991 their half-yearly festivals clashed, as they were scheduled to start at the same time, this gave rise to a

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temporary misunderstanding between them. By the time of ohen Adigbe’s annual festival in November 1991, however, this misunderstanding had been reconciled and ohen Aibigie attended ohen Adigbe’s festival. He provided a spectacular performance of dance in possession and a public reconciliation, in which his deities demanded a more than usually full embrace from ohen Adigbe, a common means by which ohens acknowledge a close social and spiritual relationship with each other in the public arena. MR OSAREMWIDA EHIDIADUWA

Mr Osaremwida Ehidiaduwa was born in 1931, the eldest son of his father who was the ohen at the communal Olokun shrine of IdunmwunUhunmwun on the outskirts of Benin City. At this shrine the office of ohen has been passed from father to the first-born son since the time of Oba Ewuare, according to the oral traditions of the shrine. His father, Chief Ehidiaduwa Onaghino, rebuilt the shrine in 1929 – it had been destroyed during the British Punitive Expedition of 1897 (Izevbigie 1978: 288) – but now brought it within the area of his compound (so ensuring that the right of primogeniture is retained). Idunmwun-Uhunmwun is one of the village settlements that preceded the formation of Benin City from the time of the Ogiso, the rulers prior to the current dynasty. It is not far from an archaeological site reputed to be a palace from the Ogiso period. According to the oral traditions of Idunmwun-Uhunmwun, however, its inhabitants arrived with Oba Ewuare from Urhonigbe, a major settlement in Orhionmwon local government area to the south-west of Benin City, during the fifteenth century. They settled in the village, bringing with them the worship of the deity Olokun and supplanting the prior community. Mr Ehidiaduwa was initiated into Olokun in about 1946 at the age of fifteen and, as the eldest son, was the first to do so. He attended primary school up to level six. After leaving school he became a rubber buyer as a middleman between the producers and the larger companies. Then, finding he had insufficient capital and very low profit margins, he decided to enrol for four years as an apprentice car mechanic in Benin City. He became a driver in 1955 after completing his apprenticeship. At different times he worked freelance as an inter-city taxi operator or drove cars and lorries around the country for various companies and, finally, the Bendel State government. At the time he started driving, his father had him initiated into Ogun in order to protect him from the dangers and hazards that his work entailed. He worked for some thirty years until his father’s death in 1985. He then resigned from his post as driver at the governor’s office in order to become the ohen Olokun N’Idunmwun-Uhunmwun. He had to undergo a further twenty-one-day initiation into the Olokun of the shrine, performed by ohens who were not members of the village shrine community (conducted prin-

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cipally by the late Chief Anthony Osugbo, an eminent ohen). The initiation started with a journey to a river specified by oracle and then a visit to Urhonigbe for some secret rites. He brought water from the river and chalk from Urhonigbe back to the shrine. The Idunmwun-Uhunmwun shrine holds its Igue Olokun after that of Urhonigbe and prior to that of the Oba’s major Igue festival held at the end of the calendar year (Bradbury 1959c), but does not maintain any other formal links to Urhonigbe. The statues in the shrine are centred around Olokun, with the female deities Obiemwen and Igbaghon at his side. There are also representations of Ofoe (the messenger of death) and various minor figures such as a colonial policeman and the emada (young servants to the deity). On the outside wall, next to the entrance to the shrine, there is a low-relief figure of a leopard and underneath it shrines and statues to Esu, the trickster deity from the Yoruba-speaking area and Amafuan, another deity. There is a shrine to Ogun next to them. The statues are repaired where necessary and repainted each year in preparation for the annual festival by the ohen ‘s younger half-brother. In the village of Idunmwun-Uhunmwun the community is organised on an age-grade basis made up of evbirrevbo, children, iroghae, youths who perform the communal labour of the community (such as clearing paths, for example), ighele, men of the community whose ages range from twenty to the middle forties, and edion, the elders. There is also an odionwere, the oldest man of the community, who heads the elders, as well as an iyase, a titleholder named after the Iyase in the institutions of the Oba of Benin, who participates in the decisions reached by the odionwere and the other elders (like the Iyase of Benin, he can present to the elders opposing opinions, drawn in this community from the other age grades, principally the ighele). It is the iyase who organises the ighele and other groups where these decisions have to be collectively implemented by them. The shrine has its own organisation that makes up a separate community from that of the village. All members of the shrine have to be initiated. There is a preliminary initiation which young children undergo to participate in the activities of the shrine, with young boys becoming ikpema, drummers, and young girls becoming igborhue, preparers of native chalk (by crushing it into a fine powder, with salt added to make it ‘sweet’) for the use of the members of the shrine. These young children also carry the uwenrhien-otan (squirrel whips), the canes found at shrines that are considered to ward off harmful spirits on appropriate ceremonial occasions, such as the visit to the Oba’s palace at the conclusion of the annual festival. Male members of the shrine can become edion, elders of the shrine, as they grow older and have a similar status in the shrine to that of elders of the village. After the preliminary initiation, women of the community can initiate as Igie ohens with the akhue ebo, the fourteen-day initiation into Olokun.

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The shrine has titleholders that are conferred by the ohen when possessed by the deity. The number of titles held by members fluctuates at the shrine. Some titles that are central to the activities of the shrine are permanently maintained (about a dozen) and mainly filled by relations of the ohen. There is also an odionwere (oldest man of the shrine) as well as an iyase, and these are separate titles to those of the village community. As Idunmwun-Uhunmwun has become part of Benin City, however, with outsiders now living within its jurisdiction, the community of the shrine has become more important as a means of defining the core membership of the village community. As a consequence, the roles and titles of the shrine have acquired an added significance within the affairs of the village – so much so that the role of the iyase of the shrine has overshadowed, in recent times at least, that of the village iyase. However there is no differentiation in the gender of titleholders at the shrine (with the exception of the ohen and odionwere). Although the holder of the iyase title at the shrine is a man, it would be quite possible for a woman to hold the title – something that would not be permitted in the context of village organisation. Membership of the shrine is restricted to members of the village of Idunmwun-Uhunmwun, although spiritual assistance is given to non-village clients who require the services of the ohen and shrine. This has restricted the numbers of followers and its prestige. However the ohen took a chieftaincy title in January 1992 and was inducted into the palace association Iweguae as an active participant, as opposed to nominal affiliation. OHENS AND GENDER

In Benin City many social roles are differentiated on the basis of gender. Children are affiliated to the paternal descent line and marriage is viri-local (Bradbury and Lloyd 1957: 28). Men usually head the domestic household and women are in a subordinate relation to this authority (Bradbury and Lloyd: 29; Kaplan, 1997a). In houses with shrines women are regulated by physical and spiritual sanctions by the male head of the household. These spiritual sanctions are enforced at erha (the shrine to the deceased father and his forebears) as well as at Olode (the shrine for the women of the compound) composed of a planted ikhinmwin tree that is ministered by the senior wife. Disputes and conflicts between co-wives are resolved at the Olode. Women have various restrictions placed on them in their domestic activities. They are forbidden to cook for the head of the house during menstruation, pregnancy and after childbirth; and access to the domestic shrines at these times is restricted. Wives have no more than a token claim on the estate of the husband. However these relations are constituted in historical trajectories which have been subject to change in contemporary Benin City, where funeral practices and inheritance rights, to a certain extent, have been modified by Christianity, Islam and the Nigerian law

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courts. The Pentecostal churches in their overt public rejection of prior religious ideas provided married women with a resource with which to challenge the practices of polygamy and ritual restrictions within the household (Meyer 1995). However, even where such ideas and practices are not adhered to, they still offer a local and pervasive model for conceptualising gender relations, especially with respect to marital relations, and especially when unfortunate or adverse events occur.8 Relations between men and women are often extended beyond the confines of the domestic household to their roles in political and economic life. The divisions of labour in these relations provide the opportunity for autonomy for women, however, particularly in market trade in goods and services. For example, trade in foodstuffs at the markets in Benin City and the surrounding villages is carried out predominantly by women. Many women engage in this trade, the majority gaining a subsistence livelihood for themselves and their children. A few women are able to accumulate capital and move beyond a subsistence mode of operation. They thus acquire a substantial autonomous status through their successful expansion as traders and often take leading roles in occupational associations which represent their interests (Emovon 1997). But for women engaged in subsistence trading activities, their economic position remains insecure as they are more vulnerable to fluctuations in market conditions. There are some other activities that can afford a woman economic independence from male authority but some of these, such as prostitution, lack social standing. The institutions of Edo state and the federal government offer employment to women. Opportunity to rise to senior ranks for women tends to be restricted and usually requires education or political connections in order to further their prospects – but these opportunities for employment still provide security and independence beyond the local expectations of a woman’s role as wife in Edo society. Women have been overtly excluded from direct involvement in the political hierarchies of the institutions of the Oba of Benin and many village communities because of their gender. They are restricted in their physical access within the palace (especially at the shrines and other ritual areas where their presence is often considered inimical) and the wives of the Oba are further restricted by their role, which is hedged with ritual sanctions. Women have palace associations that they can join, determined by the palace association membership of their father (or husband in some instances). But these female associations are overtly excluded from the political decision making that the male palace associations exercise. Female members of the royal family do have some access to the exercise of power in the palace through their patronage of some of the guilds and organisations within the palace. The Iye n’Oba, queen mother of the reigning Oba, does exercise overt

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political and spiritual power. She has a status comparable to the title order Uzama n’Ihinron with her own area of jurisdiction. She has her court at Uselu with its own titles and patronage, and also outlying villages that support her economically. As the wife of the previous Oba successful in producing the male heir, she has also thereby confirmed her spiritual abilities to withstand a highly competitive situation in relation to the other wives of the Oba as well as malign agencies in the spirit world. The claims of the queen mother are legitimated in present-day oral narratives by the status achieved by Idia, the queen mother who supported her son Oba Esigie spiritually, politically and militarily in the war against the Attah of Idah. A separate shrine to the queen mother is established in the Uselu area after her death by her son, the reigning Oba (if her death occurs prior to his accession, he sets up this shrine when he ascends the throne). A commemorative head of the queen mother is cast for the shrine. Such shrines and shrine artefacts are one of the means by which her role and status are defined in relation to the Oba. In the village political organisation down to the present day the edion (elders of the village) are composed entirely of men, as are the enogie (hereditary village chiefs) who make up the decision-making body in the community. In most instances the ohens of the village community shrines are men, as can be seen, for example, in the Ovia or Okhuaihe village shrines. Masquerade, which is performed at some but not all village clusters, is performed exclusively by men with women as a key part of the audience, as Bradbury recorded in his account of Ovia masquerade (1959a). During masquerades of Ovia and Okhuaihe, there are occasions when all women and uninitiated males are confined indoors with the threat of extreme spiritual sanctions to transgressors. Within the village context most women have set up a shrine to Olokun, either prior to or on marriage, and often have acquired shrines to other deities. Usually, they have also consulted or attended, on a more or less regular basis, the shrines and celebrations of Igie ohens. Thus a strategy open to women, especially towards the end of childbearing, is to become more involved in the activities of shrines and ultimately develop the possibility of acquiring Igie ohen status themselves. If they are successful in their practice, they are able to benefit economically to a considerable extent – building their own houses, for example (see Madam Odigie and ohen Osagie in this chapter). Indeed, the construction of a house to shelter the deities in a suitable shrine is often used as one criterion of success as an Igie ohen by ohens and their clients (see also Girshick Ben-Amos 1994). With the ownership of a house, female ohens become the head of the household and are able, through their connections with the deities, to apply their own punitive spiritual sanctions in this domain. If such female ohens are married, the husband’s role and authority is, to a large extent, subordinate to that of the ohen. Indeed, the personal relationship the ohen has with the deities can require the husband to live elsewhere and only visit. Thus the conven-

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tions of practice (particularly of domestic and communal shrines) that can restrict the access of women to ebo, shrines and deities, can be subverted by successful female ohens and used to advance a different agenda. In this way female ohens are able to acquire an independent economic status as well as an autonomy of power and influence that is predicated on the direct legitimation of the spirit world and cannot easily be contested. Although female Igie ohens have some restrictions on access to ebo (the shrine and deity), such as during menstruation, their role as owner of the shrine is similar to that of male Igie ohens. It is dependent on their personal skills and repertoire of expertise to attract followers and clients. Female Igie ohens are not confined to female deities but can have male deities that possess them. In some instances, female Igie ohens have been able to extend their authority within a village community to head a communal deity shrine. The example of Madam Mercy Osughe is a case in point (see pp. 100–3), and demonstrates that this spiritual legitimation has been used to undermine prior gender differentiation in the ritual role of the ohen of communal deity village shrines in some localities. The roles of titleholders within the institutions of the Oba, which exclude women, are sometimes adopted by female ohens when possessed by the deities in their performances. As described in the case study later in this chapter (pp. 93–8), ohen Osagie is possessed by her deity Oba Esigie and this highlights her status and importance as an ohen. Similarly, on some ritual occasions at her shrine, another ohen, Madam Elema, has brought out the eben (chief’s ceremonial sword) during a performance to her deities and danced with it in a similar manner to prominent titleholders with eben presenting themselves to the Oba of Benin. In any other context apart from the urban contemporary shrines, it would be difficult for women to be accepted performing these actions. Thus the legitimation derived from the deities can be used by women to extend and change their roles and status in ways that are autonomous of the political domain of institutions of the Oba of Benin. In 1999 a pre-eminent Olokun priestess, Madam Dorcas Idahosa, was awarded the title Iyeye (great mother) of Benin by the Oba – an exceptional event. In a subsequent interview on Edo state television she made the key distinction: whereas the Iyeye title came from the Oba, her powers came directly from Osa, the supreme deity. Conceptually the comparison that Girshick Ben-Amos made of female ohens having a status of chief within the institutions of the Oba of Benin was not the homology she depicted (Girshick Ben-Amos 1994: 133). It elides the major differences between the two in terms of the autonomous acquisition of power and legitimacy by ohens, which is directly from the spirit world. Ohens, of course, can be inducted into the institutions of the Oba.

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OHEN AITOLEKPENHAE

Ohen Aitolekpenehae (Madam M. Odiah, alias Fine Lady) is a young ohen in her early forties who has a communal village shrine at the village of Irokhin, dedicated to the local deity Okhuan, and a shrine in Benin City where she resides. Irokhin is one of thirteen villages making up a village cluster that worship the deity Okhuan. Her shrine in Benin City at her main residence has her other deities as well as Okhuan. When a young adolescent at the time of the Nigerian civil war, she was assailed by acute stomach pains and admitted to hospital for an operation. The doctors examined her and took x-rays but no direct cause was found. Her father, a son of Oba Eweka II who subscribed to local Edo beliefs, consulted an oracle on her behalf, although she was a Christian at this time. The oracle foretold that she would become an important person in the future. In order to get better, she was instructed to offer sacrifice to Olokun and commence the worship of the deity. The sacrifice was made and she was released from hospital, although the specialist indicated that she might have problems bearing children. In 1977 both she and her elder sister were initiated into Olokun by their father to prevent any hindrances to their prospects for matrimony. Ohen Aitolekpenehae married an Igbo-speaker from the Ika area, further east towards the river Niger, and began to have children. She also experienced four miscarriages, to which she did not attach any spiritual significance at that time. During this time, in conjunction with her elder sister, she worked as a seamstress and owned a shop that dealt in cloths imported from Lagos and Onitsha. She was also a devout prophetess in a congregation of the Celestial Church of Christ. She rejected her initiation into Olokun and ignored the encouragement of her mother, who was a practising Olokun ohen. Obedient to the strictures of her church, she ate fish and bush meat but abstained from goat meat and fowl, two of the animals often sacrificed at shrines in Benin. In 1983 she suffered severe menstruation problems for over a year. Medicines had little effect on her difficulties. She was directed to Uyiekpen, an Ogun ohen and a well-known native doctor. She stayed for two days (despite her Christian beliefs) in order to be cured but found no improvement in her condition. In 1985 the compound she shared with her elder sister, who had been initiated with her, was visited by a leopard which roared throughout the night and climbed up the outside of the walls of her rooms before leaving to hunt in the nearby market. Her shrine has a statue of the leopard that commemorates her royal descent and the visit of the leopard. Her mother consulted the Olokun oracle, which stated that she should go back to worshipping Olokun. The oracle further said that she should go to her grandmother’s house at the village of Irokhin because she had no female children with whom to worship Olokun. Ohen Aitolekpenehae, however, packed her bags in order to seek sanctuary in the Celestial Church.

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But the next day she found herself, some nine miles from Irokhin, at the disused shrine to Okhuan, whose previous ohen had died in 1947. The elders of Irokhin insisted that she make sacrifice at the edion shrine to the elders who had founded the village before returning to Benin City. On her return she continued to worship at the Celestial Church. The next year, however, she was brought back to Irokhin with her legs twisted and unable to move. The enogie of the village, who is related to her, assembled the entire village and held a dance to the deities. During the course of this, ohen Aitolekpenehae was possessed by the deity Okhuan. She declared during the possession that she was the ohen Aimuokunsaibo, the name of the previous ohen, and had come to serve the deity. The enogie was keen for her to remain at Irokhin and commence initiation, but her relatives, including her elder sister, took her back to Benin City. The enogie continued to visit to persuade her to return to Irokhin, warning her that the deity would compel her to return naked if necessary – a comment he made to emphasise the gravity of the situation and the duress to which she would be subjected by the deity. But ohen Aitolekpenehae resisted his advice and continued to worship at the Celestial Church and trade in cloth. However, her life became more and more difficult as she was paying large sums for cloth and then selling at prices far below cost. This erratic behaviour, deemed bizarre by those close to her, became more and more pronounced until one day in the New Benin market the deity began to turn her about, preventing her from buying any goods. On her return from the market she finally decided to go back to Irokhin and accept initiation into Okhuan. At a village meeting in Irokhin, the elders informed her that she would have to find an ohen to initiate her. One of her half-sisters recommended ohen Aibigie, who was then a young ohen with a small shrine, as a person suitable to initiate her into Okhuan. The oracle was consulted and, of several names put forward, selected ohen Aibigie. He was informed of the decision but was reluctant to conduct the initiation as he did not have the Okhuan deity and was wary of being involved in the politics of a village where he had no kin; the implication being that, as an outsider, there was the possibility of spiritual attack being directed at him by those who resented his presence. Ohen Aitolekpenehae persuaded him to agree, telling him that she would also arrange the preparations for the Okhuan akhue ebo, or bath of the deity, with the assistance of the elders of the village. In March 1987, she returned to Irokhin to undergo initiation into Okhuan. Only three elders of the village had some knowledge of how the initiation into Okhuan should be conducted and the leaves involved (which number fourteen – a prestigious quantity). The initiation lasted seven days and on the eighth day she went to the palace to inform the Oba, as it is one of the shrines recognised by him. She took the name of Aitolekpenehae, ‘Do not scratch the forehead of the leopard’, which emphasises her power as well as referring to the leopard that

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visited her and her royal descent, for the ekpen (leopard) has many associations with the Oba of Benin. The acquisition of the communal shrine at Okhuan was a complex affair that required ohen Aitolekpenehae to satisfy the demands and assumptions of the Irokhin community to prove that she was actually possessed by Okhuan. She had linkages of maternal descent to Irokhin, which entitled her to claim the shrine of Okhuan, and is related to the enogie of the village. This relationship would enhance the enogie’s status, enabling him to claim a closer status to the royal family from it, as well as through his descent from the original enogie installed there as his representative by the Oba. At Irokhin there is a shrine to Okhuan retained in one descent line, although the actual head of this shrine is now living at Ozo and has little involvement with the village community. However after ohen Aitolekpenehae became ohen of Okhuan, another ohen, who resides in Benin City, also laid claim to the communal shrine of Okhuan. The father of this ohen came from Irokhin but he moved to the neighbouring village of Urhokuosa. Through her success as a trader and ohen in Benin City, Madam Grace Aigbe had acquired several houses as well as a hospital for ‘traditional medicine’ in the city, and also had several farms at Urhokuosa. However, in 1989, with the consent of the enogie, she set up another shrine in Irokhin diametrically opposite the shrine of ohen Aitolekpenehae. She attends her shrine in Irokhin very occasionally. At the time of her initiation into Okhuan, ohen Aitolekpenehae returned to the worship of the other deities into which she had been initiated in childhood. She was still based in Benin City at her sister’s compound, with visits to celebrate at Irokhin. She was also initiated as a native doctor after she became the ohen of Irokhin. It is an important part of her practice and one that is sometimes asserted during performance, dancing with the aban (handcuff medicine) in her hand to prevent harmful actions being directed at her and the community of the shrine. She received further legitimation in this aspect of her practice from the fact that her mother’s father was a renowned native doctor from Ugo. She has also developed the shrine to include other deities that are exclusive to her. She has acquired several deities that are unknown to most other ohens and has initiated some members into each deity, with the different conditions and regulations that govern them. She has a deity, known as Ugbezumale, that protects against witches and the other powerful beings of the night. Initiates of Ugbezumale are able to wear a special uniform of blue with a red border. Other ohens have been very interested in acquiring this deity but she has preferred to retain it exclusively for herself (rather than profit economically from her knowledge by initiating other ohens). She also has Ose Nugba, a deity from Umunede (east of Agbor) in the Igbo-speaking area of her grandmother, who married Oba Eweka II. During possession by this deity, she speaks in Igbo and it is so strong in performance

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that her mother (when alive) had to assuage the deity through pleading and entreaties, also spoken in Igbo. In January 1992 she also installed a new shrine known as Ukpa gha re Ebiebi ri owa, ‘When light comes, darkness goes home’. The praise name for it is A ghi rha vbe eki, ne a vio obo ghe iyeke, ‘One does not steal in the market and have hands at the back’, meaning that it exposes all wrongdoing directed at the initiate and provides suitable protection. This was a deity ohen Aitolekpenehae had acquired from Rivers state and installed at her own shrine. She was initiated at the original shrine in Rivers state and then it was brought to her own shrine at a later date. She subsequently chose some of the more senior members of her shrine to initiate into membership of Ukpaghare during her festival to Ewere on 4 January 1992, marking their arms with a line of chalk. At the end of the Ewere festival there was a discussion between members on whether some members should be allowed to join the new shrine because they had not yet complied with all the demands of the Ugbezumale shrine, particularly the money for sacrifices. A consensus was reached that only those who adequately met the regulations of the Ugbezumale shrine should go forward with this new initiation. The colours associated with it are yellow, white and black. Candles are an important aspect of this shrine and are also considered to provide light in the spirit world. In some of her all-night worship ohen Aitolekpenehae also uses candles known as ‘candleworks’, which parallels the practice of the Aladura churches. Those members who have joined this ‘candlework’ shrine also wear a small crucifix about their wrists. Many of her followers have testified to the efficacy of ohen Aitolekpenehae and her shrine, comparing her successes favourably with those of charismatic Christian prayer meetings. Some practices conducted by ohen Aitolekpenehae are informed by those of the Baptist and Pentecostal Christian churches. Indeed this contributes to the appeal of the shrine for the members in the urban environment, where there are other convivial religious traditions to which followers have recourse. She has a young and enthusiastic following who attend the ugie avan (afternoon dance) she holds every four days. Her elder sister is the iye ne ebo (mother of the shrine) and takes an active part in supporting her sister. Ohen Aitolekpenhae has developed a strong sense of community, with all members holding titles at her shrine, and the more senior members attend wearing protective medicines made by her. The catchphrase of the shrine is ‘You do for me, I do for you’. The various exclusive deities she has acquired and the initiation of members into them further encourage this sense of community. There are also other exclusive characteristics as the ohen is a member of the ruling dynasty and has a communal village deity recognised by the Oba (with the prestige that this implies). This is something that few other ohens are able to offer their members. By such means ohen Aitolekpenehae has built up a committed following.

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The members are also formed into a cooperative society, The Edo Development Progressive Union, which provides mutual support for members at funerals and other social occasions, along with a contribution to ease the financial demands that these kinds of occasions require. Similarly, members giving birth or suffering illness stay in the compound to receive the assistance of the ohen. At the end of each ugie avan (afternoon celebration), there is a discussion about any collective matters that face the members of the shrine. She is able to offer strong and varied protection through her deities and also as a native doctor with great abilities. As a woman, she also offers a further support to female clients and members: the client can be confident that the medicines she prepares have no risk of additional love charms added to enamour the client of the ohen – a distinct possibility with some male ohens. She is a skilful performer and has an individual and expressive style of dance as well as an ability to sing. Her ugie avan dance sessions, held every four days, are varied. Each one is characterised by different events and performances – the deity Ose Nugba from Umunede, with its fierce aspect, might be followed by an Olokun deity from Ovia local government area, speaking in a dialect of Edo that has to be translated by one of the senior members of the shrine to the rest of the followers. In December 1992, she decided to alter her shrine during the break in organised activities before the start of the Ewere festival and the beginning of the new year. At this time the shrines to the various deities consisted, in the main, of aggregates of the various objects used in worship, such as osuorhue (large fluted native chalk), uwenrhien-otan (canes), aza (bells), medicines and so on. With the acquisition of new deities, however, she felt that the space was too cluttered and decided to reorganise the layout of the shrine area. She was also informed while in possession that the deities needed to have statues. She approached Mr Osunde (of whom we shall see more in the next chapter) to mould seven statues. He is a relation, as his mother was a daughter of Oba Eweka II, and this was one factor in the decision to employ his services. The fee was negotiated at 5,000 naira inclusive of materials, with meals supplied while he was working. Ohen Aitolekpenehae supplied the combinations of leaves necessary for each deity. However, she and her sister found him erratic in the time spent working on the statues; they attributed this to the nature of his profession as a moulder of ebo (deities), which has low social status. It may also have been a strategy on the part of Mr Osunde to gain the maximum reward from his work. He was working for family relatives who were able to negotiate an advantageous price, which he was then able to redress to some degree by how he fulfilled the obligations of the work. Once the statues had been moulded, ohen Aitolekpenehae, her sister and other members of the compound painted the statues to their

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own specifications under the initial guidance of Mr Osunde. The rights of ownership of the shrine were handed over to the ohen on completion of the final sacrifices to the statues and the donation of a goat to Mr Osunde. Some of the iconographic forms were specified by ohen Aitolekpenehae, such as the statues of Okhuan and his wife and the leopard at their side, with its reference to her name as Aitolekpenehae, ‘Do not scratch the forehead of the leopard’. Similarly, statues to Olokun were specified by ohen Aitolekpenhae. The style of representation, however, was determined exclusively by Mr Osunde, who also introduced his own elements into the interpretation of the subject matter. Thus the statues of Olokun are served by a figure of Mami Wata, who bears a plate in much the same manner as the chalk bearer often depicted in shrines. However, to have Mami Wata as the chalkbearer is a creative interpretation by Mr Osunde. By way of comparison, the wife of Mr Osunde in his compound has a separate shrine to Mami Wata (moulded by Mr Osunde). Mr Osunde has introduced the theme of Mami Wata but has represented her in a subordinate status to Olokun in deference to the practices of ohen Aitolekpenehae. Then in 1993 she acquired Mami Wata as an independent deity from the Urohobo-speaking area and incorporated a set of ideas and practices associated with it. These had differences from those of ohen Adigbe such as, for example, the initiate wearing formal wedding attire at the initial visit to the river identified by divination (see Gore 2007a). The introduction of the statues and the reorganisation of the shrines by ohen Aitolekpenehae are both a means of enhancing the prestige of her shrine and a thanksgiving to the deities that she serves. She has a clear appreciation of the visual impact of the statues and cited the Olokun shrine at Urhonigbe as an instance of statues enhancing the fame and prominence of the shrine. MADAM ASIR UWA IYAMU

Madam Asiruwa Iyamu is an elderly ohen with a large shrine which occupies several rooms of her compound. Her mother’s father Ergie-uwa was the ohen of the shrine of Okhuaihe at the village of Irighon, part of the village cluster of Ighuen which worships Okhuaihe as the communal deity common to them all. Madam Iyamu traces descent from Oba Ehengbuda and Oba Esigie through her mother’s father. Ergie-Uwa told her that he was on an errand from the palace of the Oba of Benin in his role as the head of the ewaise (helpers to the native doctors) when he was possessed by the deity Okhuaihe at the village of Irighon. He had to remain at the village to serve as ohen at the shrine, which has since been inherited within the family through the senior son. The name of this particular Okhuaihe is Adagbafi ne eronmwon, which describes the deity as the one who calls the meeting decorated in brass (agba is the stool that elders bring with them for long meetings, and one with brass decorations is appropriate for a deity).

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Prior to Madam Iyamu’s birth it was prophesied that she would become an ohen. The deity Okhuaihe informed her father that his child would be female and that she would not marry but serve Olokun instead. An Olokun pot was set up for her on her birth and she was known as Evbikurure, meaning that she is from the land of the deities. As a young child she had idada hair, in which the hair grows in a knotted spiral, dreadlock fashion. When this form of hair is found, it is considered indicative of the spiritual powers that surround the child and usually requires a ritual procedure to remove it. While staying with a neighbour of the family, her hair was cut and sold to make a wig. This precipitated a serious illness and she was brought home by her family, but soon afterwards her father died. She remained crippled from the illness for three years and could only move about using her hands. After the three years the deity returned her to full health, although no initiation was performed to effect her cure. However, during adolescence she again collapsed while working on the family farm and became crippled once more. Various herbal medications were given to her but to no avail. On the return of her older brother, he realised that this was the work of the deities and made sacrifice of a white cock and local native chalk to her Olokun pot. Again she recovered and soon after married. However, with the birth of her first child, the same symptoms occurred and lasted for five months. Then, after some time, the problem resumed and she was advised by friends to seek the protection of the church. She attended the main Church of the Seraphim and Cherubim in Benin City, where on the first visit the pastor revealed that the hair on her head was not ordinary. Furthermore it should not be touched or have any load placed on it. Madam Iyamu interpreted this to mean that she was too important to be performing menial tasks such as carrying head loads, which are the occupation of someone of low status. This experience at the church was a means towards a realignment of status for Madam Iyamu. However, in the light of her subsequent experience the meaning determined by this pastor was to be reconstituted in a different context – that of a practising ohen. After some time in the church, she became a chorister and joined all four societies of the congregation. During one service the pastor had prophesied that special prayers should be said on her behalf to ward off the influence of harmful spirits. In the course of the ceremony held at the riverside, she alone saw a boat with all the deities sailing past, which she described to the other worshippers. They told her that there was no hope and that she would have to serve these powers. After this episode, she used to collapse every so often at her husband’s home and had to be carried to her father’s house. There she would recover within a few days. As this condition became progressively more frequent, she was brought back to Irighon, the village of her mother’s father, to consult oracles: they pronounced that she should serve Olokun. She was

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initiated into Olokun over fourteen days in 1962 at the shrine of Madam Erinmwinekoma. Later in the same year the initiation into Olokun (for seven days) was repeated again at the village of Irighon by all the Olokun ohens of the village, which established her status within Irighon. Soon after, she set up a shrine (with the title odo, mortar) to Isango9 in a fourteenday initiation conducted by ohen Omegie Ehanire at Irighon. However, the deities were still troubling her and in 1963 she was again initiated into Olokun and Ogun and as a native doctor by Mr Osakhue at Evbodogun in Orhionmwon local government area, over a fourteen-day period (different days being used for the different deities). But from time to time she would still disappear into the bush from the village of Irighon, only to return in the late evening covered in various kinds of leaves. Finally she was initiated into Eziza, the deity of the forest who is conceptualised as the native doctor of the deities. About this time her husband left her. She returned to Benin City from the village to work in the market. She attended the shrine of the Ogun ohen Onabor Ihama, where she went into possession by Isango and was subsequently initiated by him into that deity for a second time. Although she had already initiated into Ogun at Irighon, a single initiation into Ogun proved insufficient. She initiated several times, thereby acquiring further different Oguns: Ogun ne ame, ‘Ogun the sea’, Ogun ne eronmwon, ‘Ogun the brass’, Ogun ne ematon, ‘Ogun the iron’, and Ogun ne oze, ‘Ogun the lead’. The name that describes all her Oguns is Unu Owviemwin Oya Gha Emwin Nogho, ‘mouth of hawker announces to people what is selling’. This praise name (which in other contexts can be used as a proverb) indicates that nothing is hidden from this Ogun, with the implication that any wrongdoing will be punished. During this period of repeated initiation, Madam Iyamu described herself to be living underwater in the spirit world. Because of this spirit life underwater, she considered everything from the water to be related to her and consequently does not eat anything that comes from the water. After this period of initiation she had persistent dreams of pythons surrounding her which an oracle traced to Oba Esigie through oracle. She again initiated and acquired Olokun Osagie, which indicates her power and an exceptional status in the spirit world. At this time she was living as a tenant with the shrines installed in her room. The landlord was not very comfortable with this situation and complained of the drumming and singing. On two occasions she also became crippled, which an oracle attributed to the deities being unhappy at her absences from the shrine. Without a husband she found her situation very difficult, but as her fame increased she was able to build a house to accommodate the shrines. At her new house she built up a large following. Over the course of a number of years she accumulated other shrines: to Azenu, a deity from the Eshan area, and Obalufon from the Yoruba region. In 1986 she took the highest form of Isango with the right to wear the ede Isango, the cowrie

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crown as Bayano Araba. This taking of Bayano has to be recognised by the Isango association, a loose-knit association of Isango initiates that upholds the hierarchy of titles constituted in Isango practice. They also partake of the sacrifices and other distributions that occur at these events, such as the taking of a title or, in the case of Bayano, each time the crown is worn. The taking of this title requires feasting and gifts to other titleholders for three months. When Bayano comes out to perform in possession of the ohen, it moves with the stately dance of an Oba. To permit possession by this deity, a goat and other high-prestige sacrifices are made and witnessed by highranking members of the Isango association, who have to attend to ensure the ceremony is conducted properly. As ohen Osagie grew older, she found the demands made on her by members too taxing. The efforts of organising a large following became increasingly difficult, especially with conflicts and disputes between members and competition with other shrines. As a consequence she concentrated on the initiation of individuals as her main practice, with the assistance of a few close followers that she could rely upon as well as the income derived from divination. She also discreetly initiates practising Christians when necessary. In these instance their new shrines remain in her compound and are offered a small portion of any sacrifice made at her main shrines. In the course of her life, ohen Osagie has negotiated many difficult issues. The early death of her father and her reliance on her mother’s village, Irighon, indicate a lack of economic and social support that she might have expected from her father’s family. The illnesses that she suffered subjected her to these same constraints but also were utilised as a strategy against these very same circumstances, as it was apparent early on that she laid claim to spiritual powers. Her success as an ohen gave her the economic security to build her own house and to decorate the shrines that brought her such benefits. When she built her own house she commissioned an elaborate tableau of statues, principally of Olokun but at later dates also of the other deities, from the brasscaster Chief Ode-Iberia, assisted by his son Mr Asonmwonorrirri. She herself provided the mixtures of leaves and ulelefe norhu, the capped anthill that is shaped like an umbrella (Melzian 1937: 205–60), to mix in the clay as it was prepared for sculpting, thus linking the statues to the deities in the spirit world. If the capped umbrella of the ulelefe is damaged it renews itself overnight. In a similar manner it provides spiritual protection as well as increasing the physical durability of the statues. She has also commissioned wood carvings from Mr Richard Amadasu and has a panel made by him depicting Oba Ozolua on her Orunmila shrine. Although she is a native doctor, she focuses mainly on her abilities as an ohen. However, in the course of her practice, she has occasion to fashion representations of the spirit world. She makes small figures from clay, locally occurring chalk,

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ulelefe cowries and a mixture of leaves and bark appropriate to the deity represented. These figures are usually (but not always) made when initiating an individual, to whom they are given at the completion of the initiation. The shrine is an act of devotion to the deities through its costly and prestigious elaboration with statues. The statues testify to the powers of her deities, who can provide the wherewithal for her to build them. They also mark out her considerable knowledge and experience of the spirit world. The statues erected to Olokun refer to the different aspects of Olokun that she has been initiated into and include such Olokun deities as Eze ne Ughegbe (river the mirror). Her principal Olokun is Oba Esigie (Osagie), an exceptional deity to be linked to, as he was one of the most notable warrior kings according to present-day dynastic oral narratives. She had a brass statue of Oba Esigie commissioned from Igun Street, where the brasscasting ward is located, which she displays only at her annual festival. She also commissioned a brass replica of arigho, a species of crocodile which is often associated with Oba Esigie, from Igun Street. During possession by Oba Esigie, she carries this brass arigho in her hand as a means of marking out possession by this deity and so shaping the course of her performance at an ugie (dance). She also has several other brass objects that she uses during public performances such as a brass fan, which on occasion she has thrown and twirled like the eben (ceremonial sword) that titleholders at the palace use to pay homage to the Oba. In 1990 she was initiated into Akpowa, an Olokun deity, with the assistance of ohen Adigbe and ohen Ologho. She does not have a statue to Akpowa but has a brass staff that represents the deity when she is possessed. As she has acquired new deities, her shrine has gained further artefacts in an openended assemblage over time. The use of brass objects emphasises the royal power of her Olokun deity Oba Esigie, and the entire shrine. It also underlines the prestige, status and success of her spiritual practice which has brought her such valued artefacts, as brass has a high value from its durability and associations with the Oba of Benin. It is recognised for its permanence in a climate that rapidly degrades many materials. This can be seen, for example, in a praise song to Osa the supreme deity: Osa ne o yi oze, Ne o yi eronmwon, Re o, oze ghi kekeke o, Eronmwon ma guehun o, Osa mwen.

Osa, who created lead, who created brass, lead not rotten o, brass not decay o, Osa mine.

However, ohen Osagie has on occasion had brass figures representing Oba Esigie and other deities that she has later rejected as not being infused with their spiritual power, and has sold them. Many objects on her shrine mark out the lesser deities that take charge in

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the spirit world. For example, there is a small brass figure on the floor at the very front which is oto ekan ne no rrie emila (‘agate ground that eats cow’). This spirit is conceptualised as the agate land of Olokun and it receives a share of any sacrifice before it is presented to the other deities. It also has associations with the oto shrine to the land found at any village, which has to be placated before human habitation can commence. There are also expensive and decorative plates displayed which enhance the prestige of the shrine. But they also serve another purpose in that they are the plates of the deity and are ritually pure. They are used to serve the food prepared from the sacrifices to the deity which the celebrant ohen and her followers eat at the shrine after a ceremony, in a shared act of commensality that has contributed to the making of community. MADAM EDEKI UGIEKI ODIGIE

Madam Odigie is an elderly ohen who underwent the fourteen-day Igie ohen initiation into Olokun in 1945 during the reign of Oba Akenzua II. She was initiated into Ogun and Eziza in the following year. Both her mother and her father’s mother were ohens and assisted her initiation. Her father’s mother, Madam Omosuwa Okpele, was from the village of Uhi and came from the family that served the communal shrine to the village deity Emuen ne Ekodin. Madam Odigie took the Olokun name of Akpowa (‘live in wealth’), which is a male deity that, as the name suggests, explicitly invokes wealth. Her Ogun name is Ugbe ne owewe (‘strike like an explosion’).10 Madam Odigie was born at Chief Eson’s house in Ibiwe street and her mother, Madam Ariowa Okpele, was a daughter to Chief Eson Ogiegbor ne Usen. The grandmother was the ohen to the deity Erede of Usen village, which lies in the region where the Edo-speaking and Yoruba-speaking areas overlap.11 Madam Ariowa Okpele initially married Oba Ovoramwen but remained childless. This was attributed to the aggrievement of the deities who were neglected at the expense of the marriage to the Oba. The Oba decided that she should leave the palace and be released from the marriage. At this time, according to Madam Odigie, it was not possible for any wife of the Oba to be an ohen or serve a deity on her own behalf, except by having a shrine at her parent’s house. She subsequently remarried and her husband, Mr Odigie Okpele, consulted the oracles to find a solution to her lack of children. He sponsored her initiation into Olokun and she set up a private shrine to the deities in Benin City. This course of action proved successful. When Madam Odigie was seven, her father took her and her sister to the palace during the reign of Oba Eweka II to serve as personal servants to her father’s sister, Madam Ukponomwan Eweka, who was a wife to the Oba (about ten wives preceding her in seniority). Prior to her marriage to the Oba, her father’s sister was involved in trading in craftwork, producing bags woven from raffia. At the

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palace during the evenings Madam Odigie, her sister and her father’s sister used to weave these raffia bags. After marriage, a wife to the Oba remains in seclusion in the errie (harem) and cannot have personal contact with the world outside the palace, or work and trade publicly. The oguomwadia, or personal servant, acts as a go-between, taking messages to the harem and receiving visitors on the secluded wife’s behalf. Madam Odigie and her sister took the craftwork they produced to the different markets to sell on behalf of their father’s sister. After three years Madam Odigie began to fall ill more and more often and finally became paralysed in her legs. When this happened, Oba Eweka sent for her father to take her from the palace. He took her to his mother Madam Omosuwa Okpele in Benin City, who consulted the Olokun oracle. She discovered that the cause of her sickness was the deities that had chosen her, in particular Emuen ne Ekodin, the deity of Uhi village, as well as Olokun, Ogun and Eziza ne Umokpe. So she set up a preliminary shrine to Olokun, and in the following year to Ogun and Eziza. She was also considered as a potential ohen of Emuen ne Ekodin when the incumbent died, but did not take up this possibility as the ohen died while she was still too young to assume the position. The role of ohen at this Uhi shrine has been left unfilled since this time. Sacrifices of animals to Emuen ne Ekodin at the shrine are dismembered, left there for three days, and then removed rather than consumed. Only animals killed in the bush or elsewhere, with the blood offered at the shrine, can be eaten afterwards (Madam Odigie suggests that this may account for the vacant post, as the obligation leaves the ohen of the shrine at an economic disadvantage compared to other ohens). With her experience gained as the oguomwadia of her father’s sister, she remained involved in trading. After marriage she traded in cloths, travelling to Lagos, Abeokuta, Ibadan and Onitsha and selling her wares at Oba market. At the time of her marriage she initiated into Isango before leaving for her husband’s home. Her marriage was childless for some years, however, and in 1945 she underwent a full initiation into Olokun, and the following year into Ogun and Eziza. After her first child was born, the deities through oracle told her not to carry any loads on her head, which made trading somewhat difficult. She tried to continue trading in the market but now found that no customers would come to her stall. She described this experience as the way the deities were telling her to stay at home and worship them, so she abandoned trading in the early 1950s to serve the deities as a full-time Igie ohen. In the early 1960s she was initiated into Orunmila and as a native doctor, performing the fourteen-day initiation at the village of Evboeghae in Orhionmwon. Her ohen title now became ohen Akpowa ne Obo signifying her additional abilities as a native doctor. During the course of this initiation as a native doctor she learnt to divine with ogwega (Detarium senegalense), a form of divination generally set aside as the exclusive preserve

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of men and therefore a skill that marked her out as an exceptional female ohen. As Madam Odigie’s skills advanced as an ohen and native doctor, she chose not to acquire a large following of devotees that worshipped together, relying instead on family members living with her and a few close associates when worshipping her deities. Her practice emphasised divination in private consultation and her abilities to resolve problems that clients brought to her. Because of this expertise she was linked to a number of better-known younger ohens, often in the capacity of iye ne ebo (mother of the shrine), an elder whose presence legitimated these younger practitioners.12 MADAM MERCY OSUGHE

Madam Mercy Osughe is a young ohen in her late thirties who has recently set up as a full-time Igie ohen and has a small following at the present time. Her Olokun title is Ughe ne Eze, no ma gie ogboi y owa, ‘the wonders of the river that did not let strangers go home’.13 She is also an ohen of the community shrine Abeghe ne Okpagha of her village, Uzama. She is based in Benin City and returns to the village once a month to perform an ugie avan (afternoon dance) in honour of the deity there. She stays in Benin City so as to prosper economically through building up a large following as her fame increases. She is a skilful dancer and attends many of the ceremonial occasions of other shrines, usually performing to enhance her reputation. This skill at dancing is one means of demonstrating the power and legitimacy of the deities she has, and so attracting followers and clients to consult her. Her involvement with the spirit world started during childhood. In her dreams she was carried to the river to meet Mami Wata and other spirits. Her parents consulted a diviner who informed them that she would become an ohen later in life. There is a particular river at the village of Uzama called Abeghe ne Okpagha ni Iye Omo Abeghe (‘Abeghe of the Okpagha [Pentaeclethra macrophylla], the mother of the children of Abeghe’). According to oral tradition, Abeghe was a wife to Oba Ewuare from the village of Uzama but she remained childless. She was so distressed that she turned into a river like the okpagha tree, whose seeds explode and are propelled a considerable distance from the tree. Abeghe became a benevolent deity that helps all who approach her for assistance, like the seed that is thrown out to all. Madam Osughe had many dreams of this deity. Even at the time of her marriage at seventeen, Abeghe was troubling her either to live and serve the deity or stay with the husband and die. She bore five children for her husband but only three survived. She spent thirteen years with her husband but experienced great suffering and was constantly troubled by the deity. One particular day, while asleep, she dreamt that she yawned and a snake entered her body. It was then that she went to her parents and told them that she would leave her husband’s place because the deity was too powerful. The next day she left to stay at her father’s house in Uwelu but became

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lame from the snake inside her. Although she forbade her parents to take her to hospital, they persisted, taking her to eight hospitals over the next few years and spending some 20,000 naira, a substantial sum at that time) on treatments. Her skin became so dull that needles would not penetrate and she was unable to take the correct medications. At one hospital, the expatriate doctors diagnosed acute shock as the sickness. Meanwhile her condition had deteriorated and she was now partially paralysed. The snake was still in her body and, when it stretched, she would have to stretch in accordance with it. After this her parents decided to take her home to live or die. Now a young man came and led her into the bush, where she stayed for fourteen days, living off the leaves there. During this time her parents spent 3,000 naira at various oracles in attempts to make her return home. When she did come back, she had been instructed not to reveal where she had been. Her parents took her to one of the Aladura churches for assistance and prayers. During this period she lost all awareness of human beings and was only conscious of spirits and deities. Finally an Aladura prophet had a vision of her with a snake on her head. He advised her to leave the church and be initiated into the deities. Soon after, Madam Osughe dreamt of an elderly and well-known Igie ohen called Madam Aimienho. This dream and the advice of the priest were considered conclusive evidence that this was not a sickness but the intervention of the deities from the spirit world. Her parents took her to the shrine of Madam Aimienho, with whom she stayed for four months, but she was still troubled by the deities. Madam Aimienho consulted the oracle and told her that she had to initiate into Olokun, Ogun and Eziza as an Igie ohen. Madam Aimienho decided this initiation would restore her to the world and heal her of the lameness which still afflicted her. She was initiated on 15 August 1987 by Madam Aimienho. The total cost was 13,000 naira for the three deities, but her husband returned and contributed 7,000 naira, while her parents made up the remainder. After this initiation, Madam Aimienho told her parents and husband to take her back to the village Uzama to be initiated into Abeghe ne Okpagha, otherwise she would become paralysed again. After three months residing in Benin City she became totally paralysed again and was unable even to talk. Up to this point her father had refused to go to the village but he now agreed. Madam Aimienho was consulted again and stated that she should be taken to a Muslim mosque to be prayed for. Madam Aimienho also performed some rituals at the market before accompanying her to the village. She was again initiated into Eziza, spending seven days in the bush with Madam Aimienho. During this time she still could not talk. The deities had instructed her to receive initiation into the deity of the village, but this caused great and protracted controversy there as the shrine is only open to men and has a male ohen. No one in the village would accept her, even

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with the support of Madam Aimienho, but the deities told her to wait. After some time several people died and, in finding out the causes of these deaths, the oracle confirmed that she should be initiated as ohen of the shrine or further deaths would ensue. At this point the ohen of the village (who is unrelated to her) acknowledged her and agreed that she should perform ceremonies on his behalf when he is absent from the village. Madam Osughe was initiated into the shrine in a fourteen-day ceremony that involved the whole community. Her duties at the shrine consist of divination, prophecy and advice on what actions to take on matters that arise in the village community, and also to hold a monthly ugie avan (afternoon celebration) for the deity. During the debate on whether women were permitted at the shrine, Madam Aimienho was instructed by the deities and helped to define the new boundaries of the shrine. Thus women are now allowed to approach the shrine up to a certain point beyond which only men can pass into the inner part of the shrine. This is a restriction that applies to Madam Osughe as well. She stayed for some months in the village, during which time she was again initiated by some native doctors from Ughoton in okpobo (the initiation for the native doctors). This biography has traced a series of complex social negotiations that involved Madam Mercy Osughe. These negotiations have enabled her to attain the position of an Igie ohen or chief priest, having undergone the requisite fourteen-day initiation. It is evident that there was negotiation of her status and position in relation to her parents and husband through her acquisition of the legitimacy and powers of the deities. This legitimacy subverted her role as a wife and allowed her to gain a means of autonomy from that social role. Her personal involvement with the deities allowed her to overcome the resistance of her parents. They sought to explain her problems, first in terms of physical causes and then as the work of harmful spirits that the Aladura church, to which they belonged, could remedy. Through her afflictions she was able to circumvent the solutions pressed on her by her parents and husband, and thus identify the deeper cause of her problems. In so doing, she succeeded in legitimising a new status for herself, that gave her more autonomy and allowed her to take up independent residence in Benin City. It would be reductionist to propose a rationalist goal orientation model for this social negotiation, and the purposes behind it, as there are many other alternative (and possibly simpler) means of achieving the same goals. But Madam Osughe’s interpretation of events, and the role of the deities in it, confer a particular legitimacy on the autonomy that she has gained, however coherent or incoherent her intentions were. She also gained initiation from an experienced and resourceful ohen in the person of Madam Aimienho (albeit at quite a high financial cost compared to some other ohens). With the aid of this authoritative and powerful ohen, she was able to negotiate access to a communal village shrine that was

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formerly exclusive to men. That she was able to undermine the conventions of this shrine within the entire village community highlights the authority conferred by involvement with the deities in the contemporary negotiation of gender roles. The strategy that allowed her to undermine a given gender role and renegotiate new positions of authority and legitimacy is implicitly recognised in the more general notion that full-time female ohens should only become initiated when their childbearing days are over, as the deities are often considered to hinder the appearance of more children. In the case of Madam Osughe, when the ohen of the community shrine of Uzama dies, it will be very difficult for his successor to claim seniority to Madam Osughe in the spiritual affairs of the shrine. It is likely that she will, in fact, become his successor, with far-reaching implications for the male exclusivity of the innermost part of the communal shrine. CONCLUSION

The narratives constructed in this chapter provide a way of exploring how individuals understand, adapt and innovate within the institutional frameworks of urban contemporary shrines. Although these shrines lay claim to a pre-colonial legitimacy, they are not fixed templates that define or restrict the possibilities available to an individual. Instead they are part of fluid and flexible configurations of ideas and practices which can incorporate incremental change as well as innovation. Individuals use these configurations to respond creatively and experientially to their circumstances and to wider social conditions within the community. The institutional frameworks offer resources in confronting and resolving personal affliction and misfortune (ultimately brought about by not maintaining the special relationships to the deities gifted to them), as some of these biographies indicate. However they are in dialectical relations with other institutions, particularly Christianity (and the Aladura and Pentecostal churches), as is highlighted by the prior affiliations of particular ohens (such as ohens Adigbe and Osagie) or by the appropriation of practices from seemingly opposing institutions (such as ohen Aitolekpenhae’s use of public testimony in a way similar to its use in Pentecostal churches). Finally, ohens creatively realise and configure their own repertoires of skills and practices in dynamic ways through the legitimation given by the deities who possess them. In so doing they adapt and change the institutional framings of urban contemporary shrines – as in the examples of ohen Aibigie, ohen Akpowa and ohen Ughe ne Eze.

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5 ARTISTS AND ARTWORLDS

This chapter explores the biographies of some artists working in the different art worlds of Benin City, highlighting some of the forms of patronage, the processes of commissioning at urban shrines and the possibilities available to artists. As there are different art worlds, salient aspects are described before the presentation of the biographies in order to bring out more clearly some of the social contexts in which these art worlds are situated. Artists’ relationships to the shrines vary along a continuum from active participant to detached producer of a required artwork made in exchange for commercial payment. We shall also see that not all artists are able to maintain a viable full-time career and that some give up after failing to secure long-term patronage. Finally, the creative overlap between the roles of artists and ohens is considered. I begin by discussing artists who produce artefacts for the Oba and the palace organisation whose families have occupied this role historically within the Edo kingdom and who maintain this collective identity (and history) in the post-colonial Nigerian nation state. During the history of the Edo kingdom various specialist wards, usually composed of groupings in close spatial proximity with notional common descent,1 had developed to serve the Oba of Benin and the palace institutions at the heart of the kingdom. Igbafe defined them as associations or occupational group of craftsmen and professionals under whose aegis Benin artistic products were organised, developed, perfected and marketed under strict rules and royal patronage. The associations of craftsmen supplied the Oba’s specific needs in return for monopoly rights from the Oba in their various trades. (Igbafe, cited in Eweka 1992: 55) Some of these wards produced specialised artefacts for the institutions of the Oba. Their production was controlled by these institutions and rights to the use of such artefacts were often determined by an individual’s status within them. Various villages also supplied goods and services to Benin City and there was some overlap with specialist ward production. In some instances villages provided goods and services under the direct patronage of the Oba of Benin and his institutions but, as Girshick Ben-Amos notes,

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With a few exceptions, such as the carpenters mentioned above or the forgers of iron ceremonial swords from Igueban, village craftsmen were not the servants of the king as were their urban counterparts. They worked instead for their own communities. (Ben-Amos 1980: 10) However, we cannot draw a clear-cut contrast in goods and services between the urban centre and the regional areas. For example, according to local oral traditions at Evboesi, Oba Adolo, on his accession to the throne in 1848, sent members from the Igun Street brasscasters’ ward to his mother’s village to build a shrine to Olokun made from ulakpa (clay) and to instruct the local workers in its construction and maintenance. This has led to a local specialisation in such work in clay at Evboesi to the present day. The advent of colonial rule and the banishment of Oba Ovoramwen in 1897 curtailed the principal means of patronage for many of the wards until the return of kingship under Eweka II in 1914. However, a letter by ConsulGeneral Sir Ralph Moor, written in 1897–8 (HMSO 1899: 18) noted that the brasscasters (and carvers in ivory and wood) were productive under the new colonial occupation, suggesting that new patronage was easily obtained – although it is not clear if this patronage was local or European, or (most likely) a combination. The re-emergence of the Oba of Benin and his court as a legitimate authority and the recognised ‘native head chief’ of the region (in colonial parlance of the time) in 1914 allowed him to regain some of his authority, particularly in local affairs. His perceived role as the ritual head of the Edo people was also an important factor in re-establishing his authority.2 He was able to re-institute the title system and extend it by conferring titles on the emerging officials and traders who were able to profit from their relations with the colonial administration. Despite the 1897–1914 interregnum, the new Oba was able to reconsolidate his position within the framework of a colonial administration and, most crucially of all, avoid being marginalised amid its changing conditions. The continuing patronage (and the forms entailed) from the Oba of Benin and the palace organisation remained important for the production of artefacts in Benin City, both for the specialist wards and independent artists. However, the Oba’s rights and control over the wards were diminished.3 Some wards had dispersed in the interim and others had to be reconstituted as demand for their skills was maintained solely by the Oba within the palace. The reconstruction of the palace was an initial priority in 1914. Its rebuilding and furnishing was an impetus to this reorganisation of goods and services provided by the specialist wards. The new Oba also encouraged the emada – youths enrolled into his service – to take up various forms of training in the palace, as some of their former roles were deemed inappropriate to the changed conditions of colonial rule.4 In 1927 the Oba also established what was then known as the Benin Divisional Council’s school

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for training brasscasters and carvers (Dark 1973: 41) in which some emada enrolled. There is evidence of emada woodcarving that pre-dates 1897 (Girshick Ben-Amos 1975: 183; Sotheby’s 1993) with a less specialised production of designs in various media that differed from those produced by Igbesanmwan, the wood and ivory carvers ward. However, in the colonial and post-colonial eras, Dark (1973: 45) suggests, the number of specialist wards producing artefacts and services for the Oba and his institutions has declined. He identifies the principal extant wards as Igun-eronmwon, the brasscasters’ ward; Igbesanmwan, the wood and ivory carvers’ ward; Igun-ematon, the blacksmiths’ ward; Onwina, the carpenters’ ward; Isekpokin, the leatherworkers’ ward; and Onwina n’Ido, the weavers’ ward – although this last group appeared to be in severe decline (Girshick Ben-Amos 1978: 53). Dark further describes mud sculptures for Olokun shrines and pottery produced at two villages close by Benin City, Use and Oka. Despite the assumption of decline, more artefacts are being produced at the present time – Picton (1995), for example, argues that Igun-eronmwon, the brasscasters’ ward, is producing more castings than ever before. Prince Ena Eweka (1992) provides a more comprehensive account of the various wards. Some of the roles taken up by these wards are required on particular occasions during the year rather than as a full-time employment: he cites the Ogbelaka drummers and singers who perform at certain ceremonies, such as Igue, held at the end of the year.5 It should also be remembered that the specialist wards are a locus for particular identities and histories (within the weave of dynastic history) – some of which are not necessarily evident in day-to-day life.6 Although the specialist wards are still major producers of artefacts, they have been unable to exclude competing sources of production, except in relation to patronage for some of the specialised requirements of the institutions of the Oba. Igun-eronmwon has had the most success, preventing independent exponents from practising the lost wax method of brasscasting within Benin City. However, they will cast wax designs created by artists from outside the guild. In response to the varied demands of patronage, the brasscasters have extended their subject matter and style (Gore 1997). Their main competitors in Benin City are sculptors who have been trained academically within the university and technical school system and who have access to resources within those institutions. AUTONOMOUS AR TISTS

On their release from service to Oba Eweka II, some emada set themselves up as independent woodcarvers selling within the urban cash economy. Their example was followed by various individuals who belonged neither to the emada nor Igbesanmwan. By the end of the 1930s Edo artists had established themselves at Lagos and other urban centres where there was

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a greater demand for their products (Bascom 1976: 312). One of the Edospeaking pioneers was Ovia Idah, born in 1908, who was brought up as an omada at the palace from the age of seven until he was fifteen. From the age of eight he began carving within this omada art tradition on coconut shells, palm kernels and calabashes (Beier 1964). In 1923, released from his duties as an omada, he travelled to Lagos. Here he initially worked as carpenter in the Public Works Department but continued to carve. In 1936 through K. C. Murray’s intervention he was employed to teach carving at Kings College, Lagos and it was during this period that he began to carve in ebony (Peek 1985).7 In the 1940s the Nigerian Forestry department at Benin City encouraged the use of alternative and innovative varieties of wood, such as ebony, by woodcarvers (Girshick Ben-Amos 1976a: 323) and established a shop in Lagos for the sale of Edo brasses and other crafts (Bascom 1976: 309). The more varied and individual demands of their sources of patronage provided a diversity of styles in comparison to the Igbesanmwan, who supplied a more fixed repertoire of replicated artefacts for the institutions of the Oba (Girshick Ben-Amos 1975). Within the urban cash economy that developed under colonial rule, independent carvers were able to establish themselves in response to the new forms of patronage. When Nigeria gained independence, there was renewed patronage for artefacts that sought to assert links with a pre-colonial past. Perhaps the most striking example of this was found in the 1977 FESTAC cultural festival (Apter 2005) with its logo of a Benin ivory image often described as that of Idia, the first queenmother installed by Oba Esigie (c. 1500). The increasing emphasis on the development of higher education, particularly after independence, and the proliferation of universities in different areas of Nigeria, led to an expansion in the numbers of graduate artists (Court 1995: 292–393). These institutions produced individuals able to use methods, facilities and technical means initially imported from Europe. Within Benin City there are various federal state institutions that promote arts training, such as the University of Benin, which was inaugurated from a polytechnic organisation at the beginning of the 1970s, as well as the Edo (previously Bendel) Arts Council. These institutions have provided access to other federal and national institutions as well as government-funded patronage for the artists and students working within them. Although the lost-wax method of brasscasting in Benin City has remained for the most part the province of Igun-eronmwon, academically trained (such as Ben Osawe and Felix Idubor) and apprentice-trained sculptors have exploited other mediums. These have included concrete and terracotta artefacts for use in public and private monuments sponsored by government institutions, various churches, cooperative associations, the Oba and palace institutions, and private commissions. In Benin City the specialist wards where training

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takes place perpetuate an apprenticeship system like that of autonomous carvers and similar artists in other mediums. The method set up by Eweka II for teaching the emada within the palace, however, is not apprenticeship, but a version of an art school with formalised teaching methods. Finally, there are the University art departments such as the Fine Art Department at the University of Benin with its academic curriculum, formalised teaching methods and institutional accreditation. THE AR TISTS

Within Benin City there are a large number of individuals who produce artefacts of one kind or another. They work under many different conditions of production and distribution and utilise differing and multiple strategies, depending on the economic and social conditions in which they find themselves. They organise themselves in different ways according to their personal circumstances, some operating on their own while others associate with various institutions such as the university, schools, specialist wards of the palace, market associations, workshops and cooperatives. The use of particular media can also help determine the means by which they work and the social networks of patronage through which they can sell their work. Academically trained individuals use their social connections to gain regular employment in the school and university institutions or organisations such as the Edo Arts Council, but most artists depend substantially on the informal sector (Hart 1973: 68), deriving a variable and often irregular income from the sale of work. Individuals will often radically change a style or medium and sometimes abandon production altogether for variable lengths of time in pursuit of income. For individuals who produce artefacts for ohens and their shrines, this is often a subsidiary activity to production for other sources of patronage. The degree to which they produce for shrines often depends on their own personal involvement and social connections with shrines, as well as on the media in which they work or are prepared to work. Within the institution of shrines, the role of the individual who creates an artefact or artefacts is marginalised.8 Once the artefact is installed as part of the shrine, its presence there is legitimated solely by the deity with whom it is associated. Its production and representation is attributed directly to the agency of the deity, not the artist who made it. The artist is regarded as carrying out the instructions of the deity, knowingly or unknowingly, and once an artefact has been made over to the owner of the shrine, the artist relinquishes authorship along with all rights over it. However, the producers of these artefacts conceptualise their work quite differently from their patrons. They place the emphasis on their creative act of production in determining the artefact, within the bounds of their interpretation of the patron’s demands and the representation of the deity concerned.

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PROFESSIONALS AND AMATEUR S

Girshick Ben-Amos has classified the artists and craftsmen who make mud statues for the shrines separately from those in the institutions of the Oba of Benin, describing them as ‘skilled amateurs (omebo) rather than guild craftsmen (owina)’ (Girshick Ben-Amos 1973: 31). This contrast seems to inherit the distinction that William Fagg made between two fundamentally separate styles in Edo art, which he defined as court art and tribal art respectively (Fagg 1963: 30). Thus court art is produced for the palace oganisations of the Oba, whereas tribal art is a ‘plebeian’ style which occurs in the villages but also within Benin City and, in some instances, within the specialist wards (Fagg, 1963, 38-39). Girshick Ben-Amos (1973: 170, 187) developed this classification further in her discussion of Igbesanmwan, the wood and ivory guild, although she now made important contrasts between artefacts produced within the different institutions of the Oba as well as a more general contrast with those that remained separate from them. Both emphasised institutional and formal stylistic differences, but Girshick BenAmos demonstrated that Fagg’s assumption of a homogeneous ‘court’ style was untenable. Ben-Amos’s categorisation of mud sculptors for shrines as amateurs is still commonly followed (Ezra 1992: 48). However, its assumptions can also pose some problems. The way in which artists are designated in Edo does not embody the distinctions of status attributed to them by Ben-Amos. For example, the word for potter, omakhe (Agheyisi 1986: 122) can be rendered as a verb defining an action o ma akhe, he/she moulds pot. This is analogous to such formations as Ogbugbo for farmer (o gbe ugbo, he/she makes farm). Similarly osama, used to describe a brasscaster, derives from o sa ama, he/she pours out a mark (referring to the flow of molten brass); alternatively, this form of words can be understood as he/she makes a mark, which is also a general term used to describe a sculptor. Omobue, moulder (o ma obue, he/she moulds clay) is also used as a term for sculptors working in clay. In this way, many words are made out of the combination of verbs and nouns that define actions on a raw material to describe most of the practices by which artefacts are made. The basic terminology of making things is specific to each technology in the Edo language and does not imply hierarchial status. Omebo as a term simply describes a person who makes statues of the deity (and anything else that comes under the rubric of ebo, as discussed in the chapter on shrines) and semantically has no connotations of ‘amateur’ as opposed to ‘professional’. As will be seen in the case studies of Mr Asonmwonorrirri and Mr Osunde in this chapter, omebo can be used to describe both a sculptor of mud statues for shrines who has no institutional affiliation and an individual belonging to the Igun-eronmwon (brasscasting ward). Both are full-time artists who derive the majority of their income from making artefacts.

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The specialist wards have an institutional status which is derived from their direct relationship to the palace organisation of the Oba and the historical antecedents of that relationship recorded in twentieth-century oral tradition. Members of these wards are able to claim a legitimacy which helps gain patronage and exclude competitors. However, such a legitimation does not confer a more professional or less amateur status, but rather underlines an exclusive specialisation in production of artefacts for the palace, which confers great prestige through the patron’s status as the head of the Edo kingdom. Distinctions between professional and amateur could, perhaps, be quantified in terms of an individual engaged in full- or part-time production of artefacts. But, as indicated earlier, the pursuit of income is often within the informal sector and can give rise to intermittent periods when an individual is unable to gain any return of income for his work. In such instances, an individual may produce other goods or may engage in some other activity such as subsistence farming. On the other hand, both within the specialist wards and in relation to independent artists, success is often measured by a withdrawal from the actual production of artefacts, since manual labour has an intrinsically low status in Benin City. In the specialist wards, advancement takes the form of title taking, which requires an individual to withdraw from the labour involved in production to represent his family in the ward and the other institutions of the Oba of Benin. Successful independent artists set up workshops and direct the labour of apprentices, reducing the amount of time spent in production. The characterisation of different kinds of sculpture as professional and amateur is limited, and these terms do not really indicate the complex differences between the various institutions of artmaking or the ways in which individuals are mobile between them. L I VE S O F A R T I S T S

These general observations about artistic production are seen in better perspective in relation to the careers of some artists, when we explore how artists conceptualise their practice in relation to their work for the shrines. These life stories can be compared and related to those of ohens in the previous chapter and some relationships between ohens and artists can be discerned. The case studies suggest some of the possibilities open to artists in an urban environment where there is a wide diversity of patronage. This patronage allows for innovation and new possibilities as well as the continuance of more longstanding traditions of artistic practice. M R S A M U E L A S O N M WO N O R R I R R I , A B R A S S C A S T E R

Mr Samuel Asonmwonorrirri is a member of Igun-eronmwon, the centre of brasscasting for the palace and, nowadays, for other patrons. He is related to Igun-eronmwon through his father, Chief Ode-Iberia, who was a well-known

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brasscaster and who also moulded statues in special clay known as ulakpa. Mr Asonmwonorrirri learnt to mould at an early age (he started when he was six) by helping his father on commissions for statues at shrines. He began by performing simple errands such as fetching the clay and other materials when needed. Otherwise he used to watch his father working and, as he became more experienced, learnt to execute minor tasks and adjustments on the statues. These consisted of such things as repairing the cracks in statues if they dried out too quickly and unevenly – usually from incorrect preparation of the clay. In general, a shrine statue is repaired by using a mixture of laterite clay and orhue (native chalk) which helps the clay to bind. In the same manner, Mr Asonmwonorrirri learnt about the armature necessary to support the weight of the statues and picked up the other skills that are needed. By the time he was fifteen he had started to accept commissions to mould statues for shrines, although he continued to assist his father in his work. The client will tell Mr Asonmwonorrirri what he or she wants in the commission: a statue of Isango standing and pointing, for example. He will then proceed to fashion the statues according to his understanding of the client’s demands and his own interpretation, which is also based on his previous work and practice. Before starting the work at the client’s shrine, he performs a sacrifice to his own Ogun shrine, as well as at erha, the household shrine to his father, to inform them and allow him to work away from his compound. The sacrifice consists of a cock, alligator pepper, gin9 and kola. He carries with him an awase, a small emblematic pebblesized object that is an active representation of the powers of his shrine (and which he describes as acting as a substitute for his shrine, which is too large to carry about with him) and also the awan Ogun,10 which is a pendant carrying the power of Ogun, the deity that gives him the power to act in his work. These protect and assist him. At the client’s shrine he works either alone or with assistants if they are required. The creation of the statues in the shrine remains hidden to everyone except him and the client, who is the owner of the shrine. He is paid an amount for his labour (a portion in advance and the remainder on completion) and a sacrifice is made to the deities of the shrine, especially to the newly completed statues. This consists of one bottle of schnapps, fourteen yams, seven alligator peppers, one calabash of palm oil, a cock, kola nuts, fourteen cowries and a goat: these are presented to Mr Asonmwonorrirri on completion in order to allow the client to become the owner of the new statues. (Lesser sacrifices are made if the commission is not a large one.) The payment, whether in money or kind, depends on the agreed value of the commission, and is negotiated in advance before the work commences. In the past payments were made to the artist mainly in foodstuffs, whereas nowadays money predominates. Mr Asonmwonorrirri

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considers major commissions to pay well compared to his other work and prices ranged from 500 to 1,500 naira or more in 1992, depending on his relationship to the client. The work on a statue begins with water being added to the ulakpa (clay), which is then broken down from lumps into finer particles by hand if it is a small quantity, or with the use of the feet if it is a large amount. It is then covered and left for a day or two to allow it to set to a paste. Usually the process is repeated to eliminate any remaining lumps or inconsistencies. Locally occurring chalk is added to help bind the mixture. At this stage the ohen or client can provide medicines to be added to the mixture, especially leaves associated with that particular deity. It is through this means that a spiritual link is established between the deity and the statue. An armature is made from sticks and/or wire mesh (the use of mesh is a relatively recent development) and is fashioned to the scale of the statue required by the client. This supports the body and the arms of the statue. The ulakpa mixture is applied to this armature until an approximate resemblance to the final shape is achieved. This basic construction or shell is left for two or three days to dry out. Finally more of the ulakpa mixture is applied to model the finer details of the statue which are now resolved into a finished form. The client decides on the colours to use when the statue is painted and whether any alterations are required: the eyelids or other features may require redefinition to make them more visible, for example. In the process of moulding the statues, especially when many statues have been commissioned, there is always the possibility of accidentally incorporating the features of the artist himself. This is considered an extremely dangerous situation, as it exposes the artist to unknown forces in the spirit world through his representation in a statue without control or protection. At the very least, it will result in some harm or injury occurring to the artist – and most probably, if the danger is disregarded, in his death. In order to avoid this possibility, the artist dresses shabbily (also a practical solution to the medium in which he is working) and acts differently to his customary behaviour to disguise his identity from such dangers and to ensure that it is not accidentally incorporated into the representations he makes. He becomes another person while working in the shrine and thereby distances himself from the consequences of any spiritual mishap during the commission that could lead to harm. Because the process of lost-wax casting uses a core and investment, both made of clay, brasscasters must have a thorough mastery of this medium. Mr Asonmwonorrirri asserts his right and that of his children to practise in this medium through their family relations as part of the brasscasters’ ward. He also maintains that making statues for shrines is part of the tradition of the Igun-eronmwon, and that his father practised it before him.11 But, when necessary, it is also possible to enrol apprentices and helpers from outside

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the extended family connections of the Igun-eronmwon. If they then wish to practise independently, they have to take the Igun family name and be recognised as such (although clearly subordinate to the full members of the family).12 Without this, they will incur objections from ward members as well as spiritual problems which will cause them severe hardship, if not death. These are among the sanctions that maintain the institutional basis of the monopoly of the Igun brasscasters, in their connections to the palace and to other élite and chiefly patronage. Given the use of clay within the technology of lost-wax brasscasting, what might seem to be disparate media must be seen as part of a single technology. Cast brass heads for royal ancestor shrines can be contrasted, both at the present time and on the evidence of the material looted in 1897, with the pottery heads made by the Igun-eronmwon for their own ancestral shrines (while both brass and pottery heads need to be distinguished again from the wooden heads commissioned by chiefs for their shrines). These pottery heads may have been more extensively used in the past by early rulers of the current dynasty and the Ogiso, the rulers that pre-date them, as well as certain wards of Benin City identified with the oto, the land (Girshick BenAmos 1980: 15; Dark 1973; Bradbury 1961). Not only do the technical and creative skills overlap but the prestige of the Igun brasscasters derives from three sources: their practical skills, their ritual proficiency in ensuring a successful outcome, and their ties to the Oba. This gives both legitimacy and prestige to their work in clay and brass. The networks through which cast brasswork is commissioned may also provide clients for statuary; thus the wife of a chief may commission a shrine to Olokun and approach the same artisans who produce brasswork for her husband.13 I began with Mr Asonmwonorrirri as a moulder of clay statues and then shifted the emphasis to his role as a member of the brasscasters’ ward. But he does not work or live at Igun Street, the centre of the ward, but in another area of Benin City where he maintains his workplace in his compound.14 However, he finds that commissions for clay statuary are intermittent at best and do not provide a regular livelihood. Thus he and his junior brothers concentrate on the brasscasting from which they derive their income. Historically the brasscasters were located in the same quarter around Igun Street in Benin City. Conditions of patronage have altered substantially in the twentieth century, with the advent and then the demise of colonialism. Patronage can now be sought not only in the court and chiefly institutions but from a wider élite circle within Benin City. There is also a wider élite patronage throughout Nigeria, and Edo brasscastings are often commissioned as commemorative gifts (see Gore 1997). They also feature as part of élite hotel furnishings (as well as being for sale in their boutiques). Further yet, there is an extensive trade across West Africa and beyond to other conti-

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nents, most notably Europe and North America (for a discussion of these international networks, see Steiner 1994). The brasscasters who remained at Igun Street have retained a collective advantage through the fame of their locality for brasses – much in the same way that individual vendors in a market will sell in the same locality in order to attract as many buyers as possible, even if there is increased competition between vendors. Mr Asonmwonorrirri is excluded by his distance from Igun Street from the general marketing of ready-made objects, which requires a large investment in brass and a steady turnover of sales. Consequently he relies on commissions. He also derives much of his income from commissions for brass engine blocks, crankshafts, pistons, printing materials, gas jets and other objects which require durability in a climate in which iron can deteriorate very rapidly. MR EFEOBASOTA OSUNDE

Mr Efeobasota Osunde was born in 1941. His father, Mr Igbinake Osunde, was a goldsmith by profession, while his mother Ugioro Eweka (a daughter to Oba Eweka II) was a potter. His late father learnt the skills of goldsmithing while apprenticed to a Yoruba man who resided at Ekewan village during the early 1940s. Mr Efeobasota Osunde set up a shrine to Ogun around 1955, about the time he started schooling. At school he learnt pottery and also embroidery and weaving as part of the art and craft tuition, although he personally regarded the embroidery and weaving as incidental to his art practice. He was encouraged by the example of his mother, although he received no explicit tuition in his home environment, and by early commissions from neighbours at this time. From 1968 to 1977 he worked for the African Timber and Plywood Company at Nikorogha, where he did a variety of jobs ranging from mechanic and driver to painting. He also continued to produce pottery and sculpture for sale within the company (he was commissioned to produce work for the canteen) and to private clients and shops. However, he began to face increasing problems at work (which included an accident while driving a company car) and in his personal life. Consultations with various oracles attributed this to Ogun troubling him to become a full-time ohen. In 1977 he left his job and was fully initiated into Ogun, taking the name of ohen Ogun ne ame (‘Ogun of the water’) and also as a native doctor. In order to support himself, he concentrated on his pottery and sculpture, gaining more commissions from clients for their shrines as a result of his increasing involvement as an ohen himself. At this time he executed a large commission for the village shrine of a priestess at Evbiekoi whom he subsequently married. Although he is consulted occasionally for divination and remedies arising from his skills as an ohen and native doctor, this is not sufficient to support him economically. He has not promoted his abilities

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and powers as an ohen or native doctor to any great extent and has not accumulated any large (or regular) following of devotees. His other roles as an ohen are in many respects subordinate to his work as a sculptor. He has remained in a supporting role to his wife who has a village shrine at Evbiekoi dedicated to Obiemwen. In this locality the deity is conceptualised as the wife of Okhuaihe, the communal deity of that village, although this is not the case outside the Okhuaihe village cluster of Ikhuen in Uhunmwode district. His wife also has an extensive set of shrines that he sculpted at their residence in Benin City for deities including Mami Wata. She has gained a reputation and a following from both sets of shrines with their respective village and urban devotees, which enable her to maintain herself economically as a full-time ohen. Mr Osunde has concentrated mainly on the production of sculpture in unfired clay and cement, the media in which he is most knowledgeable. At times he has hired premises from which to work and display his wares. Otherwise he works in the compound which he shares with other families, and this was his current practice in June 1994. He works alone and does not discuss his ideas but prefers to concentrate on producing more artefacts. Although he taught one boy at the beginning of the 1980s he has not done so again, perhaps partly because it would be a case of setting up as a competitor in what is a fairly small market for artefacts produced for shrines. If these statues are made for shrines, certain sacrifices have to be performed and certain leaves appropriate to the particular deity must be embedded in the statue before completion. He explains that the purpose of this is to activate or open up the statue to the power of the deity and install it in the setting of a shrine. If this is not done, in extreme cases a shrine and its statues can be captured by witches, who then appropriate all offerings and sacrifices to themselves and render the shrine ineffective.15 In such instances the shrine must either be re-installed by a process similar to its inception, according to the guidance of an oracle, or destroyed and rebuilt in its entirety. Mr Osunde also produces statues for individuals and has done commissions both within Benin City and further afield in the neighbouring federal states. These require a preliminary sacrifice before he commences work but not a ritual transfer of ownership as is the case for shrines. At the beginning of a commission he will sacrifice a cock and a bottle of gin to the deities (starting with Ogun) to inform them of his intentions and to ensure a satisfactory outcome to the enterprise. Successful individuals often commission statues to display in the private grounds of their compounds. For example, Mr Osunde has made cement statues for Mr Igbinedion, a very successful businessman in Benin City who also holds the title of Esama. His compound has the largest collection of cement statues along its perimeter in the city and displays his wealth and fame to passers-by through the number and

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variety of human and animal forms depicted by a varied group of commissioned artists. Apart from producing statues in response to irregular commissions, Mr Osunde also makes a variety of clay bowls with elaborate patterns. These can be used in different contexts for presentation (as when kola is offered to a deity) or display, especially at shrines (where bowls may contain the palm kernels for Orunmila) or on other formal and ceremonial occasions. The bowls are often decorated with the eben and ada – the ceremonial swords, insignia of the Oba and often used to underline the power of the deities – as well as with cowries and other images expressive of wealth and prestige. He varnishes or paints the bowls according to the wishes of the client. Mr Osunde makes and sells these bowls in batches on a regular basis. Mr Osunde makes the larger statues out of cement mixed with sand and supported by a metal armature and/or metal mesh as appropriate. They can be painted afterwards. Smaller statues, similarly supported, can also be made out of cement or clay, particularly if they are to be installed inside a shrine. The clay statues sometimes have sawdust mixed in to economise on the quantities of clay used. The clay is ordinary red clay known as eken. If weight poses a problem, he will make very light figures from a carton base mixed with a starch paste and will use bamboo sticks as a supporting framework, although this only dries satisfactorily in the dry season. The clay is pounded to prepare it, with the addition of quantities of water, until it has reached a pliable texture. The clay is then built up around the metal armature and moulded to the shapes desired, principally by hand. It is then left for a couple of days (or longer in the rainy season) until it has begun to harden. The finer details, such as those of the face, are either cut into the sculpture using small woodcarving tools, or added if a necklace or some other detail is needed. The more general shapes begin to be smoothed down by the application of pressure from suitable carving tools (water is sometimes splashed onto the figure to facilitate this smoothing process). If objects or substances have to be inserted, as is the case with statues dedicated to shrines, this is often done at this stage of the process, or a space is made in the statue for a later dedication. Leaves and bark appropriate to the deity have to be gathered from the bush, with the performance of rituals in order for the powers in the plant or tree to permit the plucking. For example, in the case of a statue representing Eziza which has ogigban thorns inserted into the crown of the head, Mr Osunde makes a special trip by himself into the bush to gather the ogigban thorns. He has to offer a sacrifice to gain permission from the ogigban bush. It is a situation that could be dangerous to his physical and spiritual well-being if not conducted in the proper way, and depends on his knowledge as an ohen, native doctor and artist. Mr Osunde considers that his ideas about creating images derive in general from the deity Ogun, who directs his profession. But all the deities

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can inspire him, either when he is awake and working or in dreams when he is asleep. The ideas for work are not simply transmitted directly from a spiritual agency, however, although he clearly considers this to be possible in certain circumstances; his ideas also owe their inception at some level to the intervention of the deities that guide his life. Mr Osunde prefers to work to his own ideas in the creation of an image but will deliver to whatever specifications a patron gives him. However, the development of the commission and the work it entails is informed by his past experience. His inspiration comes from different sources. Material objects and shapes can suggest ideas for sculpting. For example, he will place a cloth over a line in the compound at dusk and gain ideas from the shapes that he observes. Even the stains on a wall can suggest possibilities to him. In the development of his work, he uses ideas that come from his dreams (considered to be sent by the deities) and combines this with his own imagination and vision. It is through these processes that his work is subject to elaboration and change in the design over time. He will sometimes change the elements of an image around, as when he is working on several commissions for Eziza statues at the same time. But he also accommodates a patron’s preferences. Patron and artist must collaborate if the work is to be beautiful rather than ugly. However, to Mr Osunde the ideas of beauty and ugliness are not fixed categories but ones that are dependent on the contexts of his work. In the statues that he makes in clay and cement, the focus of his work and its beauty is located in the face, the first thing that is considered by viewers. The face captures their interest before consideration of other forms. For example, when he works on a statue of Mami Wata, a beautiful woman who is half-fish, once the overall size and proportions have been determined, he turns his attention to the proportions of the nose, eyes and face before any details of the rest of the statue. He then considers the decoration and adornments that will add to its appeal. The beauty of a statue is thus dependent on its particular qualities as a subject. If the subject is a warrior, the particular qualities demanded are that the image should appear fierce: these make it beautiful. In the bowls and boxes that he produces, their beauty lies in the embellishment of design, such as the eben and ada (ceremonial swords). To survive economically in the urban environment Mr Osunde has adopted certain strategies in his working practices. As a native doctor and ohen he gains a small source of income in his own right by providing oracular consultations and remedies, although this is a competitive field in which he has not developed a well-known or charismatic reputation. He remains in a supporting role to his wife who is more prominent as an ohen, with powerful and relatively unusual deities that attract both village and urban followings. Instead he devotes most of his interest and energies to the production of artefacts.

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He concentrates on the production of relatively small artefacts, such as presentation bowls and boxes of one sort or another which are popular and have a regular turnover. He tries new designs as well as experimenting with different finishes, shifting in 1993 from polishing and varnishing the red clay to painting it with gold and silver enamel paint. This is proving very popular. These artefacts provide him with a regular if small income. He also has irregular commissions for statues for shrines, often from clients who are being initiated by his wife. This is particularly the case with initiations into Mami Wata or Obiemwen, two of her deities. Mr Osunde is assumed to be a specialist in the depiction of these deities because he is intimately linked with the ohen as her husband, and he has the high-ranking title of Esogban in the shrine. Commissions for cement statues from clients in Benin City and further afield, who do not actively participate in the shrines or indeed have any connection with them, are less frequent. They provide more substantial amounts of money but at more intermittent intervals. However, Mr Osunde is unable to align himself with institutions that might provide regular commissions for statues, such as the Edo Arts Council. He lacks professional connections because he is not formally trained at tertiary level in art, and because of the kinds of materials in which he works. His strategies are devoted to the production of artefacts that cater for the social networks of patronage that the shrines provide, although he has the capacity to take up commissions from elsewhere should the opportunity arise. In many respects, Mr Osunde resembles the Western artist of the romantic tradition, committed to the work he produces despite the insecurity of its income, and the fact that it does not bring him high prestige. M R O S A R E T I N E A R L I E C E I D U K P AYE

Mr Osaretin Earliece Idukpaye is the grandson of an experienced and elderly ohen, Madam Odigie (see previous chapter). After completing his secondary education at a school near Benin City in 1988, he decided to live at his grandmother’s house in Benin City rather than return to his mother’s home in Auchi. He has always been interested in the theatre, presenting and acting in plays at school. On taking up residence in Benin City, he formed a theatre company called Earth-Pot Kulture as a cooperative with some friends. The company presented original productions twice a year while seeking commissions from a variety of different sources. These included producing work for television for the former Bendel and now Edo Broadcasting Service, the Edo Arts Council and any of the federal, state and parastatal organisations who commission works to publicise their activities. Works were also commissioned to celebrate special occasions by these institutions and sometimes by wealthy individuals seeking public display. As there was not enough work available to allow the theatre company to function full-time, its members had to pursue other activities to support

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themselves. In Benin there are many other such part-time cultural and theatre groups with levels of presentation varying from amateur to professional (within the context of the theatres of Nigeria). Mr Earliece’s roles in the company are as artistic director and actor, although he will also paint backdrops when necessary for productions. In the first half of 1992 he completed a six-month vocational course in theatre arts at the University of Port Harcourt. He also writes plays and poetry, is a member of the Benin poetry club and has done some painting, although he destroyed the results. In 1996 he enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts programme in Media Arts at the University of Port Harcourt and now works there on a full-time basis as a lecturer in creative writing, producing and directing in the video films industry while still participating in theatre productions at the university. During the summer of 1990 his grandmother, Madam Odigie, asked him to paint the wall of her shrine, which occupies the front half of her compound. She described to him the image that she wanted. This consisted of the deity Olokun seated with fish tails for legs, holding the eben and ada (ceremonial swords) and flanked by snakes and crocodiles. She asked him to paint with the ritual colours of red, white and black customarily associated with shrines. Using enamel house paints, he executed his interpretation of this image, which satisfied the strictures of his grandmother. He then proceeded to decorate the other interior and exterior walls of the shrine with other motifs. These consisted of depictions of the Oba and his chiefs, warriors, bronze heads and animals such as the leopard and elephant, which were depicted because of their association with the Olokun deity and Emuen ne Ekodin, the communal village deity from the village of his grandmother’s father. Soon after, he was approached by ohen Aibigie (see previous and this chapter), a young and successful ohen who commissioned him to depict similar pictures at his shrine for his annual festival. Madam Odigie holds the title of iye ebo (the mother of the shrine) at ohen Aibigie’s shrine and initiated him into Olokun. Since then Mr Earliece has been commissioned by several ohens to decorate their shrines in return for token sums of money. He has been asked repeatedly to provide further versions of his portrayal of Olokun, which is considered an accurate and successful depiction by clients. He has also done other commissions, such as for ohen Ominigie who is also a native doctor. In this instance he was asked to paint a picture of a man wrestling with a lion in the forest. This image is based on a spiritual experience described by Ominigie in his capacity as an ohen of Eziza, the deity of the bush. Mr Earliece introduced additional imagery in the form of a snake descending from the tree to show the added dangers of the forest. This was accepted by his patron, who was generally satisfied by the rendition as a depiction of his experience.

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Although Mr Earliece considers his paintings to be spiritual works, they are peripheral activities to his main preoccupations with the theatre. He is not a participant in the activities of shrines (not even that of his grandmother) but is engaged with them through his family ties. His paintings are commissioned by ohens through the social networks of his grandmother on an intermittent basis. Yet differentiation of his practices into modernist and local models (or into professional and amateur) would impose an arbitrary dichotomy that would efface his agency and choices in the urban environment of Benin City, where there are many coexisting possibilities of practice. His work as a playwright and artist (on a part-time basis) is informed by the recent and more long-standing traditions found in Benin City, which he utilises in the pursuit of his own creative intentions. In this way he has used his knowledge of shrines to render characterisations of priests and native doctors in a play he wrote and, subsequently, in video productions. With his education and subsequent employment at the university of Port Harcourt, it is evident that he is actively engaged with ‘modernist’ notions of art with the implications this has for his artistic practice as an individual, irrespective of the various locations of this practice in the university, the theatres, film making or the shrines.16 MR RICHARD AMADASU

Mr Richard Amadasu is an elderly and experienced woodcarver born, according to his reckoning, about 1920. His father was Chief Uwangue at that time. Belonging to a large extended family, he did not receive much formal schooling and left school in 1932 after attending level two. After his preliminary induction into the Iwebo palace association in 1926, he used to accompany his father on his visits to the palace. It was these visits that provided him with the opportunity to observe the carving of the various emada in the palace. He learnt to carve by watching them as they worked on coconut shells. He would return home and practice on discarded coconut shells, using a sharp knife to imitate the work he had seen. From these initial beginnings, he was self-taught and had no direct instruction in woodcarving. In Benin City there was a sporadic demand for woodcarving as he grew up, which encouraged him in his pursuit of this craft. In 1941 rumours of a large order for woodcarving from the USA circulated in Benin City, and he and other carvers travelled to Lagos in the hope of gaining part of this order. He stayed for three months in Lagos but was unable to find work. By 1943 Mr Amadasu had established himself as a woodcarver in Benin City and made his livelihood from his work. In 1949 he travelled to Sapele, which at the time was still a trading port, and enrolled as a sailor. The ships he worked in plied the Atlantic coasts, carrying cargoes of timber, palm oil and other products to the European continent, and on one occasion he travelled

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as far afield as Japan. While working as a sailor he carved various objects from bars of soap, which supplemented his income. After nine months he returned to Benin City on learning that his mother was seriously ill. He resumed carving full-time as a means of livelihood and set up a workshop in Ibiwe Street. He gained commissions from a variety of institutions, which included the palace and some of the chiefs whom he knew personally through his family ties as the son of a prominent chief, as well as various churches. He was also able to take on many commissions from expatriates both before and after the independence of Nigeria, opportunities which may have come his way because he was familiar with their expectations from his experiences as a sailor.17 He often sold to Nigerian and expatriate middlemen, particularly in the oil boom years of the 1970s when he would supply work such as carved doors, carved boxes and seats to builders in Bendel (now Edo) state and further afield. Within Benin City the principal outlets were the traders, often from the Hausa community, and the Bendel Crafts Shop that was run during the late 1960s and early 1970s by Mrs Hilda Ogbe, an expatriate who had a keen appreciation of local arts and crafts. She regularly bought the work of the more skilled woodcarvers for her shop. Until she left the post this was his favoured outlet, as he was guaranteed a fair and steady income. Since her departure, however, he has stopped supplying the shop as he finds that the new management favours other carvers. Mr Amadasu has always worked in a figurative style but will undertake to meet the specifications of any commission brought to him, from carvings in the round to relief carvings on wall-panels, doors and carved boxes. When he was younger, he would develop his own designs – often informed by the historical themes of Benin City and their Obas, applying the knowledge learnt as a member of the Amadasu family (a knowledge of their history and how it is entwined with that of the palace is required of members by the family to maintain its position). Apart from drawing on historical themes, he has also produced a large amount of work that mimics standard brass works in wood. These vary from copying the brass stool of Oba Eresonyem found in the Benin museum to copying (and also varying) borrowed elements from the brass plaques. He claims to have invented certain themes for the wooden panels that he produces, although this is hard to determine as other carvers of his generation make similar claims about the same themes. These themes depicted by Mr Amadasu and other carvers have a similar narrative content, although the style and some elements can vary considerably. Like many carvers and brasscasters in Benin City, he has retained reproductions and books that depict the artworks of the Benin kingdom as well as those of the Yoruba and Igbo areas. These are often used as guides for clients as to the carving required. He also has a couple of sketchbooks that contain

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designs that he has executed and can be used either in part or as a complete design for a work. Although the actual process of working the wood using chisels has remained a relative constant since he first mastered the skill of woodcarving, Mr Amadasu considers that when he was younger he was more inventive in producing new designs. He used to gain inspiration by simply looking at a block of wood that he was about to work on, or just drawing in the earth. Sometimes, too, the suggestions of the client would stimulate his ideas and encourage him to try out new variations in design. The process of carving starts with the blocking out of the wood according to a design. If it is similar to a design he is practised in executing, he will carve it with only a few preliminary markings on the wood as a rough guide. If he considers that it is technically difficult to execute or unfamiliar, he will have it drawn in some detail to show the client. The client can then indicate any changes that are required. Where the design is more two-dimensional, as in the case of a panel, he will draw the design on the wood surface before beginning to carve. As age advances – bringing long-sightedness and latterly a lack of confidence in his drawing capabilities – he often allows one of his sons to draw the design in detail. Similarly, contrary to his practice when he was younger and stronger, he now has his sons do the preliminary blocking out for the carving. All his sons have learnt the skills of woodcarving and carve independently or with their father, depending on their age and experience. Once the blocking out has been done, he will commence the detailed work himself. The work is then sanded and the very fine details, such as the eyelids, are reworked using a knife. Finally, the work is presented to the client, after which any desired alterations will be executed. No sacrifices are performed at the commencement of work or at any other stage, and Mr Amadasu considers the work simply as a transaction in which labour is exchanged for monetary gain. He does not participate actively at any shrines although he subscribes to many of the ideas on which they are based. He finds that these notions are more relevant to him than those of Christianity, but does not regard the deities as particularly important in his life. He places more emphasis on the powers of individuals, such as the native doctors with their spiritual power and abilities to use plants for medicine. However, he does have a small shrine dedicated to Orunmila. He considers that a lack of inventiveness and a loss of the ability to develop new designs for his carving are not simply a result of old age and infirmity but are due to the depletion of the powers of his Orunmila shrine. This requires rededication to inspire him again but he finds the expense prohibitive, as the maintenance of his family is his priority. His wife has a shrine set up to Olokun and is an active member of the shrine of ohen Osagie (see previous chapter), for whom he has executed several commissions.

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Mr Amadasu works on commissions for shrines from time to time, in much the same way that he takes commissions from churches and other sources. The works that he produces for shrines are varied according to the demands of his patrons. For example, ohen Osagie had commissioned from him a carved panel depicting the Oba Ozolua, who was the father of Oba Esigie. The carving he produced was a representation very similar to the statue made by Ovia Idah (Peek 1985) in terracotta at the shrine of Oba Ozolua in the Oba’s palace. Although Mr Amadasu’s work is almost exclusively figurative, he has also been commissioned to make the furnace bellows, used by ironsmiths and brasscasters, which are sometimes placed in shrines to Ogun, if the aspect of the deity celebrated by the ohen is linked particularly to fire. It is evident, however, that producing work for shrines is not a central preoccupation for Mr Amadasu but rather one that he accommodates as part of his working practice and acceptance of commissions. These commissions enable him to continue working as a full-time woodcarver and in that respect are no different from any other commission. He gains commissions for shrines from his social networks through his family and from the reputation he has developed in the course of his work. He has not developed any strong links with any institutions that might commission regular work and has not advanced through the Iwebo association. He has remained independent through his choice of working practice and through his reliance on his personal network of clients. His strategy is to seek out individual commissions from patrons where he can gain a favourable return of income for his labour despite fluctuating demand. To compensate for these fluctuations he supplies middlemen, like some of the local Hausa traders (with whom he has a close relationship) who need a constant supply of carvings for their local and long-distance trade, but at a much less favourable rate of return for his labour. M R G E O R G E O N I , T H E O H E N O G U N N O M AY I S I

Mr George Oni was a popular ohen in his late thirties who had a large following of devotees and a reputation for his Olokun oracle.18 His father was a well-known and successful native doctor, who was reputed to be capable of raising the dead. His father initiated him into Ogun in 1958 at a very early age, although some members of the extended family are Christian and others Muslim. In 1963 he decided to join the Jehovah’s Witnesses and continued to be an active member until 1975. That year, at a meeting of the Jehovah’s Witnesses on Victoria beach in Lagos (a popular congregational meeting place for many of the Independent churches), the sea flowed and took him under the water. Mr Oni explained that he spent a full year inside the sea where he became a servant of the deities. After one year he came out of the water at Sapele at Adagbasa river. On his return he was taken to

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his father’s house where it was discovered that he could heal and had the powers of an ohen. Although he was initiated into various deities at that time and subsequently, Mr Oni did not perform the okpobo (the washing of hands) that gives an individual the ability to work with leaves and plants as a native doctor. The powers of the native doctor can be obtained by any interested person and are not dependent on any privileged relationships to the spirit world, but for Mr Oni, all his powers were based on his particular privileged and personal spiritual relations with the deities. These privileged relations led him to acquire many different deities such as, for example, twenty-five separate Olokun powers with their separate names and aspects. The vast number of deities and his rejection of the more mundane (in one sense) powers of the native doctor are indicative of the extraordinary powers to which he laid claim. At the beginning of this new career as an ohen he used to sculpt statues in clay at shrines in order to earn a livelihood. He had the capacity to do any design and gained a reputation for the work he produced. However, Mr Oni considered that he did not learn to sculpt but that it was an innate and natural ability derived or inherited from his family. He cited as an example the precedent of his uncle, Felix Idubor, who had a prominent reputation as a very successful sculptor in Benin City (although he devoted most of his time and energy to his studio workshop in Lagos). Once Mr Oni had acquired a reputation for his spiritual powers and an increasing following of devotees, he was able to practise full-time as an ohen. As a result, he devoted less and less time to sculpting statues for shrines and finally rejected sculpture in favour of his work as an ohen. He described this process in terms of his acquisition of greater spiritual power as he had progressed as an ohen, which prevented him from working as before. He stated that if he was to work on a statue, he would collapse from the exertion of his spiritual powers and this would have dangerous consequences. These anticipated consequences concerned his powers to invoke the spirits in a manner similar to his father, although he sought not to exploit these powers but rather to look after and protect the members of his shrine from the dangers that beset them. Apart from the spiritual reasons for not practising as a sculptor, it is an occupation devoted solely to producing ‘manual’ work for shrines and as such carries little status or financial gain. To continue it would diminish, if not belittle, his reputation and fame as an ohen. Artisans or sculptors occupy only a marginal role in relation to the ohens and their institution of shrines. By way of contrast, the fame and prestige that Felix Idubor gained was achieved through the national and federal state institutions that publicised and commissioned his work. These enabled him to move to national and international arenas to work and exhibit, with attendant

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commercial success and fame. These are not strategies easily available to an individual who produces sculptures almost exclusively for the institution of shrines, where there are no direct linkages to government institutions. Indeed, the national and federal state institutions that encourage and fund artistic practice often regard this art, and its indigenous religious contexts, as detrimental to a political agenda that presents Nigeria and Nigerians as participating in two world religions, Christianity and Islam. This art offers representations of an active indigenous religion that this political agenda classes as pagan, and so something to reject. An example of this attitude was the controversy that occurred when Felix Idubor was commissioned to execute a public monument in Benin City in 1990, just prior to his death. He installed a statue of a woman with a fish tail on Ring Road at the centre of Benin City. Almost immediately debates arose as to whether it was a representation of Olokun (usually depicted as male) or Mami Wata, and there were objections from Christians as to whether such representations with their local religious references should be exhibited as public monuments at all. These were debated publicly on local radio broadcasts and in newspapers. To further complicate the debate, sacrifices were offered before the statue – a severe embarrassment to the authorities – and a police edict was finally issued warning that anyone found doing this would be arrested and charged with desecration. When Mr Oni was practising as a sculptor he had many possibilities from which to choose in order to build his reputation as an artist, including the connections to pursue an artistic career in the manner of his late uncle Felix Idubor. His main concern was with the spiritual world, however, both formerly as a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and later as an ohen. Sculpting was an incidental activity that he (and his patrons) considered a legitimate birthright from his family. For a time his sculpture helped support his involvement with his more central concern and preoccupation, but as he became more successful as a practising ohen, it became a more marginal strategy that he could readily abandon. M R S U N D AY O S A G I E

Mr Sunday Osagie is a middle-aged man who trained at the Auchi Polytechnic in fine arts. Since leaving college at the beginning of the 1970s he has produced a wide range of work in different media, ranging from oil paintings to cement sculptures and papier-mâché figures, but excluding woodcarving. He undertook any available commissions in any required medium. During FESTAC (1977) he had a ready market in papier-mâché figures, often painted in gold so as to resemble the brasscastings of Igun street, which he sold at the domestic airport. This market diminished at the end of FESTAC (and also resulted in complaints from the Igun eronmwon), and he withdrew these works from public sale. He received some public

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commissions to make cement figures and some from shrines in Benin City, although these proved to be irregular. Moreover he found that the sculptures he produced for shrines did not pay well enough to provide him with a viable source of income. As the eldest son, on the death of his father he inherited the family house and a business based on the construction and supply of coffins. With many dependents and his increasing responsibilities as head of the family, he has had to concentrate on organising this family business. He still retains a strong interest in producing artworks and would resume if he could find suitable outlets for his work and adequate financial reward. His expectations and position as head of his family make it difficult for him to pursue his interest in producing artworks without a substantial financial return to maintain or enhance his prestige and status in the local communities. Clearly a lack of adequate economic advantage and a loss of status (of concern to a mature head of the family) demonstrate the ways in which these activities are socially negotiated – not necessarily with a successful outcome: in this example they were discontinued. MADAM EHIDIADUWA

Madam Ehidiaduwa is the wife of the late Ehidiaduwa Onaghino, the former ohen of the Olokun shrine of Idunmwun-Uhunmwun (see previous chapter) – a local community on the outskirts of Benin City. 19 Madam Ehidiaduwa is a member of the shrine and was initiated there by her husband. Prior to his death in 1984 she had traded as a yam seller in the market, gaining a subsistence livelihood. After his death she was placed in a marginal position as his eldest son by another wife inherited the right to be ohen of the shrine, which left her in straitened financial circumstances. During this period of great emotional and economic difficulty and without the start-up capital to resume trading in yams, she was visited in a dream by the deity Olokun. Olokun instructed her to start moulding osuorhue, the shaped and patterned lumps of local chalk that are an essential part of any shrine. Osuorhue are for decoration and also provide the chalk powder that is used as a blessing and welcome for the deities at all shrines. This provided her with an economic strategy for supporting herself as she could procure the chalk at no cost directly from the vicinity of the river Imimikpo, close to Idunmwun-Uhunmwun. She started by making the osuorhue for sale to individuals and the vendors at kemwinkemwin, the ‘juju’ section found at most markets in Benin City. Within the first year she had extended her repertoire to producing kola boxes and figures of the deities of the shrines, made in the same medium of local chalk. After the sacrifice of a white cock to Olokun at the shrine, she collects the orhue from river banks, selecting the deposits with the finest consistency and those that are as white as possible. These lumps are brought back and left

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to dry. Several lumps can last her up to two months at a time, depending on the demand for her works from customers. When she is preparing to mould the chalk it is pounded into particles as fine as possible and then added to water. As in the preparation of clay used in statues, it is then mashed until a fine consistency is achieved. This is then moulded into the desired shapes. Supports or armature are not used as the native chalk is unable to bear a heavy load. It is relatively brittle, compared to the clay mixtures used for statues, and therefore more susceptible to damage and breakage (which is more prone to happen the larger the finished product). If it is an osuorhue, a comb is then dragged through it when still wet to provide the patterning. If it is a more complex shape, she will approximate to the required appearance and then use a knife or similar implement to define the finer details before adding the final embellishments, such as plastic and glass for eyes in the case of figurines. The finished shape is then left to dry out completely in the sun over several days. The process of sculpting a figure takes at most a single day. The figures are usually representations of Olokun in his various aspects as well as his wives and followers, the medium of local chalk characterising the embodiment of Olokun. However, clients who commission figures for Ogun, Eziza or the other deities often paint them the appropriate colours of that particular deity and then install them in their shrines. If it is considered necessary by the owner, a hole can be cut into the base and a mixture of leaves dedicated to that deity inserted in order to activate the figure spiritually. Figurines are usually activated when they are to be used as a substitute for the larger and considerably more expensive clay statues. Madam Ehidiaduwa can gain inspiration directly from dreams for her work, although the deities customarily exert a more indirect and general influence in providing the motifs. Usually she is guided by the requirements of the client, who generally specifies aspects of the design, as well as from ideas that develop as she works, informed as they are by her previous practice. Her intentions are to produce a work that is ose (beautiful), as befits any association with Olokun. If a work is not proceeding successfully, she will destroy it and re-use the chalk to start the process again. Her figures have become very popular and are used by many ohens as a suitable item at their shrines. She claims that she was the first to extend the use of orhue beyond the patterned osuorhue native chalk blocks to figurines. However, this is difficult to determine and it may be that this is a practice that has arisen independently at different localities and at different times, although she has trained many other women since she first started. The use of figurines adds an innovative decorative embellishment to the medium of native chalk that is used in many key contexts in shrine practice. This is deemed particularly appropriate at shrines dedicated to Olokun, where the notion of making things beautiful for the deity has a special place. To

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make figures in chalk is an appropriation of the purpose of the larger clay statues but one that is legitimated because the medium is already dedicated to the deities. Moreover, native chalk is already used as one element in the making of clay statues and, thus, it is less an outright appropriation than an extension of the use of the medium. Although the chalk figurines can be used as a substitute for clay statues at shrines by ohens, as they are smaller and cheaper they lack the prestige and value that is gained through the expense and labour of commissioning statuary. Madam Ehidiaduwa has been successful in finding a strategy that allows her to exercise a creative ability in an area where many women produce for the kemwinkemwin section of the market. The fact that the merchandising of chalk requires little capital outlay to start with makes production highly competitive in the marketplace.The creative innovations she has introduced, such as making osorhue into figurines and new decorative forms, allow her to differentiate herself from her competitors and make a shrine-linked livelihood. Also, as a wife to the late ohen of the shrine, she has developed over time successful social networks through which to sell her works to individuals on a personal basis and in the marketplaces. M R G O D W I N A K A R O , T H E O H E N A S O N M WO N O R R I R R I

Mr Godwin Akaro is in his fifties and, over the years, has acquired a notable reputation as an ohen and native doctor, a profession he was initiated into by his father some forty-four years ago. He hails from the village of Evbohighie in Orhionmwon local government area, although he moved permanently to his townhouse in Benin City about twenty years ago. It was his success as an ohen and native doctor, with the acquisition of a large following of devotees in Benin City, that led to his move. His shrine has a large number of prominent statues among a collection of artefacts that he has created. He made these statues himself some twenty years ago on the completion of the building. He was inspired to make them by the deities in visions and dreams and they each took between three days and two weeks to complete. The statues are made from obue (clay), orhue (locally occurring chalk) and cowries, supported by sticks as an armature. Medicines were added to establish a spiritual link between them and the deities they represent – and Mr Akaro has stated that in consequence the statues dance or move about at night. This underlines his exceptional powers, as it is his personal spiritual links to the deities that led to the creation of the statues and their power. He does not make statues for other people and they remain a unique assemblage. Yet, as a prominent native doctor and ohen, Mr Akaro is constantly creating a range of artefacts for clients to assist them with difficulties encountered in their lives that can only be rectified with the assistance of the spirit world. For example, in order to win a case in court an individual

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might go to a native doctor to request assistance. As the native doctor or ohen has an important place in this spirit world, he or she can argue the case on behalf of the client and influence the actions of a range of spiritual agencies to favour the client (sometimes irrespective of the true merits of the case) in the physical world. An ohen will directly use his or her powers in the erinmwin (spirit world), whereas a native doctor uses a knowledge of plants and other materials to effect a similar outcome (and so will often produce an artefact in order to intervene in this way). Again, an ohen will instruct clients to execute various actions to benefit their cause, and these actions can also include the production and use of artefacts. In order to win a legal case, a client may ask (or the oracle may advise) that an aban (indigenous handcuffs with added materials) be made to impede the opposition. The aban acts on the opponent through the spirit world to cause forgetfulness, induce a loss of the capacity to act, and undermine any case made by the opponent. The aban is composed of an iron staple driven through various materials and into a circular wooden board known as uro. This was formerly the method employed to handcuff slaves. These materials, mostly of an organic nature but varying in the practice (and in the ideas that underpin that practice) between one native doctor and another, construct visual and material tropes based on the ways each material can be constituted (MacGaffey 1977). These are constituted through combining the particular properties of each material. However there is no set of fixed rules that govern the properties of a material. Instead there are contexts of ideas and practices that can be drawn upon by a practitioner according to his or her own range of expertise and in relation to the situation of the client. These contexts and practices have resemblances and differences to what other practitioners do. Within such interacting fields of potency these material properties can then be applied to assist agencies in the spirit world who act on the intended individual and/or the situation which is to be remedied. 20 Thus among the materials that may be combined in the aban there may be a selection of leaves that are considered to act in the spirit world on cases of judgement. These leaves may be crushed, macerated or burnt and applied to the aban. Thus there is the leaf Okha gha kha, ‘Okha will say’ (present the case), combined with the leaf Ibu no bu ohien, ‘Ibu that gives judgement’, and the leaf Okhue-khue ghi kue yo, ‘Okhue-khue that will accept’ (as a leaf of authority that accepts the judgement), and the leaf Otua no tuemwin, ‘Otua greets the thing’ (that has happened or taken effect). Indeed these words can be sung by ohens when performing in public or by a native doctor when preparing an aban to make it effective. These leaves will be combined with other objects, such as padlocks, on the wooden board, encased in webs of thread which will lock up the case and determine it in favour of the client. However the use and combination of such materials is also constructed

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as an artefact that confers its power in material and visual terms. These visual terms are not based on premises of beauty but rather on their relations of power, especially to coerce. It is apparent in the instance of Mr Akaro that there is no substantive difference between the objects that he has created as statues in his shrine, expressing his relations of power to the deities, and his aban – displayed, as many of them are, on the walls of his shrine – that define and express relations of power to other agencies in the spirit world. Ohen Asonmwonorrirri is an experienced and mature ohen who has built up extensive social networks and a devoted following. He has enhanced his reputation by his fame particularly as a native doctor, with extraordinary powers and the ability to effect cures for spiritual problems and physical illnesses. One means is through the creation and elaboration of artefacts that intervene through the spirit world. His assertion of relations of power to the agencies in the spirit world is central to an understanding of the artefacts that he creates, whether they are statues, aban or other artefacts. OHEN AIBIGIE

Ohen Aibigie (see previous chapter) is highly successful and charismatic, with a large following of young devotees. He is an ohen with many deities and is noted for his expertise in the preparation of medicines, especially those that use or control the powers of witches (or other malevolent nightpeople). He prepares such objects for himself and his clients to help them to secure their goals as well as to protect them from the physical and spiritual dangers that beset them. Ohen Aibigie has many objects displayed on his shrine that are made by him and composed of mainly organic materials. Some of these objects embody deities of his own elaboration and choosing from the spirit world (which is considered to be full of named and unknown deities that are beyond enumeration) that indicate his extensive knowledge and prowess in these matters. Each deity requires a separate body of knowledge by the ohen, although there may be some overlap with those of other deities. Some of these artefacts have verbal descriptions, often in the form of proverbs that encapsulate a characteristic of its capabilities – although different ohens may use the same description or proverb for a completely different artefact that has different capabilities. Thus ohen Aibigie has an aban made as an Ogun staff with iron staples embedded at the top which he also calls Ovbi-odo gha yi igbina te ye owa, ‘Pestle goes to war, it surely must return home’. Ohen Aibigie touches the staff seven times with his forehead before he leaves or returns to the shrine to ensure his safety and strength – no matter what physical or spiritual challenges are put to him. For his 1992 festival he made at the entrance to his shrine a portrait head of the uko ne urho (the messenger at the gate) whose role is to bring messages from the spirit world as well as ward off spiritual attacks or influ-

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ences directed at the shrine. This was made of clay and locally occurring chalk mixed with medicines, and had a mirror embedded on its surface. It was then painted with red and white enamel paint. Ohen Aibigie introduces new artefacts from time to time, often after spending some days alone in the bush where he learns from the deities (and in particular Eziza, the deity of the bush who is considered the native doctor amongst the deities) what to create as an artefact. He describes (and emphasises) that the artefacts he creates are rough rather than smooth or graceful in appearance and materials, as they are constituted by the forceful power and medicine that they possess. As in other fields of his practice, such as his dancing during public performance for which he is renowned, he is continually looking to introduce innovation and variety. These innovations underline his unique abilities as an ohen and the skills he possesses in his practice. The artefacts made by ohen Aibigie occupy a public space and are part of a visual and material elaboration of his concerns. They are combined on his shrine with other artefacts that are gifts from grateful clients such as, for example, wooden masks and a brass statue of Emotan. They articulate his particular relations of power with the spirit world and are also a legitimation of his practice as an ohen and native doctor, as indeed are the objects given to him by clients. This is an ongoing process over time as the shrine is an assemblage that accumulates further artefacts through his own creativity and through the additions donated by satisfied clients. OUTSIDE AN AR T HISTOR Y TRAJECTOR Y

This construction of an art history defines and categorises the role or roles of the artist at the seemingly socially and geographically distant location of Benin City in terms of ‘modernist’ notions of the artist with all the presuppositions that these can entail. However the individuals concerned have developed their own bases for action and strategies in relation to their intentions in producing material artefacts. These intentions can arise independently of, or coincide fully or partially with, modernist notions of the artist. They can also be legitimated through a direct referral to such notions as they have been developed in some institutions in Nigeria in its colonial and post-colonial eras – at the universities and technical schools, for example, where a professional class of artists has been produced. In either case, these individuals at best seem to occupy a marginal position within the context of shrines. These are religious institutions in which there are notions of the concrete and active agency of the deities themselves, albeit negotiated by individuals. The individuals involved within them and their practices (artistic and otherwise) are legitimated by direct referral to these deities. Apart from the artists, there are the ohens who often consider themselves the owner of the ebo or shrine (and its constituents). In two respects at least,

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they also lay claim to the making of any object that is within their shrine, even if it has been commissioned and made by other individuals in actual practice. First, the artist is seen as merely substantiating in concrete terms the ideas of the ohen who commissions the work. Second, the artefacts, at some level, are the means by which the deity is manifest – ebo zoy (the deity chooses) – and it is the deity that intends the artefact to be made. Thus the artefact is made by the intervention of the deity through the ohen, who has special spiritual relations with that deity. He or she makes use of the artist, craftsman or whoever, who is subordinated to the intentions of the deity. This relegates the artist to a marginal status. Moreover, ohens also produce material artefacts for their shrines, their followers and clients. These artefacts are legitimated solely by reference to the deities and the spirit world, erinmwin, and are used to intervene in both the physical and spiritual worlds, according to local conceptualisations of agency. Such objects are often excluded from Western discourses in African art studies, and particularly Benin studies, although Nevadomsky has examined one class of artefacts, brass rings, made for the Oba of Benin (Nevadomsky 1989). Similarly Olokun clay statues, although religious artefacts at the sites where they are located, can easily be brought within these art historical discourses by the role of the artists or artisans who make them and by some of the purposes of visual display to which they are put. But other artefacts are put to purposes that do not so readily coincide or overlap with ‘modernist’ notions of art practice and, as crucially, are underpinned by differing notions of power and agency.21 These artefacts are situated at their local sites and are constituted through localised practices and ranges of knowledge, which are often specific to a single or small group of individuals. Equally, the media from which they are constructed (often organic composites) have been marginalised from the narratives of African art studies and, perhaps not surprisingly, those similar objects that have been claimed by art historical discourses have tended to be made of wood or some other durable and ‘recognisable’ artistic medium, as the case of the brass rings illustrates. However, these are artefacts that are created by individuals even if they are less readily amenable to the investigations of an art history through their constitution and underpinning by local notions of power and agency.22 They are made in a social space to manipulate the visual medium creatively and, as a consequence, their exclusion from art historical study cannot be justified. This exclusion is evident in Benin studies, where Olokun clay statues are framed as part of an art history (Girshick Ben-Amos 1973: 28–31; Rosen 1989) while other artefacts such as medicines like the aban, located in the same context of a shrine, are rejected. This selective process ignores the means through which shrines are constituted, both in their inception and their ongoing formation as assemblages over time, gaining additional arte-

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facts from the owner, clients and followers (Okoye 1996). These objects, too, require some investigation, particularly in the changing definitions of conceptualisation in Western art practice. In some twentieth-century forms of art practice (especially highlighted in some instances in the trajectories of surrealism [Shelton 1995] and performance art such as, for example, that of Joseph Beuys) the visual is subordinated, or at least placed, in relation to other constituted properties or tropes of a material artefact.

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6 SONGS FOR THE GODS

AR TEFACTS AND PERFOR MANCE

Artefacts are central to the practice of ohens. They and the shrine itself are traces of these practices and embody the ideas implicit in them, as do the medicines made to assist clients and devotees. Artefacts are also intrinsic to performance at shrines. There a variety of ways in which they feature in performance that include the dress and ornaments worn by ohens and devotees, the use of certain artefacts in enabling the particular identities of devotees, titleholders, and/or the ohen (such as a titleholder carrying a paddle to assist Olokun reach the shrine as a form of mimesis) as well as the making of artefacts during the course of a particular performance. In seeking to understand the contexts of significance of artefacts at urban contemporary shrine configurations, one must consider some complex relationships between the intentions of the makers and users (following Wollheim 1980); between the artefacts themselves in regard to their forms and shapes as contexts of ideas and practice,1 and their seeming participation in socially wider context of ideas and practices (Picton 1990a: 60); and between the responses of other participants and the audience. Because of the material properties of artefacts and what people do with artefacts (placing them in and thereby enabling such wider social contexts), artefacts seem to be participant elements of contexts of ideas and practices that ‘extend’ socially beyond the artefact as a thing in itself.2 It is human agency that does the doing, and by implication transfers human agency to these things humans place in the material world to socialise, ritualise and aestheticise it. The ways in which these are constituted are complex and dependent on the trajectory of the particular tradition of art which individuals both construct and utilise to make artefacts. In the acts of interpretation by different protagonists, there is no unitary correlation but rather a space for negotiation (Lewis 1980). The role of performance as an ongoing repeated process of dramatic enactment, which is always provisional, is crucial in the making of the significances of artefacts (Goffman 1959; Turner 1967, 1969; de Certeau 1984). This is not simply its reproduction through repetition (Bloch 1977) but an ongoing and dynamic remaking and transformation of significance through the ways in which each performance differs from another, often to a considerable

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and dramatic degree. The performative act provides scope for both incremental and innovative change (Giddens 1979; Cole 1982). THE ROLE OF SONG

In performance, however, artefacts are only one element. Whenever ohens perform publicly, song is at least as important a part of their performance; it complements the dancing through which ohens are possessed by their deities (Welton 1968). The songs can be led by the performing ohen or by the followers, depending on the situation. Songs can also be used on other occasions by ohens, including the recounting of oral narratives and during invocations. Many songs are not exclusive to the institutions of shrines but are derived from other social contexts, sometimes with certain words appropriately changed. Songs can be performed with a solo and chorus refrain where an individual (usually the ohen who is performing) leads, or without the solo lead. The songs consist of short verses that can be repeated or changed to new songs with great flexibility, but in some situations favoured songs will sometimes be repeated thirty or forty times (in order to bring out a particular deity in the course of a performance). Some ohens are renowned for their skill with song and, when possessed by the deity, will reply to the questions of followers and clients with songs that answer their predicaments. Ohens will use well-known songs but also on occasion offer impromptu improvisation.3 It is within the context of a particular performance that many of the significances of songs are created and situated. Songs refer to the ideas and practices of the shrines but, more crucially, may also constitute them. Thus the use of song provides a means to explore some of the conceptualisations that underpin the ideas and practices of these shrines. This chapter examines the role of the songs used in performance by participants at shrines. The use of song as a form of exegesis can be approached through its local contexts of articulation. The exploration of a sequence of songs performed at an annual festival is related to the particular events that occurred. The significances constructed by the use of song are examined within the conventions of its ideas and practice as well as in its socially negotiated contexts as part of a particular sequence of performance. In Benin City Christianity is a dominant presence in its many different forms, ranging from the Catholic and mainstream Protestant to the Aladura and Pentecostal churches. Many other religions are also present, such as the Hare Krishna religion and Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as many associations and societies with an agenda that can include the religious in various forms, such as the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, the Otu Edo society, the Reformed Ogboni Fraternity and many others. Within this urban context ohens establish their shrines and secure a following of devotees and clients that enable them to practise full-time.

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However, there are complex historical trajectories that link and oppose these different institutions to the present. For example, in 1950 the Otu Edo society had formed to oppose what many Edo-speaking people saw as the self-serving aggrandisement of a political clique, led by the Iyase (the head of the town chiefs and historically a focus for opposition to the Oba of Benin) that controlled the Native Authority. This clique was associated with the Reformed Ogboni Fraternity4 and appeared inimical to the Oba of Benin because the Native Authority had already curtailed some of his privileges and prerogatives. The Otu Edo society provided a political opposition to protect the Oba, as well as other local interests that had been economically and politically diminished in the reorganisation of the Native Authority in 1948 (Bradbury 1968: 238–48).5 By the 1990s, however, these conflicts had been resolved in the changing historical circumstances that were to follow and many individuals are now members of both organisations. Although the various churches and religions compete with each other, many people are involved with more than one organisation and their actions are informed by more than one set of religious ideas. For example, in many churches in Benin City a popular song in English is: Satan, bow down before the Lord, Olokun, bow down before the Lord Ogun, bow down before the Lord.6 As part of local church practice, the deities are explicitly acknowledged and defined, albeit as subordinate to the power of the Christian faith. Similarly, during public performances at shrines there are certain songs that derive from a Christian context. Sometimes these are sung because of their immense popularity and appeal among members of the shrine, but the wording is minimally but profoundly altered. An example of this is the song O gha maa ne ima, O gha fu ima egbe Vbe etin Aghoko ne ima tu tie O gha maa ne ima. It will be good for us It will be peaceful for us With the power of Aghoko that we cry to call upon It will be good for us. In this song the ohen Aghoko has been substituted for Jesus Christ, leaving the song otherwise unchanged from its rendition in churches. However although the text of this song has a church origin, the phraseology is not biblical but adapted from local prayer traditions otherwise accompanying sacrificial ritual. It carries traces of the dialectical interaction between Christianity and localised forms of religious ideas and practices. This song

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was sung by the devotees of ohen Aghoko’s shrine when they went to visit the river at the beginning of his new yam festival in August 1991. Prior to this festival, members of the shrine are not supposed to eat from new season yams until new yams have been presented to the deities of the shrine. At the river they encountered another group led by an ohen performing rituals for ogbanje (where an individual is troubled by links to a water spirit). Thus the song is not only a celebration of the new yam festival but also, in the context of an encounter with another ohen, proclaims the merits of Aghoko over his rivals. This particular song, in whichever modified form, is sung in many social contexts and is often played by local Edo bands at social occasions such as weddings, funerals and other public occasions. The song is performed for its popularity with participants and as a popular invocation of blessings on the event in hand, whether Christian or otherwise. It is evident that supposedly antithetical forms of religious practice are not always placed in complete opposition to each other, although some people, especially members of evangelical and neo-Pentecostal churches, do so regard them. Since at least the 1960s, if not earlier, there has been a process of musical Africanisation in the mainstream Christian churches in Benin City, resulting in a substantial overlapping with the cult performances for local deities.7 Thus many Christian churches in Benin City use drums and dancing as an active part of worship. The Pentecostal churches are even more conspicuous in their engagement with local religious practice, acknowledging the powers of individual prophecy and the need to combat the influence of witches and other harmful spirits as active forces. These songs and their performance effectively both assert and deny the differences between the churches and the cults of deities. M A D A M O D I G I E ’ S A N N U A L F E S T I VA L T O T H E D E I T I E S

Madam Odigie (see Chapter 4) is a full-time Igie ohen who holds an annual festival each year to celebrate her deities publicly. This is an event that commemorates her initiation into the deities and the special relationships that she has maintained with them since that time. Her festival takes place over a fourteen-day period with different days devoted to each deity. The following material was collected at her annual festival which occurred in February 1991. The songs were then discussed with her over a period of some months and she explicated some of the contexts and significances from her viewpoint. However, the text as written here cannot do justice to the complex interaction between Madam Odigie and other individuals (whether as part of the audience or as active participants) within which the ideas and practices involved in worshipping the deities are articulated through public performance. The celebrations start with a purification ceremony and a visit to the river to inform the deity Olokun and his followers of the annual festival.

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Olokun is considered to be the most important deity by Madam Odigie, and will summon the other deities to the festival. Sacrifices are cast into the river in order to gain his blessing and approval. Until this sacrifice has been accepted by its swift descent below the water, the festival cannot commence. The other deities receive the appropriate sacrifices on their day of celebration. Each is celebrated by an ugie, a dance held in the afternoon or at night, during which Madam Odigie and invited ohens participate before a large audience. Madam Odigie is possessed by the deities during the course of her performances as are those visiting ohens who have elected to perform in support of her festival. It is also possible for onlookers, whether initiated or not, to become possessed by a deity during the course of the dance. These dances are events in which possession and prophecy by deities combine with the interaction of music, dance and song, featuring both the principal participants and their groups of followers. There is support for the celebrating ohen of the festival as well as competition between ohens, who seek to display their exceptional powers and abilities in the public arena. The cleansing rites held by Madam Odigie and the members of her shrine take place outside the entrance to the shrine prior to the visit to the river Adagbasa designated by the oracle. It has been consulted to find the appropriate river to offer sacrifices that will be acceptable to Olokun and so ensure a successful festival. The cleansing rites commence with the devotees singing the praise names of the deities in Madam Odigie’s repertoire. Akpowa no o gbe ekpen no yinro Akpowa, the killer of leopard that is great Ai yi ivie zo ogbon Decorate your ogbon (hairstyle) with coral beads Eze ne ughegbe ne ebo The river that is glass that is white Uhunmwun n’ame ne ka The head of water that never dries Orinmwin ame ne ogboi ghi khue Deep water that the uninitiated do not enter Igbaghon ne okpokhuo Igbaghon the illustrious woman Obiemwen ne uhe niro Obiemwen with the wide vagina Oroma ne onyi ke okun Oroma that dwells near the sea Odighi ne ghi tie Odighi that never stirs Ugbeni gbe ame Killer of the elephant beats the water Obo ne see owe eni Hand of elephant is more than leg Oriele Oriele Obo gbe oto Hand cannot overcome8 the ground Eziza ne ogie obo Eziza the ruler of native doctors Edion ebo edion ewaise Elders of the native doctors, elders of diviners Erhanmwen, erhanave Male trees, female trees Edingun ne eberen Deity of iron that is fire

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SONGS FOR THE GODS

Isango ne bowe Ukpo gba o!

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Isango that is male The year has ended o!

Madam Odigie has Akpowa, ‘live long in wealth’, as her main Olokun deity. It is a deity that has the praise name o gbe ekpen no iyinro, ‘the killer of leopard is great’. This is a claim to the highest spiritual status, comparable in the material world to the status of the Oba of Benin who has the sole prerogative to kill leopards (Girshick Ben-Amos 1980: 10). Also implicit is its precedence because it is the killer of ekpen, the leopard identified with royalty, rather than atalakpa, the hostile animal of the wild. As a consequence of this precedence Madam Odigie can sit on a leopard skin as her right at the shrine (although this right is only asserted in practice at her annual festival and any other important occasion that might merit it). The next line is the name of a deity (and the shrine) that she inherited from her mother Ai yi ivie zo ogbon,‘ Decorate your ogbon with coral beads’. The ogbon is a plaiting of six or seven lines at the back of the okuku hairstyle worn by women of the royal family. It is then decorated with the coral beads that are indicative of their exclusive status. In this context it has multiple references to her mother’s shrine which she now owns, but the praise song also refers back to the wealth of her Akpowa ohen title through the image of the coral beads. Although Ai yi ivie zo ogbon, ‘Decorate your ogbon with coral beads’, is a female deity and describes a female hair decoration, this does not conflict with its being used also as praise for Akpowa. Any male deity, irrespective of any explicit reference or not, has female deities as wives as a measure of his eminence. Indeed there is a conceptual pairing of male and female which, in this instance, allows Akpowa to take the praise of Aiyi ivie zo ogbon to refer to him and his wives, who wear the ogbon with coral beads as a display of his wealth. Later on in the annual festival her followers will call Akpowa iyemwen

Akpowa my mother

Here the followers greet Madam Odigie as she is possessed by Akpowa, defining their relations to Akpowa as children of the shrine, with Madam Odigie as their mother in the spiritual world. They call on Akpowa in that relationship as iyemwen (my mother). The relationship between the deity and his devotees assumes the terms of a relationship between a mother and her children. Eze ne ughegbe ne ebo, ‘river the glass [mirror] that is white’, introduces another Olokun deity and also refers to the geographical location of the river where that deity is found. The ughegbe ne ebo, ‘the glass that is white’, also emphasises associations that white has for Olokun. These can highlight the beneficence of Olokun, the cleanness of intention characterised by white (which is described as unstained either physically or spiritually by harmful intention), and the wealth that has been associated with ebo, the

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white (people), from the time of the Portuguese onwards. This line acts as a cumulative praise to the Akpowa Olokun of Madam Odigie while introducing another powerful Olokun deity that underscores the general notions of power that Olokun has. The momentum of this cumulative praise is maintained in the next two lines describing two more Olokun deities: Uhunmwun ame ne ka, ‘Head of water that never dries’, and Orinmwin ame ne ogboi khue, ‘Deep water that the uninitiated do not enter’. The description of the second deity can refer to the deep water physically and metaphorically that the uninitiated dare not try. Also, with the word khue, there is an allusion to akhue ebo (the bath of the deity) – a general description of initiation and a reference to a practice that is undergone by initiates. These are different Olokun deities that reiterate the powers of Olokun in different aspects, as well as referring to various locations of rivers that map out Olokun’s physical and geographical presence within the lived environment. This is followed by the introduction of some of the female deities associated with Olokun. Igbaghon, Obiemwen and Oroma delineate some of the matters that concern women in which Olokun exerts influence. Igbaghon is depicted as a strong and powerful wife or concubine (depending on the version of the narrative told) who lives separately from Olokun. Historically Obiemwen is sometimes presented as a sister to Olokun and may have had a more autonomous role. Nowadays she tends to be placed as a wife to Olokun in many shrines, but in some village community shrines – such as the Okhuaihe shrines of the Evikboi village cluster9 – she is a wife to the community deity. In the context of the song by Madam Odigie, Obiemwen is conceptualised as a wife to Olokun. However, irrespective of her placement with Olokun or other deities, her role is to oversee pregnancy and childbirth. These are major preoccupations for wives in (often polygamous) families where children are an important means of establishing status in the communal household. Oroma is the close and devoted wife to Olokun who maintains the household. Women make up the majority of active followers of these shrines, and these deities serve as reference points to some of the interests and concerns that women experience in Benin City. Igbaghon can be used by individuals to articulate notions of independence from men and to refer to a wide range of situations occupied by women in their relations to men outside the matrimonial state – such as mistress (or concubine), divorced or separated from the husband, or economically independent. Obiemwen articulates concerns for children, as women are considered responsible for conception and birth, and for the physical risks of childbirth where access to modern forms of medical care is limited. Indeed, ohens and native doctors are often consulted to ensure successful procreation and birth of children. Oroma depicts females in a physically dependent set of relations to men and serves as a context for the conditions that define the life of a married woman in a polygamous family.

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These lines about female deities are followed by the introduction of some of the chiefs who attend Olokun. The number of deities that make their appearance in song underlines the importance and prestige of the event that is taking place. A deity such as Olokun is conceptualised as living in a palace, and surrounded by wives and followers who reflect his pre-eminent status and power as the deity of the water (Imasogie 1980). Barber has observed that Yoruba orisa (deities) in Okuku are conceptualised as dependent on human attention to exist and prosper, and that this is a reciprocal arrangement of mutual aggrandisement (Barber 1981: 724–5, 736). In some respects Edo deities are similar to orisa in their notions of mutual reciprocity, but individuals in the Edo-speaking area can acquire reciprocal relationships to several deities through serial initiation. In Benin City Olokun both expresses the authority of kingship and has a key involvement in womens’ procreation (Girshick Ben-Amos 1980: 28–9, 46–51). The status of Olokun and the other deities is underpinned by the multiple and overlapping conceptualisations that link these deities to various institutions and give them a more autonomous status than they would enjoy if they simply depended on the worship of particular groups of devotees. These deities encompass powers that cannot easily be dismissed, and many Christian women will turn to Olokun secretly to resolve problems of infertility and other matters. Odighi is a landlocked lake near the town of Udo which supported Arhuarhuan, the half-brother of the Oba Esigie, in his unsuccessful claims to the title of Oba. He lost the struggle and committed suicide by throwing himself into the lake. The deity Odighi (a separate deity from Arhuarhuan) is seen as powerful but also recalcitrant in his service to Olokun. According to Madam Odigie, this is emphasised by the fact that other rivers and lakes flow to the sea, which is the central domain of Olokun. But Odighi is landlocked, showing his recalcitrance. His praise title, Obo ne see owe eni,‘Hand of elephant is greater than leg’, indicates a physical and spiritual pre-eminence over lesser deities in the same way that the forelimbs of the elephant appear larger than the back limbs. Oriele is considered one of the greatest of warriors although unpredictable in his reactions to events. His praise title is Ugbeni gbe ame, ‘Killer of elephant beats the water’, meaning that only the greatest hunter will kill the elephant which is the largest animal, and so in the water spirit world Oriele is the elephant hunter. Ugbeni gbe ame is a praise of Oriele which echoes the elephant’s physical bulk that tramples all before it. The order of the praise names has been reversed in the song performance, which may have been an arbitrary act by the ohen and devotees. However, these two lines serve to introduce the use of the elephant as a concrete metaphor for a chief’s power, before shifting in a cumulative resonance to become the victim of a chief’s potent prowess. To have these two powerful and difficult deities (and to be able to gain their support in the spirit world on behalf of

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her clients) demonstrates the abilities of Madam Odigie as an exceptional ohen. The praise titles become a praise of her unique individuated accumulation of spiritual powers. This is followed by the Ogun deity Obo gbe oto, ‘Hand cannot overcome the ground’, signifying the all-encompassing power of Ogun that no man’s hand can defy. The singing then introduces the other prominent deities into which Madam Odigie has been initiated. Eziza is the deity that holds sway over the forest and the leaves found there. He is considered by ohens to be the obo, native doctor, of the deities and consequently is described as the king of all native doctors (who depend on him and his domain for the leaves that they will use). Edion ebo, edion ewaise ‘elders of doctors, elders of diviners’, refers to all the past practitioners who originated the skills of the obo, the native doctor. The mention of Erhanmwen, erhawe, ‘male trees, female trees’, highlights Madam Odigie’s knowledge as a native doctor of the different plants that are used in medicines. It also refers to Osun, the inherent power of leaves that can be used to harm or protect depending on how they are prepared. Although this is often attributed to the male domain of practice, as an ohen and native doctor she can claim them as part of her practice, as do many other female ohens in Benin City. These songs of the deities and their praise names are used to call the attention of the deities while Madam Odigie performs the purifications necessary to start the annual festival. The deities sanction the event. I muen egbe nia, iha ye eze Ni ghe ye eze oghe uwu Ni ghe yo oghe emwianmwen Ni ghe koko eubin uwu Ni Ogun ghe gbe mwen Na ghe so ome yo mwen ehai

My body is ready, I want to visit the river For me not to visit the river to die For me not to visit the river to be sick For me not to gather the things of death For Ogun not to kill me For people not to put young palm frond on my forehead Na ghe kha we vbe oghi For people not to say how rue emwin re is she now behaving I ri eze nia, ni ghe do vba I am going to the river now, Oba ne ame vbe o ru For me not to come and meet the Oba of the sea in annoyance No ye izohe gu mwen For him to bring me good things Izohe oghe igho Good things of money Izohe oghe omo Good things of children Izohe oghe utomwen Good things of long life Izohe oghe ewere Good things of well-being No Oba ne ame ze gu mwen -o That Oba of the sea is to bring me these -o, I ri Adagbasa no ovbi Olokun I am going to Adagbasa the child of Olokun

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No hen erhun mwen-o No ye itohan re-o No ye ilekhue re-o Ki imen, ki iubi ebo mwen ya fe re ne ima gba koko ne eze Ne i ma ghe ye eze oghe uwu.

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For him to hear my prayers For him to bring sympathy For him to bring forgiveness For me and all my followers With whom I am going to the river For us not to visit the river of death.

Madam Odigie prays that bad events should not happen to her and her followers but only the good things of life. There is a tradition that the dead pass across a river to the sea and the spirit world beyond, so care is taken to ensure through admonitions to the deities that the visit to the river does not precipitate death. Ogun is singled out. He is a deity capable of random death and destruction that does not confine itself to a chosen target but will indiscriminately take the lives of those nearby as well. Thus he is addressed to ensure that he does not harm the members of the shrine, either intentionally or accidentally. Seven circles are drawn in local chalk, in the direction of the sun. Madam Odigie is brushed with Ikhinmwin leaves and a day-old chick as she passes from each circle. These brushing actions draw pollution from her body as she steps through each circle repeating the actions. Awa lahin mwen egbe re Awa eson, awa iubabo Awa ose ka, ese oghodan Awa asiyeke, Awa aru ebo ne okho da omwan Ipua Awa lahin mwen egbe re Owen ne ovbi ede Awa lahin mwen egbe re I la aro honmwen-0 I la iyeke honmwen Ebo aro ne ghe ruan mwen Ebo iyeke ne ghe ruan mwen.

Pollution depart my body Pollution of poverty, pollution of penury Pollution of debt, that of ungratefulness Pollution of backwardness Pollution of sending someone else bad medicine So be it Pollution depart my body Sun that is the child of day Pollution depart my body I have passed my front to cast you off I have passed my back to cast you off The medicine of front shall not harm me The medicine of back shall not harm me.

She is now ready to visit the river to present her offerings. At the river Madam Odigie greets the deities in much the same way as she initially greets them at the shrine. She concludes with prayers for a safe and happy year to come and protection for her and her followers from the evil intentions and acts of others. The acceptance of the offerings as they sink beneath the waters indicates that the deities have heard her entreaties and will attend her annual festival. The first okpovbie (night dance) is held on the first night of Madam Odigie’s festival. It is usually considered the most prestigious event of the

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annual festival, when the largest number of ohens and other visitors are expected at the shrine. Marquees are set up to accommodate all the visitors and onlookers, looking onto a central space in front of her house (in Madam Odigie’s case the shrine is in the main room that faces onto the street and the temporary marquees for the annual festival). It begins with the members of the shrine singing the praise names of the deities, starting with Osa the supreme deity, as Madam Odigie sits in attendance in the inner part of the shrine. More Olokun deities are greeted than on the previous occasion, which shows the depth of her experience and is also a means of greeting some of the visiting ohens who may have that particular Olokun deity. After greeting the deities there is a general greeting: Ebo ni ikpia ya iselogbe Ebo ni ikhuo ya iselogbe Igie ohen ya wa iselogbe Enigie mwen iselogbe Ekhanwen ebo wa iselogbe Edion ebo ya iselogbe.

All male deities happy celebration All female deities happy celebration All chief priests and priestesses happy celebration My titleholders happy celebration Cult chiefs happy celebration Elders of native doctors happy celebration.

Through the song the many deities, some of whose names are unknown, are greeted, as are all the important personages attending the okpovbie. It is always very important to pay due respect to all who have gathered – both from agbon, the material world, and erinmwin, the spirit world – as, if offence is given, such visitors may seek to test and harm the ohen and his or her members during a performance, with dangerous consequences. The members now greet Madam Odigie, singing as they proceed outside to the area surrounded by marquees. Omobie no ovbi rrabo Orere aghi rie Omobie na ghi tie Uba ghi tie eno omo Omo na ya sue eni omwan Akpowa mwen we do gele.

Child of birth that is praised It is outside that we are going Child that we call What do we call the child Child that one uses to call a person’s name My Akpowa we salute you.

Omo (child) is a word that is used in many contexts as a means of description and praise. Omo oto (child of the ground) is used to describe a native inhabitant and identifies a person intimately with the land. The Oba of Benin has as part of his title omo n’ Oba, which asserts that as the child of the kingdom his direct mandate of authority is for all the land and the entire kingdom. Chiefs and elders are greeted by do omo (greetings child) as a sign of respect.

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In much the same way, to greet someone at home as omo re owa, child at home, is to be extremely respectful (Melzian 1937: 166). It is to assert that the individual is not merely the owner of the house but is also in direct descent from its origins. As descent lines are quite shallow in depth in Benin City, to equate the owner as a child with the concrete artefact of the house is to underline his or her connection both in the present and back through time. It actually emphasises the seniority of the individual as one who is able to head the household. The use of omo does not invoke child-like characteristics but rather defines a sequential relationship. The term claims the weight of descent and the authority that is so mandated. It also underlines a close relationship with the prior owners who are identified with the house – and indeed the former owner is often buried within the confines of the house. Similarly, the eldest son on the father’s death inherits the erha (shrine to the father) through which he is able to intercede in the spirit world and claim help from his lineage predecessors. The senior son becomes the head of the household and his use of erha legitimates his authority and rights over the family. In relation to erha he remains omo (child). Thus to refer to the head of the household as omo re owa (child at home) is to stress that relationship to the erha, irrespective of whether the head of the household is actually the eldest son or not. Furthermore in the setting up of erha, omo (the child) is linked both with the edion (elders) and their predecessors in the spirit world, and also with the land (Bradbury 1965: 100–1). Thus for the Oba of Benin omo delineates his legitimacy of power and descent directly from Eweka I, the founder of the present dynasty. As such he and his predecessors represent the Edo kingdom and are identified with the land over which they rule (Nevadomsky and Inneh 1983: 87, note 1). But omo also links the unique status of his office, person and predecessors with the original creation and maintenance of the kingdom. To address the Oba as omo is to underline a notion of spiritual legitimation, derived from the deep past as well as the present, that underpins his role and authority in the kingdom. Madam Odigie is being praised in a similar way about the closeness of her relations to the spirit world and the deities. There is a reiteration in the song that a name is given to children so that one may call them and, by inference, that the followers may call upon Madam Odigie to assist them. In praising Madam Odigie, however, the song also plays on the fact that the individuals singing are all members of her shrine and so are already her spiritual children. Reference has been made to Olokun as Akpowa (a distinct deity within a grouping identified as Olokun), who provides women with children and whose festival is being celebrated. Thus in a few sung phrases, a complex range of notions is delineated. The next song introduces Ezomo and his followers:

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Ta me Ezomo vie urogho ee Ezomo ubie urogho gha de Ta me Ezomo vie urogho ee Ee-ezomo vie urogho re nen-O Iyarre, iyarre nu uwe gha yo! Iyarre ave ekpen Iyarre ave eni-o.

Tell Ezomo to bring his followers Ezomo bring your warriors forth Tell Ezomo to bring his warriors forth Ee-ezomo has brought his warriors forth Go and return safely, go and return safely you shall do Go and return safely all leopards Go and return safely all elephants.

The Ezomo is the senior title at Madam Odigie’s shrine and it is a clear acknowledgment of this titleholder that she dances immediately before Madam Odigie’s entry. It is also a means of greeting and praising the assembled visitors, especially those who have brought their own followings in support of Madam Odigie’s annual festival. They are assured of a safe welcome as guests of Madam Odigie. It is a song with historical references to the role of the Ezomo as the military commander of the Oba’s armies who, as a member of the Uzama N’Ihinron (hereditary titled order), claims the same rights in many respects as the Oba of Benin. Madam Odigie is the omo (child) of the annual festival as its celebrant. Her visitors (as well as the titleholder of her shrine) are being placed in the relation of the Ezomo to the Oba, as powerful persons in their own right. In the song they are described as ekpen (leopard) and eni (elephant), animals that are often used to describe associations of power.10 Madam Odigie now takes centre stage to the music, in full possession by the deities. She is a noted singer with a large repertoire of songs that can be applied to different contexts of significance. These songs are sung in a call and response fashion with her followers providing the chorus. Other onlookers join in, especially as the bursts of drumming, dancing and singing build up in tempo. On these occasions there is no set order of songs (or even any rule as to how much of a song will be sung) as the ohen sings and dances, although some songs which are specific to particular deities will be sung during that deity’s possession of the ohen. However, different rhythms are specific to particular deities and follow the sequence of possession by deities. Experienced ohens lead the singing and drumming as their possession by the deities dictates, although this is a fluid situation that depends on circumstances at that particular point in the dance. At times the ohen may improvise new lines to the songs and the beat of the music. If appropriate to a situation a song or refrain may be repeated many times. Madam Odigie first offers local chalk (in powder form) to her visitors by way of greeting them. She then greets the deities as at the beginning of the festival, but now spends more time on those deities as she is possessed by them.

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Ugha vben uyi ugha vben egberamwe-o, ee Ugha vben utomwen Ugha vben uwa-o, ee Okun mwen vben uwa O ma mianmian vben-o, ee Oba mwen vben uwa O ma mianmian Uzebu-o, Iye Oba vben uwa O ma mianmian Uselu-o, Ulaho wo Akpowa gie ode igho kie men-o, e.

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You shall have respect You shall have good health-o, You shall have long life You shall have wealth-o, My deity has wealth He has not forgotten me-o, My Oba has wealth He has not forgotten Uzebu The queenmother has wealth She has not forgotten Uselu I implore you Akpowa let the road of money open for me.

With these words Madam Odigie gives out the blessings of Akpowa. The blessings are compared to the Oba rewarding his chief Ezomo who rules the area of Uzebu and then the queenmother who occupies the area of Uselu outside the city. These comparisons are apt for an urban shrine in Benin City where the Oba reigns. But these songs also have biographical references for Madam Odigie (see Chapter 4) who as a child served one of the iloi (queens) of Oba Eweka II at the palace. Madam Odigie then implores the deity to open the road of wealth and success for her. This is an appropriate praise song to Akpowa, ‘live long in wealth’, and a request that he continue to remember his ohen who is celebrating the annual festival for him. Also, as she is at beginning of her performance, it is also a plea to the deity to open, and so make easy, the spiritual way ahead during her performance, protecting her from ill-wishers. Ogun, the deity of metal and raw power, is now introduced. Okhuenkhuen no ri vbe abughe The Okhuenkhuen that grows at the entrance Fia ubian gio Cut it down gio Ogun na ma kan aladigbe Ogun that is not pegged, greetings Kan-o, aladigbe Pegged-o, greetings Ogun na ma kan-o aladigbe Ogun that is not pegged-o, greetings I kan oghomwen ne-o, Aladigbe. I have pegged my own already, greetings. The first two lines herald the possession of Madam Odigie by the deity Ogun. Okhuenkhuen (possibly Brachystegia eurycoma, Melzian 1937: 172) is a fast-growing plant that is cut down at the entrances to villages to keep the pathways clear for the villagers. A machete is used for this task and is ubiquitously associated with Ogun by virtue of both the wrought metal of which it is made and the action of cutlassing something down (gio, an interjection mimicking the sweep of the blade). The cutting down of plants can be extended to the way Ogun cuts down his enemies and all before him indiscriminately. The drums have shifted from the music of Olokun to

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the more insistent beat of Ogun and the dance patterns also change, with the emphasis on powerful movements rather than the graceful motions for Olokun. The lines that come next are a praise song to Ogun with Yoruba roots. A great deal of interpenetration marked the historical process of defining the boundaries between Edo- and Yoruba-speakers; and the Edo ruling dynasty claims descent from Ife. The practices associated with the group worship of Ogun, centred on a personal shrine, are considered a relatively recent (twentieth-century) urban phenomenon and may be informed by similar practices in the Yoruba areas.11 Madam Odigie has gained fluency in Yoruba both from her mother – who belonged to a notable Benin family that came from Usen, a village on the border of the Yoruba- and Edo-speaking areas – and from her cloth trading in Lagos and Ibadan. However the song has also been reinterpreted into Edo by those who do not understand Yoruba. In Yoruba the first line should run ‘Ogun mo kan’, which in Yoruba is ‘Ogun long may you reign’, while Aladigbe(re) is a Yoruba town. However the close correspondence of these words to words in Edo that have significance in the worship of Ogun allows for a reworked interpretation of the song. As part of the initiation into Ogun and the setting up of a shrine, there is the practice of fixing a metal spike into okpagha (Pentalethra macrophylla) wood. According to oral narratives, this is the wood that was first used to heat up the metal so that it might be moulded into the iron tools associated with Ogun. Thus in the Edo interpretation the song refers to the setting up of a shrine to Ogun to intercede on behalf of its owner. During the songs about the deities Madam Odigie sings of problems that are encountered in the world. She contrasts these problems with the capacity of the spirit world to resolve them. The song emphasises that she is adept in the spirit world and its deities and uses her abilities to redress the problems of her followers and clients. Agbon idoboo ye Agbon idoboo ye Idobo ri vbe agbon E re erinmwin-o Agbon idoboo ye.

Problems in the world Problems in the world Problems come in the world It is not in the spirit world Problems in the world.

In the course of the performance other songs were introduced. These songs are not exclusive to the deities or the celebrations held at the shrines but are used at other social occasions in a variety of contexts. These songs, which are often collapsed into a couple of phrases when performed during possession by the ohen, can also refer to or be part of oral narratives. Songs and oral narratives are not discrete domains. Oral narratives will often incorporate songs at key points in order to enhance and underline the themes running through them. Thus a song may also refer to an oral

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narrative that can be applied to the particular social context in which the ohen has introduced the song. The ohens who are skilful in their use of song are able to create a play between the different songs as they elide into each other to provide creative contexts of significance for the participants and onlookers. Eronmwon-o, ee Eronmwon gbe ra Ikpoba Ozigue oghi ye Eronmwon re ee-o-ee Eronmwon-o, ee

Eronmwon-o, ee Eronmwon has crossed Ikpoba river Ferryman safely bring Eronmwon forth ee-o-ee Eronmwon-o, ee

Eronmwon gbe ra Ikpoba Ozigue oghi ye Eronmwon re ee-o-ee

Eronmwon has crossed Ikpoba river Ferryman safely bring Eronmwon forth ee-o-ee

Ee-Eronmwon no ovbi Ighozua Ee-Eronmwon the daughter of Ighozua Eronmwon ghe ghi vie Eronmwon do not cry anymore Ee-Eronmwon no ovbi Ighozua Ee-Eronmwon the child of Ighozua Ee-tie re Emokpolo uwa mwen Tie re-o, ee Emokpolo uwa mwen Tie re-o, ee

Ee-call her forth Emokpolo of wealth Call her forth, ee Emokpolo of wealth Call her forth

Ogharaba de na kolo re-o Ogharaba de na kolo re Otien no mon ada nene

Breadfruit has fallen for us to eat-o Breadfruit has fallen for us to eat Otien that produces at the three junctions Young girl made portions of it, o-ee Young girl made portions of it, o-ee

Ileke ya re ze me he, o-ee Ileke ya re ze me he, o-ee

Emokpolo uwa mwen tie re-o, ee. Emokpolo of wealth call her forth. The first set of verses refers to the story of Eronmwon, the daughter of Ighozua who was an important chief under the Oba of Benin. The first verse, according to Madam Odigie, recounts how Eronmwon fell into the Ikpoba river and was presumed drowned. Ozigue the ferryman was sent across the river to retrieve the body of Eronmwon but miraculously discovered she was not dead and brought her home to safety. This is based on a supposed historical event and can be registered on that level. Madam Odigie, however, also interprets it as the intervention of the deities in the form of Ozigue in the lives of ordinary mortals as depicted by Eronmwon. Ozigue brought back Eronmwon and saved her from drowning. Eronmwon is also the word for brass, which is a precious and highly valued material. This material is valued for its permanence and, in this context of interpretation by Madam Odigie, indicates the enduring power of the deities, espe-

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cially those such as Olokun, to intervene in the affairs of individuals. In the context of the performance, it also refers to the powers of Madam Odigie and her connections in the spirit world, in particular to Akpowa, ‘live long in wealth’, as eronmwon (brass) is associated with wealth. Some ohens (such as ohen Osagie, see Chapter 4) use a brass staff to represent Olokun; although Madam Odigie does not do so, the association is widely recognised.12 In some contexts, such as prior to the entry of the ohen onto the dance floor, this song will be sung to describe and encourage the Olokun deity to come from the water spirit world to manifest in the ohen. The context of the song in the performance determines the significance for participants and onlookers of the use of particular songs by ohens when they are possessed by the deities. However these interpretations are not necessarily unanimous and may be contested by other ohens and participants. The second set of verses tells the story of Eronmwon when she waits for her father Ighozua to return from a war fought on behalf of the Oba of Benin. The war has been won and the children of the warriors who have gone to fight wait for their return at the river crossing. The full version of the song takes up this refrain, with Eronmwon asking the returning warriors for news of her father. Oliha Oba, Oliha-oghe evbo Erhamwen ne Ighozua ghi vbo? O de vbe iyeke Ewuare Erha ma wu Ghe o ma khuonmwin-o Okuro iyeke o re o khon urhe E, ee, Eronmwon-o, Eronmwon mwen-o U ma mien Eronmwon mwen ne ovbi Ighozua.

Oliha of the Oba, Oliha of the people Where is Ighozua, my father? He is coming behind Ewuare Your father is not dead He was not sick-o An ambush defeated the snail E, ee, Eronmwon, my Eronmwon-o Can you not see my Eronmwon the child of Ighozua.

She is told by various warriors, such as chief Oliha,13 that her father is still coming, behind Oba Ewuare. Finally, however, she is told that he has been ambushed and killed. Ee, Eronmwon no ovbi Ighozua Ee, Eronmwon the child of Ighozua Eronmwon ghe ghi vie. Eronmwon do not cry anymore. The phrase is sung by Madam Odigie and describes the consoling of Eronmwon by her relatives. This song of how Eronmwon learnt of her father’s death is performed on many social occasions. When someone in great distress (sickness, lack of child, unhappiness, tragedy) is brought to a shrine, the ohen and the members of the shrine will often sing this song. The deities console and make life better for the supplicant. In the context of the sequence of songs at the annual festival, it refers to the help the deities

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can bring in surmounting personal difficulties. However, the way in which Ighozua died in a secret attack has a further significance for the audience. The deities can protect from unknown attack in the spirit world through the powers of ohens like Madam Odigie, and prevent such a fate. Also, when an ohen performs in public, he or she is considered to be vulnerable to spiritual attack by rival ohens and other spiritually powerful individuals. Thus the song shows that Madam Odigie will have foreknowledge of any attacks made on her and as a consequence they will be rendered useless. The last part of Madam Odigie’s song is linked to an oral narrative about Emokpolo, a spiritually powerful woman who was married to the enogie of Ugo village cluster. She had the power to turn into different animals, indicative of her exceptional spiritual powers. These powers shielded her husband, Ebomisi. He had a very potent Osun protection, prepared using the power of leaves and other substances drawn from the bush. He would invite native doctors once a year and one of them would be offered as a sacrifice to his Osun. Only the native doctor of Ayen was able to resist his powers, demonstrating that o mwen o na, ghi mwen o ra, ‘he that has this, does not have that’. Thus Madam Odigie is compared to Emokpolo and also provides a shield against the misfortunes of the world, alluded to in the final lines of the Eronmwon song. This song is often sung in situations of great difficulty where some form of action is necessary. Then a popular song about the fruits of certain trees is introduced. By convention the fruit of Ogharaba (either the breadfruit tree Artocarpous communis or the African breadfruit tree Treculia africana) is not plucked but collected after it has fallen. The song is used to highlight the good things and fruitfulness that serving a deity can bring. Similarly the fruit of the Otien tree (Chrysophyllum albidum) is also not eaten before it falls, so extending the metaphor. Passers-by pick up the fruit as a snack when travelling. Because it is a popular fruit, footpaths are always made to the vicinity of the Otien tree. This tree theme develops the theme of the deities. Not only do the trees/deities bring good things but people will always seek them out for the benefits that they can provide. This is emphasised because the Otien is found at path junctions, always considered meeting places of the deities. This depiction of the deities is then concretely referred back to Madam Odigie as Emokpolo, the powerful and successful woman in spiritual matters. Towards the end of Madam Odigie’s performance she sings: Iri owa mwen Agha mien egbe ede ovbere.

I am going to my house We shall see ourselves another day.

Her deities indicate that they are returning to the spirit world and that Madam Odigie is ending her performance and retiring to the inner shrine. This can take quite a long time as the participation of onlookers and other ohens can change the course of the performance and prolong her public

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presence. In the final part of her performance, she sings in recognition of ohen Aibigie (see chapters 4 and 5) who is preparing to perform after her. Ighe ri eguo Ti gha ri ovbi iye mwen Ukpon mwen gha ban vbe ekun To gha rie mwen eruan

If I am to perform I will take my mother’s child If my wrapper pulls off my waist He would help me to tie it back

Ale,ale, alleluya! Ale, ale, alleluya,e-o ami Uwa gu vben kpomwen-o Aibigie mwen, ee alleluya.

Ale, ale alleluya Ale, ale, alleluya, e-o amen Allow you (the deities) to thank him My Aibigie, ee Alleluya.

This first part of the song tells of the support that children of the same mother give to each other. This is the closest relationship siblings can have in the polygamous household, where children of different mothers can be in direct competition. It is part of a popular song sung in many other social contexts. Here, it highlights the support that ohen Aibigie has given her by attending and participating at the festival. The closeness of their relationship is emphasised by reference to him as a child of the same mother. As Madam Odigie initiated ohen Aibigie into Olokun, he is also her child in the spirit world and has these obligations to his ‘mother’. So he is not simply recognised publicly by this song but is also praised for fulfilling his obligations. This is reinforced by the following set of verses, derived from church services but also extremely popular as a song applied to the deities and those who serve them. The original words are retained to the extent that the exclusively Christian ami, amen, is kept, although ise is customarily the word used in its place at shrines. In the last line ohen Aibigie is identified as a child of the deities. Madam Odigie’s devotees and ohen Aibigie’s followers sing the refrain to these verses together in mutual support. Oye-ye-ye! O-yes-yes-yes! Umien ewa ne Edo mwen wa re-o! Do you see the mat that my people have spread oye-ye-ye! O-yes-yes-yes! Umien ewa ne Edo mwen wa re-o! Do you see the mat that my people have spread. Here ohen Aibigie takes up the singing as Madam Odigie retires to her inner shrine. This verse is also a well-known expression that is used to describe how people behave. Ohen Aibigie is commenting on how he has been received by Madam Odigie and her followers. In this case it is to praise them but, in other contexts, it can also be used in a disparaging sense. This is followed by:

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Igheghan do! Igheghan do! Igiogho! Aighi we ghe igheghan oma weghe-o.

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Little bell welcome! Little bell welcome! Igiogho! Little bell cannot be shaken not to make a sound-o.

Igheghan are the little bells cast of brass that are associated with the worship of Olokun. Igiogho, the sound of these bells, describes the approach of the deities from the water spirit world and is the introduction to ohen Aibigie’s performance as he is possessed by his deities. Soon after, he sings: E-ghai vbe utun vbe ogo!

E-oghomwen ughaen no Oghere egue Iyarre

E-you don’t uproot mushrooms in the forest E-my own is a different one A unique one Safe return E-you don’t uproot mushrooms in the forest E-my own is a different one A unique one Safe return

Eronmwon-o,ee Ehia ni use aghi re ebo Ikoka ne ehia vbie-e.

Eronmwon-o,ee All that say who is a deity They have landed up as nothing.

E-oghomwen ughaen no oghere egue Iyarre E-ghai vbe utun vbe utun

This song tells of a variety of poisonous mushroom found in the forest which is not used in cooking. The lines sung here are part of a narrative of a young girl who is sent to the farm to collect yams. While there she picks some mushrooms which she greedily cooks and eats by herself. Later she returns to her parents, who have been wondering why she is so late in returning. She behaves tipsily, and after a few minutes falls down dead. A few days later, the mother goes to the farm and sees the same deliciouslooking mushrooms, which she starts to gather. But the daughter returns as a spirit in the form of a bird to warn her mother, singing E-ghai vbe utun vbe ogo, ‘E-you don’t uproot mushrooms in the forest’. The daughter has taken the form of ahianmwen ne ukioya, the bird that foretells fortune and misfortune. In present-day dynastic oral traditions, this bird is associated with Oba Esigie, who disregarded its warnings and went on to win an important battle against the Ata of Igala. Ohen Aibigie uses the song to underline the strength of his powers to the audience. He also warns other ohens in the audience not to try and test him unless they too want the same fate as the daughter in the song. At the festival there are several ohens of a similar age or contemporary to him in terms of spiritual seniority, which is measured from the time of initiation and not the actual age. His seniority at the shrine and his right

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to perform immediately after Madam Odigie may be an object of envy and jealousy to his contemporaries, especially as some of them also claim a close and long relation to her, and may predispose some of them to challenge him spiritually. At the same time he is also emphasising that his own powers are different to those of Madam Odigie. She uses her powers solely to help others and repair any damage or harm that has been caused in the spirit world. All ohens recognise the individual qualities of their powers and knowledges, which are exclusive to themselves. Ohen Aibigie is noted for the power of his medicines to protect – but also to punish and discipline. Ohen Aibigie compares Madam Odigie to Eronmwon in the closing lines. He then warns onlookers against presuming that they can disregard the deities and the ohens who serve them. He stamps his authority on the proceedings through his ability to elaborate several contexts of significance in his songs by his virtuoso dancing, which demonstrates the potency of his deities and the vocal support of his followers. The other young ohens soon take up the refrains of his songs and support his performance. In their enthusiasm they interject with: Ima gba ye Edo Ima gba re Aibigie ne ovbivben-o Ima gba ye Edo Ima gba re Ee-Aibigie no yin ke Okun Ima gba ye Edo Ima gba re Iyarre-ee.

We went to Benin together We came together Aibigie my child We went to Benin together We came together Ee-Aibigie that lives with the deities We went to Benin together We came together Safe return-ee.

This is a praise song which compresses several notions. The notion of visiting Benin City is an action considered beneficent in itself. Benin City has as a praise name Edo ne evbo ahire, which Egharevba (1968: 16) translates as ‘city of love’. However a closer translation would be ‘city that is the place one is tied to’, which emphasises the city’s centrality in the affairs of the Edo kingdom and also the notion of it as the place where a person wishes to reincarnate (J. N. Nevadomsky, personal communication, 1990). This is used by mourners as a pledge on behalf of the newly deceased, indicating that he or she will return to Benin City in their next incarnation. Similarly, many oral narratives and proverbs demonstrate how visits to Benin City bring rewards and riches. In the context of this performance, however, the song suggests that the deities will assist a person who has a relationship with them (as an initiate). This is evoked through the idea of accompanying the person to Benin City. The deities will reward such a person with all the success that the visit to Benin entails, as well as protecting the individual in his or her endeavours to

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reach the city. The image is extended, by implication, to his or her progress through life. The singing of ima gba re, ‘we went together’, is also used to refer to the other ohens who are supporting ohen Aibigie in his performance. They are underlining their solidarity with him but also aligning themselves as children of the deity and full-time ohens who are peers to ohen Aibigie – or so they would like to claim. In their enthusiasm for the performance, one young ohen stands up and sings ‘Aibigie no yin ke Okun’, ‘Aibigie that lives with the deities’, a particularly fulsome praise of ohen Aibigie. Madam Odigie comments afterwards that it can be accepted as a statement made in the moment of possession by the deities, and thus is not challenged at the time. But she also says that it is the praise name of Oroma, which the ohen has transliterated to praise ohen Aibigie. Although it may be accepted at face value by some individuals, Madam Odigie considers it to be wrongly applied in this instance, indicating a youthful ohen’s lack of knowledge of the deities. CONCLUSION

This partial sequence from Madam Odigie’s annual festival has provided a means to examine some of the ways in which ideas and practices are conceptualised, and to explore the production of some of those ideas and practices. By focusing on the performance of the songs, I have tried to demonstrate how the songs can introduce genres drawn from other institutions, with their associated ideas and practices. They can derive from a variety of sources: the churches, the institutions of the Oba, urban and village oral traditions. Significances are used, appropriated and/or transformed according to the context in which they are situated by the performing ohen and other participants – all to present the unique creative and spiritual capabilities of that ohen. It is these capabilities that mark out the ohen’s relationships with the deities, thereby articulating notions of his or her power and efficacy. This exposition of a partial and fragmented sequence of song in performance has demonstrated the complexity and interplay of ideas and practice that are utilised. Within an urban environment followers and clients have many choices – they may go to other ohens and their shrines, but also to alternative institutions such as the churches. This competition between different ohens encourages the development of their creativity and the use of many different mediums and resources to attract followers and clients. The emphasis on the unique capabilities that each ohen has is related to the personal relationship that the ohen has with the spirit world. However, the authority of the deities that conceptually underpins all ohen practice provides a framework in which ohens can creatively and legitimately introduce innovative ideas and practice. The example of song has shown how they can draw on the various configurations of ideas and practices within the insti-

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tutions of shrines – such as family shrines or regional village communal shrines – and also, as importantly, how they are able to derive ideas and practices from other traditions, contexts and institutions.

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7 THE PARROT’S TALE

The last chapter considered the role of song as part of the ideas and practices at contemporary urban shrine configurations. The contextual association of songs with artefacts raises the question of interrelationships between the verbal and visual. Both play an important part in the configuration of urban contemporary shrines, where songs and artefacts are interdependent while retaining their own trajectories of ideas and practice (Gore 1998). Song provides verbal associations that offer one approach to understanding these artefacts in shrine configurations and the wider context of ideas and practices of which the artefacts are a part (Gombrich 1960; Picton 1986: 8). However, these songs do not offer some direct kind of meta-commentary that explains the significances of these artefacts. More specifically, they do not provide unmediated access to how artefacts represent wider contexts of ideas and practices (thereby standing for something other than themselves) or to their concrete material forms as contexts of ideas and practices in themselves. As many commentators (Picton 1986: 11; Layton 1981: 145–6, Wollheim 1980: 150; Preziosi 1989: 44–53; Gell 1998) have observed, the capacity of art to represent (and there are many different means through which representation may be constituted) differs from that of language. Art is a means of communication; the problem arises when language (another means of communication) is taken as the underlying model for that of art. Art and everyday language are very different; albeit that once everyday language becomes structured in ways that make it less everyday (the most obvious ways are rhyme, rhythm, allusive referral such as metaphor), it is becoming an ‘art’, most obviously in poetry.1 Art and language are each mediums of communication; language can be structured to become art, and art can also become visual communication like language in its informative capacity, such as public signage. But it is often taken for granted that there is a ‘language of art’ that somehow parallels the use of language in everyday speech or, in more rigorous theorising (especially the semiological), draws on the formalised technical operations and procedures of linguistic models. Such models, however, produce repetitive and redundant decodings that provide little useful or precise information, suggesting that art is inefficient as a medium of communication – in a linguistic sense. As Barley (1992: 95)

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notes, ‘To suggest that on this level of communication objects constitute a language and have a meaning at anything but the most elementary level, is to stretch the metaphor grossly.’ Layton (1981: 145–6) takes up this issue to highlight Wollheim’s concern with the mechanics of aesthetic expression, quoting his comment that ‘the conditions in which a work of art gains in unity are the same as those in which redundancy is increased: for our awareness of a pattern is coincident with a large number of our expectations being realised’ (Wollheim 1970: 150). This idea that art has quite different ends from language use (in its mundane, information-imparting sense) is taken further by Picton (1986: 12), who argues that artworks are not simply signs to be decoded (in often banal ways) but also things in themselves (see Sontag 1966) and, as such, provide a material ordering of ideas and practices that can be used by individuals as part of the cognitive processes by which they interpret the social world.2 There are other more obvious ways in which relationships between the visual and verbal are established, especially in the ongoing processes of fieldwork. One is in the commentary sometimes spontaneously made by individuals in response to the circumstances of performances and events at shrines, or elicited from individuals during fieldwork.3 Such commentaries vary with the individual concerned, the particular social situation at the time of asking, and the ways in which any question, if asked by the attendant fieldworker, is structured. Moreover, the absence of words, as Lewis (1980: 72) notes, does not preclude that ‘concepts may sometimes be held, yet expressed in actions far more often and conspicuously than in words’. Lewis goes on to recount the importance of dialogue in his own research in a village in west Sepik in Papua New Guinea. Two years into his fieldwork, a conversation about wild animals leads him to understand a major degree of divergence between his conceptualisation of wild animals and that of his hosts (Lewis 1980: 136–8). Whereas he presumes that wild animals die unobserved in much the same way as domesticated animals in the village age and die, his hosts make no such presumptions about wild animals as they are unobserved in the wild and, at least for some, there is no evidence that wild animals die. Similarly, it was only towards the end of one lengthy period of fieldwork in Benin City that it became apparent to me that the routine explanation provided about the practice of wearing the parrot’s red feather to denote the ritual authority of the ohen was an incomplete gloss that elided much of its significance. It should rather be understood as part of a series of ideas and practices that embed the red tail feather of the African Grey Parrot as an artefact in a range of possibilities and significances, dependent on individuals’ actions and intentions.4 It is necessary to explore the various ways in which it can be situated to understand the specific context in which such an artefact is constituted and placed at a given moment within a trajectory of ideas and practices (Gombrich 1960: 264–78).

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RED AND WHITE FEATHER S

Eba or ebakhue, the red feather from the tail of the African Grey parrot, is used in ways that impart to it an important role in the ideas and practices of ohens. At any public performance most ohens will wear the red parrot tail feather fixed into their hair above their foreheads. This is their right as Igie ohens, chief priests, who have undergone the fourteen-day initiation into one or more of the deities. The prestige and status of this initiation gives an individual the absolute right to wear the red parrot feather, backed as it is by the initiating ohens (who are senior in status and usually older). These ohens act as sponsors of the new ohen among their colleagues. This use of the parrot’s red tail feather also asserts the claim to be a full-time practising ohen with the full spiritual powers of the deities necessary for that practice.5 A formal mode of greeting an Igie ohen is to present an offering of local chalk, some money and a parrot’s red tail feather that acknowledges his or her status. As a consequence, Igie ohens are able to uphold their right to wear the red parrot feather in both agbon and erinmwin (the material and spirit worlds respectively). The red parrot feather is worn irrespective of the particular deity that an ohen has initiated into and usually remains a single feather, no matter how many deities the ohen has acquired. It is a convention that attests to the role of a practising Igie ohen, in effect a badge of identity that confers a certain authority. However, this is not the only feather that can be worn by an ohen. The igan oghohon, the white plume of the vulturine fish eagle, is worn occasionally by ohens in conjunction with the ebakhue at public events. Titleholders in the institutions of the Oba of Benin also wear the vulturine fish eagle feather. It is one of the adornments of chieftaincy and is recognised as such within the institutions that confer chieftaincy and also by the general populace. Thus there is a common saying Igan oghohon o re ke uhunmwun ne ivie, ‘Vulturine fish eagle feather that is above coral beads’. Coral beads are used by the Oba of Benin (and the palace institutions) to confer chieftaincy on an individual, who then has the right to wear coral. In the 1980s and 1990s the high status and prestige of coral beads led many individuals in Benin City who are neither chiefs nor royal officials to wear coral on public occasions.6 But at the palace of the Oba of Benin ivie (coral) has a ritual context and the personal coral regalia of the Oba has a festival dedicated to it when sacrifices are offered. Coral has a history as a prestigious trade good that is also associated with kingship and the domain of Olokun, the deity of the water. As we saw in Chapter 1, one narrative has it that Oba Ewuare wrested the coral from Olokun under the sea (Bradbury, R. Series Fieldnotes, n.d.) and coral is also associated with various practices in the worship of the Olokun deity. For example, ohens who have Olokun as a deity wear urigbe (anklets) of coral, cowries and brass strung together, and uleku (a pendant associated with Olokun that also has coral as one component) about their necks.

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The linking of coral and the vulturine fish eagle feather in the saying suggests that the association is synonymous with chieftaincy. At some palace ceremonies, chiefs wear coral about their necks while the white feather stands above it, placed in their hair or head covering. This also ties in with oral narratives of how the fish eagle was unable to overcome and eat the wily tortoise until he had matured and his feathers had turned snowy white. By then he had the strength and experience to best the tortoise without further injury. Chieftaincy is shown to come with maturity and the necessary qualities to achieve public success in life (Nevadomsky 1988a: 75). This accords with the usual means of acquiring chieftaincy titles at the palace: more often than not, these are attained by individuals in their mature years when they have gained eminence in public affairs in Benin City and the substantial financial backing necessary to fund the public taking of such a title. This process includes holding the various ceremonies and the presentation of gifts to the palace as well as the senior incumbents of the particular palace association to which the individual affiliates on taking his title (Aisien 2001). The vulturine fish eagle feather is also used during the second burial rites. In this instance, it is worn by the sons of the deceased who perform isoton, a ceremony in which each son parades through the town with his supporters to the statue of Emotan to offer prayers for the well-being of the deceased and the family. The okun, a box decorated with brass cut-outs that represents the wealth of the deceased, is also carried at the head of the procession. Okun also translates as the sea and its use as okun (funeral box) is tied up with notions that the wealth acquired by the deceased was accumulated through associations with Olokun, who, as the deity of the water, provides such wealth (Bradbury 1965: 109–11). Wealth is often linked to historical associations of trade of various kinds. Much of this trade was conducted along the river routes and ultimately fed into the various forms of Atlantic trade. Dynastic narratives remember these activities as organised by the Oba of Benin and his chiefs through the trading station of Ughoton. There are also notions that the deceased travel to Ughoton and across the sea in order to reach Osa, the supreme god, to report on the deeds of their lives. The initiation of ohens begins at rivers and/or the sea and is conceptualised as going under the water (see the biographies of Madam Asiruwa Iyamu, Chapter 4 and Mr George Oni, the ohen Ogun Nomayisi, Chapter 5). The idea of water mediates between agbon and erinmwin. Moreover, in developing or consolidating relations to erinmwin, they are also entering the realm of the dead (see Chapter 3 for a discussion of the etymology of erinmwin). The eldest son will wear the vulturine fish eagle feather throughout the funeral rites. This use of the feather is associated with the practice of the eldest son inheriting his father’s house and most of his goods on completion of these rites. He is now mature and can take up his father’s social role as the head

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of the household (see Chapter 6 on heads of households and how they may be conceptualised). The wearing of the vulturine fish eagle feather by ohens can be used in two contexts of practice (there are others but I do not want to digress). Ohens who have had chieftaincy conferred on them by the palace have the right to wear both the coral beads and the vulturine fish eagle feather in public as participants in those institutions. However, it is possible to have titles of chieftaincy conferred by subordinate institutions to the palace, such as the titles that the Iye n’Oba (queen mother) has the right to confer in her domain of Uselu. The Uzama N’Ihinron (hereditary title order) also notionally have this right in the domains over which they rule in Benin City, although the practice has virtually died out. Similarly, in towns such as Udo and some villages, titles are conferred on eminent members, although not all such titles are recognised by the institutions of the Oba of Benin. But many ohens wear the vulturine fish eagle feather simply by virtue of being Igie ohen, which gives them a pre-eminence and seniority, seemingly comparable to the status of chiefs, in the spiritual world (Girshick BenAmos 1994). Indeed, during initiation an ohen may acquire a personal name of the deity that has the explicit status of a chief in relation to that deity (see Chapter 4 and Madam Odigie’s deities). Igie ohens can also confer titles on their followers which are similar to and informed by those conferred by the institutions of the Oba – although ohens claim that their titles precede those of the palace in that they are direct from the spirit world. Followers may wear the vulturine fish eagle feather as part of their role within the shrine during public performances,7 but there is a further implication that the individual concerned is powerful in the spiritual world (or at the very least has special protection there from the ohen of the shrine). The vulturine fish eagle feather is used by the palace institutions in the conferment and holding of chieftaincy titles. This feather is explicitly linked in verbal narratives to maturity and the achievements so gained. Beyond these verbal explanations, however, palace institutional practice serves to define and legitimate many of the contexts of significance that are attributed to this feather. These contexts can also inform other social contexts (such as in medicines and other practices) in which this feather is used. With these other social contexts the institutions of the Oba may have no direct connection or other association. Stories, songs and sayings concerning ebakhue, the red parrot feather, are more resistant to direct exegesis. It is used in the practice of Igie ohens and also in masquerades from some of the villages that are a part of the Edo kingdom. In these masquerades the parrot feather is used either singly, or often in considerable numbers, and some of the feathers are placed in a position on or above the head of the masquerade, analogous to the way they are worn by ohens. Although such masquerades are conceptualised

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very differently from ohens (Picton 1990b), the placement of the feathers is linked to the spiritual powers that are on display in the public appearance of the masquerade (Lopsaic 1963, 1997; Bradbury 1973c; Girshick BenAmos and Omoregie 1969; Girshick Ben-Amos 1997). Red parrot feathers (as well as the feathers of other birds, see Nevadomsky 1988a) are also used in a variety of medicines, often for efficacy in protection and warding off dangers of various kinds. The parrot feather may be embedded in other materials, immersed in liquid or burnt and ground up with other substances, depending on the purpose and usage of the prepared medicine. The use of the parrot feather in these contexts depends on the individual bodies of knowledge of the ohen or native doctor who prepares the medicine for the client. For example, ohen Adigbe (see Chapter 4) wears a medicine about his waist at public occasions where he performs, called Okhue gha la ame o ghi ro, ‘If parrot has to pass rain it has to stay’ – meaning that the parrot will not enter into the rain and become wet. The purpose of this medicine for ohen Adigbe is to prevent rain any time he is performing, irrespective of the weather conditions.8 The display of this medicine in public performances also indicates his prowess as a native doctor to any onlooker. N A R R A T I VE S O F T H E P A R R O T F E A T H E R

Several narratives about the parrot and her red feathers are told by ohens who practise in Benin City. One common narrative, as recounted by ohen Ominigie, describes how the feathers were borrowed from another bird, erekhue (the green fruit pigeon) (Munro 1967: 87). Both birds went to an ugie and the parrot asked the erekhue to lend her the red feathers that she possessed. A song is often sung at this point in the narrative – as well as during public performances by ohens: Eba okhue ne o su okhue ye ugie

Red feathers of parrot accompany parrot at the festival Enibo Enibo E-e-e eba okhue ne o su ye ugie o-e. E-e-e it is red feathers of parrot accompany it at the festival o-e. However, after the celebration parrot did not return the red feathers but kept them. Since that time erekhue has been crying out for her feathers ‘eba mwen vbo?’ (where are my feathers?) Most birds have particular calls – sometimes more than one – that are described by Edo phrases. These words can also be sung: Ovbi okhue rhie eba mwen gunmwen oko Enibo Ovbi okhue rhie eba mwen

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Child of parrot bring my red feathers to me friend Enibo Child of parrot bring

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gunmwen o yemwen Eba okhue ne o su okhue ye ugie Enibo.

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my red feathers to me for it is precious to me Red feathers that accompany parrot to the festival Enibo.

Parrot was recognised as the owner of the red feathers from this time onward. Madam Odigie (see chapters 4 and 6) added that parrot went to visit Udo, a large town, but at the ughe (town entrance) her feathers fell off and were gathered up to make a cloth of ododo (red cloth). This can be sung as: Okhue rie Udo ghe o re mwen-o Ukugba ododo ne o mu fua vbe ughe.

Okhue is going to Udo but it did not pain me-o Belt of red cloth that she lost at the entrance.

Another narrative concerning the parrot was recounted by ohen Asonmwonorrirri (who features in Chapter 5) in which the parrot was so beautiful that jealous people made charms in order that she would suffer from itee (continuous menstrual discharge). This appeared on her feathers but the parrot was able to transform them into beautiful red feathers that further enhanced her beauty. A saying that recalls this event is ebakhue ghi ba gheghe, ‘parrot’s red feather does not become red half-way’. This saying can be recited or sung in conjunction with the story of erekhue and parrot, and is also used in other contexts.9 There is a similar narrative about oromwe (the guinea fowl) that is used to serve uhunmwun (the head and the seat of good or bad fortune) in thanksgiving celebrations. In this story all the malevolent intentions of those who were jealous of the guinea fowl were transformed by the head of the guinea fowl into beautiful black-and-white spotted feathers that enhanced the guinea fowl even further. Thus in offering the guinea fowl as a sacrifice, all harmful intentions and events directed at the celebrant are transformed into good things that enhance his or her life. Ohen Asonmwonorrirri recounted another narrative explaining why ohens wear ebakhue (the red parrot feather): this one concerns the deity Orunmila. In Edo-speaking areas, Orunmila is linked to the nature of ehi (a person’s spiritual counterpart) which determines the roles that a person can successfully achieve in agbon. In this narrative Orunmila introduces the red parrot feather into the world. The other deities come to him to receive this gift that has proved too difficult for them to find in the bush. Orunmila gives it to them in return for goods and services that they bring him: he thus draws attention to himself as a mediator between humans and the other deities. A similar version can be found in Thomas’s presentation of Edo texts (1910a: 40) where Osanobua (a form of Osa, the supreme deity) helps a poor man to obtain red parrot feathers in exchange for which the various

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deities offer rewards. It concludes with the deity Ovia taking a large number with which to dress. However, there is no mention of Orunmila. The story can be used to explain Ovia’s appearance. It can also be used to privilege Ovia over the other communal deities described (the informant may have come from Ovia local government area, where this deity is worshipped). It also presents a charter and legitimation of the use of the red parrot feather in the accoutrements of the Ovia masquerade. Orunmila or Ifa has a wide following in the Yoruba-speaking areas which extend from the north-west boundaries of Edo-speaking peoples westwards into the Republic of Benin. Orunmila is recognised by Edo speakers as deriving from the Yoruba region but its practice in the Edo-speaking areas had been documented by Dennett (1968: 148) in 1910. In present-day Benin City, apart from individuals who have been initiated into Orunmila either as devotees or full-time ohens as part of urban contemporary shrine configurations, there is also an Orunmila centre/church organised in a comparable manner to the Aladura churches. The Edo author Ibie (1986: 246) has presented a similar narrative of the parrot to that recounted by ohen Asonmwonorrirri in the first volume of a proposed seventeen-volume work on Orunmila that describes the major odu or signs of personal destiny. In this narrative a Yoruba incantation invoking the parrot is quoted: Idemu odide werewe, It multiplied in small measure, Oni bati anni aje ile eni dide ninde He who attains riches multiplies, Ayaa ile eni dide ninde, He who has plenty of wives also multiplies Omo ile eni dide ninde. Just as he who has many children multiplies. This saying is a measure of the success and authority that the parrot has – the odu presents the various achievements of the successful individual. Ibie’s narrative tells how Esu wrapped a red cloth around the tail of parrot and with sacrifices transformed the parrot feathers to red. Esu then declared that the red feathers would be an emblem of authority and permit the deities to see into the future. This is perhaps the most direct written explanation of the practice, but such narratives are not used in explanations by Edospeaking ohens in Benin City on the use of the red parrot feather. The odu sayings in the text are in Yoruba, with some key concepts also translated into Edo, although the interpretation and the remainder of the book are in English. It is relevant to note that while the book (privately printed by the author) is published in Benin City for an Edo-speaking audience, the author was based in Lagos (in the civil service) for most of his working life. Most of his informants were Ifa priests in Ondo state and the narratives are from the Yoruba-speaking areas, although they are interpreted for an

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Edo-speaking audience. Nevertheless, comparisons may be drawn with the narratives presented by ohen Asonmwonorrirri, which explain the use of the parrot feather by relating it to the authority of Orunmila. Ibie’s book is very occasionally cited in explanations of ehi (the particular destiny of an individual known as ‘star’ in pidgin English in Benin City). It is possible that the book may be cited in future in explaining the parrot feather (though no one used it in this way during my time there). In his study on Ifa divination, gathered predominantly in Ife but also in other parts of the Yoruba-speaking area, Bascom (1969: 513) has recorded one verse of the odu Ofun Irosun concerning the red parrot feather. It recounts Ojuro going with the sea goddess Olokun to perform her festival. Ojuro becomes lost in the forest and finds a pile of parrot feathers upon which she sleeps, not knowing that this is the bed of the king of the parrots. However, on waking she is able to find her way out. Part of the injunction of this verse is to offer sacrifice to deities associated with the red parrot feather in order not to become lost, spiritually or physically. Bascom presented this as an explanation of the use of the red parrot feather. But this narrative is another that fails to appear in explanations encountered in Benin City among the ohens interviewed. There might be some resistance to its use among Edo-speaking Orunmila devotees, if acquainted with it, as Olokun is usually defined as a male deity, whether located in rivers or the sea, in contrast to Olokun’s presence as a sea goddess in the Yoruba-speaking areas. However a short narrative recounted by ohen Ikpiname tells of how the king of the parrots had a bed made up from the red feathers of all his subjects; if this feather bed is seen by someone, he or she will become wealthy. This version may be informed by a similar oral narrative to that recorded by Bascom, particularly as ohen Ikpiname is fluent in the Yoruba language. It is evident that the use of the red parrot feather in relation to local deities is a practice which extends beyond the Edo-speaking area and has a wider regional distribution. However, the contexts of its use are not homologous and significances from one locality of usage cannot be inferred for other disparate localities. Their usage relates directly to the way specific individual agents situate a material artefact in its particular local contexts of ideas and practices, even if in so doing they may have drawn from the possibilities (and constraints) available in a range of diverse and at times heterogeneous narratives. INTER PRETATIONS

Various means of interpretation might be employed in attempting to relate these narratives to the convention of wearing ebakhue (the red parrot feather) by ohens. A functionalist approach might suggest that these narratives constitute a charter of authority and are instrumental in sustaining the legitimacy of the social institutions that use the parrot feather. These usages

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are an emblem of authority for ohens and mark out the spiritual concerns which they define and perpetuate within the institution of shrines. In this context the parrot feather can also be interpreted as showing the power and authority that is required to be an ohen, subject to both material and spiritual attack from competitive rivals. In this sense the parrot feather serves as a mandate for the authority that an ohen requires, one which is reinforced by its close conjunction with the use of ododo (red cloth), also worn publicly by ohens to assert authority in the physical and spirit world (Nevadomsky and Inneh 1983: 52). Various partial strands of these narratives can be used to support this form of functionalist interpretation. But at certain junctures this interpretation can also constitute a self-determining tautology that depends on an arbitrary legitimation derived more from the functionalist approach itself than from actual participants in the field. The narratives are then used to substantiate a model of institutions and society that elides or marginalises the contexts of human practice and intentions in exchange for the privileged status of those institutions. The narratives confirm a particular model of institutions as a homeostatic social system which takes little account of innovation and change. They are reduced to a single mode of explanation that ignores the diversity of social contexts in which agents use the same narratives for different purposes. Clearly, the individuals who participate in these institutions use the narratives to assert and substantiate the legitimacy and authority of the institutions. However, the narratives cannot be confined to this sole means of interpretation without ignoring much of their content (as can be seen in the instance of the narrative of the parrot and erekhue) and context. Individuals recount and elaborate these narratives, which have their own particular conventions and contexts of practice, for diverse intentions, and thus relate them to other social contexts and practices. For example the narrative of the parrot and erekhue can be recounted by an ohen to explain why the parrot feather is used in the preparation of a medicine to produce a favourable court case or some other judgement for a client. Different elements in the narrative will be emphasised by this context of practice. Thus to relate these narratives solely to the institution in which they are situated is to disregard the construction of reference and commonality with other contexts of social practice and significances. A structuralist approach might suggest that the relation of the deity to the ohen can be represented in a series of relationships that map out various social domains. The deity is linked to the parrot, a bird that is difficult to find in the distant domain of the forest. Possession by the deity in relation to the individual parallels the relationship of the parrot to the borrowed parrot feather. The parrot has the power to take up the red feathers and resist the attacks of others. The colour red also has a transformative capacity

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that is highly valued (Girshick Ben-Amos 1997: 25) and is embedded in a range of social contexts. This mapping out can be extended to the relation of the parrot as a bird of the wild standing for the deity to the social domesticity of the human ugie (dance/celebration). A series of relationships can be constructed to delineate notions of nature and culture within such a model, which ohens mediate as they move between the spiritual and physical worlds. Such serial sets of contrasts can be drawn out using the structuralist paradigm to trace the ways in which ideas and practices are organised and coordinated conceptually within and between particular social domains, as well as flagging some of the contradictions that these may entail (LeviStrauss 1968b). But this approach, with its reliance on binary contrasts, fails to take into account the complexity of diverse and often autonomous contexts in which the ideas and practices of these narratives are situated. It can impose on diverse and heterogeneous social processes a unilinear and seemingly coordinated mapping out that is generated more by the mechanisms of the model than by interpretation of these ongoing social processes. Also, such use of contrasts often fails to take into account an inherent reductionism in this means of conceptualisation. For example, the parrot is found in the high forest, egbo, which is impassable (or difficult to pass through) rather than the bush, oha, which is secondary forestation accessed easily by humans and from which farms are carved out. The location of the parrot in the high forest is why it is conceptualised as remote or distant, belonging to a different domain. This suggests there are a range of conceptualisations which a simple contrast of oha (bush) and owa (home) exclude. This is not to say that individuals do not make use of these kinds of contrasts. A notable example is that the Oba of Benin is known as ekpen n’owa (‘the leopard of the home’) which is contrasted with ekpen n’oha (‘the leopard of the bush’), whereby a series of identifications is made between Obas and leopards: they are both rulers of their domains; they both have the power of life and death; they both have impressive regalia and other attributes in common. It is by the use of visual metaphors that the power of the Oba of Benin is constituted hegemonically as part of the natural world (Girshick Ben-Amos 1976b) and here a structural analysis can offer insight. But the series of contrasts involving parrots and that involving leopards are autonomous or incommensurate, as they constitute different orderings of power and knowledge (D. Ben-Amos 1987). Moreover, socially competent individuals in Edo society use these contrasts as a shorthand to refer to underlying commonalities of knowledge, such as, for example, that parrots inhabit egbo or that there are not only ekpen n’owa and ekpen n’oha but also atalakpa (‘leopards as wild and dangerous animals’). These forms of contrast appear significant to more socially distant agents who do not have access to the often disparate and autonomous social contexts in which they

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are framed and contextualised by individuals in Benin City. The problem is further compounded by the arbitrary extension of significance attached to the use of such contrasts so that they come to be constructed by more socially distant agents rather than the individuals participating in the original and constitutive social contexts. The reduction of the narratives to such a monolithic series of contrasts presents a partial construction that privileges a set of relations defined by the generative schema of the model. This again elides the differing social actions and intentions of agents and the ongoing means of social negotiation and contestation as constituted through space and time. Structuralist approaches can offer a method of elucidating the data – but always one must add the qualification that this usefulness is partial, as one needs different models for understanding different aspects of social processes. These interpretations of the narratives of the red parrot’s feather are further complicated by other sayings about the parrot. In interviews, ohens Ominigie, Madam Odigie and Asonmwonorrirri, among others, noted that the parrot is famously tricky or deceptive in its behaviour: for example, the parrot’s claws are described as leaving an imprint that points in two directions in a saying quoted by ohen Ominigie before presenting the narrative of the parrot’s tail: Owe vbe odaro, owe vbe iyeke A ghi gue ode ore ya la.

Leg points forward, leg points backwards One does not know how to pass by.

As a consequence one cannot tell which direction the parrot has taken. As well as describing a devious individual, the saying is also used to epitomise a situation or person that one cannot understand, with the added implication of deception. Another common expression brings out the way the parrot uses powers of deception to perform its trickery: Okhue ne omwan eke ne omwan ero.

Parrot that person (it) deceive that person (it) trick.

Clearly in some contexts the parrot has negative associations that would not legitimate the practice of ohens, who are evaluated on the basis of their capabilities and need to distinguish themselves from dishonest individuals who claim spiritual resources that are unsubstantiated and unrealised. On some occasions ohens will commence their performances with a song warning that onlookers should beware of charlatans. Yet the associations of deceit with the parrot are not used as a device for criticising an ohen, or for one ohen to criticise another. This would suggest that these narratives about parrots and parrot feathers do not cohere as a single means of explanation and are resistant to any overarching interpretation. It is rather that the explanations should be grounded in the differing and sometimes disparate contexts of ideas and practice.

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CONTEXTS OF PRACTICE

It is evident that the wearing of the parrot feather and its positioning above the forehead (in contrast to the vulturine fish eagle feather, usually placed on the left side of the head) relates to other ideas and practices. There is the notion that the forehead is linked with uhunmwun (the head). The head, which is recognised to be the seat of judgement and will as well as of most of the senses, is associated with a person’s ‘luck’. A man is spoken of as having ‘a good head’ or ‘a bad head’ according to his fortunes in life. (Bradbury and Lloyd 1957: 58) It is a common practice after experiencing a piece of good fortune or success to offer a sacrifice to the head in thanksgiving at the household shrine, and also sometimes at the shrine of an ohen. Individuals who are successful in society may elect to have a shrine erected to uhunmwun (their head). The annual ceremony to the head, Igue, takes place over the course of December and ends early in January. It commences with Olokun Igue, held at some important communal shrines dedicated to Olokun; then comes the Oba’s Igue (now held during the Christmas holiday), which is also a festival of thanksgiving for the fortunes of the Edo kingdom and of dedication to the coming year. This is followed by the Igue held by people of high rank and finally the ceremonies of the common people. Uhunmwun (the head) of an ohen is considered to stand for those of his or her followers. Members of a shrine are protected by the powers of the ohen through his or her successful personal links with the deities and spirit world. Harm and evil intentions are warded off and transformed into good things for the ohen and the followers. This is typified in the principal sacrifice of guinea fowl to the head, which is explained by the narrative of how the guinea fowl transformed evil intentions into the variegated beauty of her plumage, further enhancing herself. At the beginning of ceremonies to serve the head conducted at shrines, the live guinea fowl is placed against the forehead. After its sacrifice the blood is offered to the deities and then placed on the forehead of the celebrant. With most sacrifices the same procedure is adopted, so that the deities may intervene directly to influence ‘the head’ – the luck or fortune of the individual. The importance of uhunmwun (the head) for ohens can also be seen in some of the conventions of practice: one example is the common practice of ‘spraying’ money (the public offering of banknotes which are placed on the body or at the feet of the celebrant as part of the spectacle) at public events as a means of praise, support and thanksgiving. Often this cascade of money is first directed at the forehead (as well as dropped on the chest, body or floor). ‘Spraying’ the forehead, the money offering has maximum visibility in relation to onlookers. Indeed, at funerals in wealthy families well-wishers often cause a continuous stream of banknotes to flow from

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the foreheads of the children of the deceased. These will be collected by a helper with the aid of a box held at waist height to catch the falling notes. At the public events of ohens it is quite usual for them to be ‘sprayed’ by other ohens, supporters and well-wishers, as well as grateful clients and interested onlookers. However the forehead of an ohen is never sprayed with money (rather it is dropped to the ground) and this would cause public outrage if attempted. This is because, in the act of ‘spraying’ the head of the ohen, it is considered that individuals would be able to place harmful intentions on the money, bringing misfortune on the ohen and his or her followers. The money is not considered harmful in itself but in such circumstances could be used as the conduit of harmful intentions on the part of the donor, who may have subjected it to medicinal preparations, charms and other ritual powers. In another example, ohen Adigbe has a cap made up of cowries known as ede ne igho, ‘cap of money’, which has been fortified medicinally. On appropriate occasions, wearing the cap, he will confer blessings on his needy followers by proffering them native chalk and a single cowrie taken from a mound of cowries on the altar of the shrine. By this act he confers prosperity on the follower who is expected to benefit financially in the coming year. This ceremony is often performed just prior to his annual festival, when the followers are called upon to make large contributions to the outlay required for the annual festival.10 At public performances the parrot and his red feathers sometimes appear in songs by the ohen, usually towards the beginning of the performance or heralding its commencement. The image of the parrot, with the transformative capacities of its red feathers, presages possession of the ohen (who wears the parrot feather) by the deities. Ovbie okhue-o I ma de vbe ugbo ede Okhue-o

Child of parrot-o I not fall at farm ever parrot-o

Ovbie okhue-o Gele ya eba ku me ghe Ovbie okhue-o

child of parrot-o really use red feather to dance for me to see child of parrot-o

Ododo e, e-o Ododo o yo ugie

Red cloth e, e-o Red cloth it goes to festival

I te ra de I ma ghi de Oto sien okhian mwen.

I about to fall I not then fall ground slipped enemy of mine.

In this sequence sung by ohen Uhuname towards the beginning of one of her performances, various notions are linked together. In the first verse she introduces the parrot and combines it with a proverb which indicates that

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she never performs below expectation, underlining the magnitude of her power. There is also the suggestion of falling, which portends misfortune for the ohen within a year if it occurs during a performance. The message of her song is that she is more powerful than any challenges from jealous ohens or witches who might try to overcome her spiritually, thus causing her to fall. The following verse mentions the red feathers of the parrot and its association with the dancing in the performance of ohen Uhuname. This refers to possession by the deities during the dance – an experience she shares with those members who are ohens she has initiated. It is her special relationship to the deities that gives her the right to wear the ebakhue within the institutions of the shrines, although in actual practice ohen Uhuname rarely wears it during her public performances. Its omission indicates her high status as an ohen, and such is her authority that she has no need to display it to demonstrate her claim to be Igie ohen (chief priestess). The next verse introduces ododo, a red cloth that is worn on ceremonial occasions. Ododo is worn by the Oba on some ceremonial occasions and the chiefs who undergo the very costly final rites of iyan-ehien also have the right to wear it (Nevadomsky and Inneh 1983: 75).11 Ohens also wear ododo on some occasions, as red is associated with the deities Ogun and Isango and tied to the notions of force and strength for which these two deities in particular are noted. When an individual has to perform at a public occasion and is exposed to both physical and spiritual dangers, red is worn to ward off these pressures and give the participant the authority and power to perform without hindrance. This part of the song thus suggests that ohen Uhuname has the power to perform and overcome any obstacles that might be placed in her way. The final verse extends these ideas further, promising retribution to those who would hinder or harm her. At any village there is always a shrine, aro oto, dedicated to the land. Even the Oba of Benin at his coronation has to enact the purchase of the land from Chief Ogiamien, the recognised autochthonous owner of the land, to legitimate his own ownership of it before he can ascend the throne. So oto sien okhian mwen, ‘ground slipped my enemy’, further demonstrates the power of ohen Uhuname: not only is she able to return to an ill-wisher the harm directed at the ohen, but she is also backed by the power of the land, which it is not possible to overcome or even to oppose, no matter how powerful one becomes. These verses are sung in public performance and are used by ohen Uhuname and her devotees to attest to her powers in the spiritual domain. The verses are both praise and a means of preparing and protecting her followers in the course of the performance, as ohen Uhuname begins to be possessed by her powerful deities. They are also a warning to transgressors who may be present at a public performance, pre-empting the harmful intentions to which those in positions of power and authority are subject. The singing of these verses early on in the performance situate ohen

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Uhuname in her roles as an eminent Igie ohen and the leader of an extremely large following. During discussions in February 1991 about the red parrot feather, ohen Aitolekpenhae stated that she considered the parrot to be a tricky, deceptive bird. Since she regarded these associations as applying also to the use of the parrot feather, she did not consider it appropriate for the red parrot feather to be worn by ohens, although she recognised that most ohens did in actual fact follow this convention of practice. According to her, ohens are open to criticism in regard to their own efficacy in the spirit world. Clients and rival ohens will often make a comparison between true ohens, with the proper and powerful backing of their personal relationships in the spirit world, and those who are considered quacks and charlatans who hoodwink the public with faked powers and abilities. This is related to the notion that some individuals who initiate into the deities gain their powers only temporarily: in these cases it is solely the efficacy of various leaves related to that particular deity that have enabled a link to be established. If it is only the leaves that have created this relationship, and the ohen lacks a privileged personal relationship with the deity, the effect or power given by washing with the leaves wears off over time. Ohen Aitolekpenhae, like all ohens, is aware that contentions of this sort can be used in the competition between ohens and by clients. At that time (1991) she personally rejected the use of the red feather of the parrot because she considered it to imply that ohens wearing it can be charlatans, who achieve results by trickery and deceit rather than by genuine powers and authority in the spirit world. Instead, by way of contrast, at some major celebrations of her shrine she wore the feather of oghohon, the vulturine fish eagle, that does not have these sets of associations. Yet ohen Aitolekpenhae still wore a red feather when performing publicly although it came from another bird, the awe or red-tipped crested touraco (Bannerman 1953: 554).12 This is a bird which perches on the tops of tall trees; by analogy, the wearer is highly placed in terms of power and status.13 One song about awe has the the lyric Awe n’ogie igan n’gie ma yo re awe (‘Awe, king of feather, let us go and return awe’) highlighting its protective power. It is also a bird that does not remain still but darts about, and an adage says that Ebe ke awe ye erhan (‘Danger does not meet awe on the tree’). For this reason the feather is used in protective medicines. Her use of its single feather also emphasised her immense capabilities as a native doctor. On some occasions, when possessed by certain deities, she has worn several awe feathers in her hair. These feathers underline the exceptional deities possessing her, but wearing multiple feathers also has associations with masquerade practice in many villages. In this context her particular rejection of the red parrot feather asserted her own special powers and spiritual relationships to her devotees and underlined her uniqueness in relation

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to other ohens. But members of her shrine who had been initiated by her as full Igie ohens adhered to the convention of wearing the parrot feather rather than following her unique individuated practice. Ohen Aitolekpenhae did use the red parrot feather in other contexts, such as the preparation of medicines, regarding its use as appropriate to that situation. By October 1991, however, her practice had been elaborated further. She now wore several parrot feathers as well as that of awe, perhaps in recognition of the strength of the convention of wearing the parrot feather. This convention is one adhered to by those of her followers who are initiated into the deities and her use of a single awe feather may have placed her in a somewhat anomalous position with regard to the convention. Although emphasising her unique standing, it could also be used by those not well disposed towards her in the competitive arena of her profession to assert, or at least imply, that her practice was too divergent. Her practice is now modified with the parrot feather being worn in conjunction with that of awe. Thus she still maintains an exceptional status through the use of awe but allies it with a more established convention to maintain a legitimacy of practice. She has also introduced further elaborations. These concern matters that arise in the shrine with regard to affairs of the eniwanren-ason, elders of the night or witches and wizards. When such incidents occur, at the next ugie avan (afternoon dance) ohen Aitolekpenhae will wear the feather of an owl. The owl is associated with elders of the night, among whom witches are classified, and is considered their messenger according to some oral traditions. Her wearing the feather of the owl at the next meeting indicates to her followers that she has dealt with such matters. As a powerful ohen with her own personal presence in the spirit world, she is able to intervene directly with such powers. It underlines her abilities as both Igie ohen and native doctor and articulates notions about that power. At ohen Orhionmwon no Saibo’s annual festival in December 1991, her eldest son returned from Germany (where he is a permanent resident) to take part. He is a fully initiated Igie ohen, and on visits to Benin City he assists his mother in her spiritual duties. In explaining the use of parrot’s feather, he cited the saying Okhue ne omwan eke ne omwan ero, ‘Parrot that person (it) deceive that person (it) trick’. He explained this by the example of the parrot that watches when someone robs a house. It then tells the owner when he returns, so tricking the robber. He then tied this in with a commonly accepted notion that the deities do not always act to intervene in human affairs immediately or in the short term, and can often precipitate events long after their cause. Thus, for him, the parrot feather signifies the parrot who watches on behalf of the deities and informs them of events which will cause them to intervene at a later date, particularly those that involve trickery and deception. This contrasts with ohen Osagie’s simpler interpretation (see Chapter 4) that the red parrot feather is a mark of

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authority given from Osa, the supreme deity. She does not cite the various narratives concerning the red parrot feather, although she is familiar with them. In the course of a full initiation the initiate acquires the right to wear the parrot’s red tail feather. This right is gained when the initiate calls out the particular name of the deity with whom he or she is linked in the spirit world. By this time the initiate has publicly performed to the music of the deity and been possessed by that deity. The narratives of the parrot attending ugie wearing the red parrot feather (see pages 162–3) can be used to describe the processes of initiation of an individual into a relationship with a deity. Connections can also be made to the way in which ohens perform at public dances through dance and song, both characteristics ascribed to the parrot. The full-fledged performance of the Igie ohens (chief priests) and their powers to perform as they are possessed by the deities (this possession often proves difficult for novices trying to balance its various demands in order to perform well) accords with notions of the parrot earning the right to permanently wear the fine feathers of the erekhue (see the earlier account in this chapter). The pressure placed on the parrot to return the feathers, which are highly prized, is withstood and acknowledgement of its retention can be used to describe, or at least refer to, the competitive arena in which full-time ohens perform. The use of another bird’s feather as depicted in these narratives can also be interpreted as a metaphor for the recognition of the presence of the deity in the person of the performing ohen. Thus ohen Ominigie ended his narrative with a general conclusion that refers to some of its contexts of practice Igie ohen ghi rhie re ba ye adese uhunmwun we, igbe, imu ne emwin hia ne e ghi ma ne o kpa hin ma egbe re. Chief priests place it [the feather] on their heads so that death, problems and all other evil things move out of our bodies. Similarly, the saying ebakhue ghi ba gheghe, ‘parrot’s red feather does not become red half-way’, often appears in narratives. This saying lays an emphasis on the event or events to which it is applied reaching a successful conclusion, irrespective or in spite of obstacles that might be placed in the way. In other contexts, it is used in incantations to strengthen or activate charms and medicines (Nevadomsky 1993b: 211). Depending on the context, the parrot’s red tail feather can refer to various ideas and practices. In the context of initiation, the feather marks out the attainment of ohen status and ensures a successful initiation without harm to the novice. In the context of practising ohens, it marks out their authority and right to be acknowledged as an Igie ohen by other ohens. The feather ensures and represents the privileged link of the Igie ohen to the deities and the spirit world. Similarly a visitor to a shrine, who is Igie ohen, is offered the

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red parrot feather, native chalk, cowries and a small amount of money as a token of respect. This is offered irrespective of whether the visitor is known personally to the owner of the shrine or not. However these interpretations and their referrals to the narratives are not usually directly acknowledged by most participants, although there are tacit allusions to these concerns in wearing the parrot’s red tail feather on the head, in the songs that link ohens and parrots performed during possession by the deities, and in the making of medicinal artefacts. The narratives are constructed as means of explanation. They are created and developed by individuals from their repertoires of knowledge and narrative that may or may not directly refer to the conventions of this practice. But within such a framing the act of creating or elaborating on a narrative is inevitably situated in relation to the conventions of practice concerning the parrot’s red tail feather. CONCLUSION

The heterogeneity of narratives utilised in relation to the parrot’s red tail feather highlights its role as an artefact in the material world which does not simply encode signs that can be read off when the code is deciphered (Sperber 1974: 70; Picton 1986: 12), but rather offers a contingent means of organising a body of knowledge. It brings together disparate ideas and practices, and illuminates them through ongoing positionings and repositionings by participants in the events described. Its construction as an artefact is realised as part of wider social contexts of ideas and practices, and at the same time is itself a context of ideas and practices (Picton 1990a: 56–70). It is thereby part of a process which Sperber (1974: 144–5) articulates in his discussion about the work of representation: In these conditions, symbolic evocation entails the construction of interpretations which are themselves symbolic and which must in their turn be interpreted and so on, indefinitely … Indeed it is not a question here of the quest for an impossible solution but rather of a repeated work of re-organization of the encyclopaedic memory.14 Each new evocation brings about a different reconstruction of old representations, weaves new links among them, integrates into the field of symbolism new information brought by daily life.15 Most exegesis of the parrot feather that does not invoke one or more narratives concerning the parrot lays the emphasis on the conventions of practice of ohens. The wearing of ebakhue (the red parrot feather) is one convention of that practice. However, significances for the ohen lie not merely in knowing the conventions of practice but knowing its different contexts, fuller knowledge of which can only be gained by practising as a full-time Igie ohen.

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Although these personal shrines are developed by particular individuals who have established an economic autonomy within Benin City, they are linked to other institutions and their practices. Within the federal state institutions in Benin City, native doctors (and most ohens have been initiated as native doctors) are usually members of various ‘traditional doctor’ associations with federal state registration to confirm their status. Similarly, individual ohens have participated in various trade fairs organised by national and federal state government to promote their diagnostic expertise. Ohens are drawn into the institutions that support the Oba of Benin. They can participate in the palace institutions in their role as ohens, as members of the palace societies and as titleholders within them, if they advance through the orders. Thus they may come to have an autonomous (but sometimes overlapping) role to that of ohen. Also, certain chiefs, such as the Esogban, represent the interests of ohens seeking redress within the institutions of the Oba. Then there are various organisations that represent ohens, such as the Isango society which organises and recognises the various titles held by Isango initiates. The Iye n’Oba (mother of the Oba) held meetings at Uselu where ohens can resolve disputes. Ohens are often linked to the community shrines of their natal villages, informing the elders of the village about their activities – the commencement of their annual festivals, for example. Individuals acquire competence in and knowledge of the particular conventions of practice that have developed at a given shrine mainly through participation in those practices. However, as the conventions are not the same from one shrine to another, and as overt tuition is not always given, individuals must necessarily construct their own explanations of the particular configurations of practice characteristic of the shrines in which they participate (some characteristics overlap, while others are unique to a given shrine, as we saw in Chapter 3). Moreover, the conventions of practice at the shrines are informed by the practices of other institutions and their histories. An individual may participate in several institutions, acquiring certain competences in each of them. Igie ohens have an acknowledged mastery of the knowledge required to present their conventions of particular interpretations of practice, as well as to introduce innovations therein. They adopt different strategies suited to their own individual circumstances and capabilities. Some present their practices as a tradition, with a history sanctioned by the relevant deities. Others also introduce novel elements in the demonstration of their unique capabilities and spiritual relations, innovations again sanctioned by the deities. However, competition between ohens also serves to maintain commonalities of practice. Their followers may well be familiar with the practices of different Igie ohens, and can compare one with another according to their needs and requirements. At a public performance, however, not everyone is an initiate or directly

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involved participant. Some aspects of the songs and other aspects of shrine ritual will be familiar to many people simply on the basis of the common knowledge acquired by living in a given place. The sayings about the parrot, for example, will be well known, even if all the implications explored in this chapter remain hidden; and the fact that further knowledge can be acquired may prove an encouragement to recruitment. In any case, the powers inherent in these diverse areas of knowledge can only be fully effective with appropriate initiation. For example, a native doctor may have appropriate knowledge of leaves prior to initiation, but their potential will not be effective until he or she has performed the okpobo, ‘washing of hands’, associated with this initiation. Similar notions prevail with regard to the deities and the leaves which are used in association with them. Thus initiation or membership of the community of a shrine is legitimated not so much by the gaining of access to particular sets of knowledge but by the public recognition and conferment of the capability to enact the power that access to these sets of knowledge gives. This authority is gained by an individual through a specialised and privileged access. It is considered to be owned by the individual who acquired it. It is a resource that has taken time and expense to acquire from those already in such a privileged position (during initiation the first people to have been initiated are always acknowledged and their aid and assistance requested in the spirit world). This authority is not disseminated publicly without some form of gain for the individual divulging the knowledge and conferring power to use it effectively. For example, in the course of an initiation there are certain points in the process where the initiate has to contribute money and other items in order to be exposed to some knowledge. This is distinguished by the initiating Igie ohens as separate from the actual act of initiation. Failure to cooperate by the individual (or even a lack of generosity) during initiation and afterwards may be met by an exclusion from access to the relevant knowledge. Thus notions of knowledge and power are often bound up with an initiate’s access to resources and the capability of the initiating ohens to withhold that access. However, not all uses of knowledge are ordered in such a way. The various extant narratives concerning the parrot and the red parrot feather are also a part of the practice where these oral narratives are recited by individuals to an audience. The most common description of this narration is ibota, the telling of tales at dusk within the compound (although within Benin City the practice at the present time is not as prevalent as in the villages). However, there are also other contexts in which these narratives are also recounted, such as disputes between villages, within families and so on. Two types of narration are distinguished by Aisien (1991: 6) and D. Ben-Amos (1987: 299): okha (historical narratives) and aranmwen (animal narratives). The parrot narratives fall in the category of aranmwen. These

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can be disseminated within the conventions of ibota and its practice as a public and overt knowledge. However they can also be recounted in other conventions of narrative, such as in explanation of the use of the parrot feather by ohens. The context of narration and the intentions of the narrator contribute to the significances which individuals construct for narratives of the parrot and its feathers. The use of ebakhue (the parrot’s red tail feather), and the practices and significances associated with it, is an example of how a thing can be placed in different contexts of ideas and practice by individuals as well as being a context of ideas and practice in itself. The contexts of ideas and practice created by individuals in their use of this feather can best be understood as constituting an overlapping yet discrete set of framings of those contexts rather than by means of some overarching model of structure. They are the result of diverse and often disparate practice by individuals.

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8 ART HISTORY AND ARTEFACT

We have four main bodies of evidence at our disposal: [1] documentary material, which is entirely European in origin; [2] oral tradition, or the accounts of the past handed down to the present by word of mouth through successive generations; [3] the society as it is; [4] the material remains of the past, including the thousands of brass and ivory works for which Benin is famous.1 (Ryder 1977: ix) Having considered the present-day role of the popular local religion in the making of artefacts, it is now necessary to consider the more general implications of this subject. Ryder has suggested a useful categorisation of the various kinds of evidence that are useful in trying to understand the roles and trajectories of artefacts in the Edo kingdom. However, these four bodies of evidence pose complex problems in any approach to the construction of a history of the Edo kingdom and of its artefacts. Indeed these problems have framed and articulated approaches to both the pre-colonial Edo kingdom and its situation, since the British Punitive Expedition of 1897, in the colonial and post-colonial eras. DOCUMENTAR Y MATER IAL

The historical documentary evidence produced by Europeans in their dealings with Benin City from the fifteenth century onwards are records produced in the specific and changing contexts of the pursuit of European interests. They were written by individuals operating in relation to the concerns of particular institutions – commercial, national, religious and so forth. However, the material documentation which refers to Benin City and the Edo kingdom is not simply a series of partial accounts of particular dealings within the Edo kingdom. The documents are framed by the horizons of thought and expectation brought by writers who grew up and were educated in Europe. They are indicative of the means of conceptualisation of relations to regions outside Europe at each historical period. Also, this documentation is produced within a particular written genre which orders its subject matter and the manner of its presentation (Law 1987). An easily accessible example of this can be seen in a comparison of Appendix 1 (ship’s book of San Miguel, trading to Benin in the year 1552)

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and Appendix 2 (mission account of 1651–2) in Ryder’s Benin and the Europeans 1485–1897 (1977: 295–315). Furthermore, prior to 1897 European contacts in Edo society were limited in nature and closely controlled by interested parties in the palace organisation of the Oba. Thus inevitably, and often unwittingly, European traders, visitors and missionaries were constrained by the limitations which were placed upon them by Edo people themselves. As a consequence this evidence, although throwing light on the forms of European involvement through the establishment of particular relationships, does not elicit much insight into the history of the Edo kingdom. Because this is recognised, European documentation has been used in collaboration with and with corroboration from the other bodies of evidence. For example, it has been used to correlate certain events with particular dated records, although such correlations are in themselves problematic and dependent on various assumptions. Bradbury explores these problems in his discussion of the genealogy of the Obas of Benin (Bradbury 1959b). Ryder, however, remains sceptical about how far the reconstruction of Benin’s history can be taken. At present I do not feel that the evidence available and our understanding of it would support a full-scale reconstruction of Benin history … I have fastened upon what must be accounted a minor theme in any overall view, for until the last few months of the kingdom’s existence, European influences and activities were of relatively small account in all spheres of life. Nonetheless it is a theme which offers some insight into larger matters. (Ryder 1977: x) This limitation still defines our understandings of Edo history despite subsequent research that has linked the Edo kingdom to wider regional networks (see Chapter 1; Law 1989a; Thornton 1998; Thornton and Girshick BenAmos 2001) ORAL TRADITION

This second body of evidence provides complex sets of narratives in differing genres with their own particular conventions in Edo society. For example, both Aisien (1991: 6) and D. Ben-Amos (1987: 299) distinguished between okha and umaranmwen as two genres of narrative. They categorise okha as narratives that present a trajectory of historical events, whereas umaranmwen is the presentation of mythic narratives, usually involving animals. Similarly, it is possible to distinguish narratives relating in some way to the dynastic traditions of the Oba of Benin as well as other more localised traditions within the okha genre. Furthermore there is a range of proverbs, ritual formulas such as incantations and prayers, songs, local exegeses, well-known metaphors and generally accepted statements of prin-

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ciples that make up present-day oral traditions. These genres of narrative are recounted in various social contexts and according to the purposes of the individual who recounts them. These oral traditions are not homogeneous but vary from individual to individual and locality to locality, as the story of the parrot’s tail feather showed in the previous chapter. Attempts to construct a plausible history of individuals, events and institutions from such a body of narratives often obtain contradictory information as to the actual unfolding of historical events. Such attempts, through their necessary framing as a means to history, ignore many of the practices and contexts of these genres and the ways in which individuals use the contemporary conventions of practice of these oral traditions to their own creative ends. Egharevba’s The Short History of Benin (1968) documents some of these oral traditions but also irons out the disparities and divergences to emphasise a coherent history of Benin City.2 Usuanlele and Falola (1998: 370) emphasise Egharevba’s comment that ‘one can imagine how great and tedious the task of reducing to comprehensive facts the stories which were told by superstitious native historians in peculiar ways and blended with myths, miracles and fables’. Egharevba’s works were shaped by his Christianity and education in CMS schools as well as by the exigencies of working for the colonial authorities after his appointment as the first curator of Benin museum in 1946. Subsequent editions of The Short History of Benin were revised in places to accommodate changes in his position that reflect his circumstances within these colonial infrastructures (Eisenhofer 1995; Usuanlele and Falola 1998). It gives a teleological interpretation of dynastic continuity and finally the advent of Christianity. It has acquired a gatekeeping authority in that it has also shaped subsequent oral traditions.3 Moreover Darling (1984: 35) highlights the intertextuality of Egharevba’s work with European writings, showing how in Benin Law and Custom (1949) he drew upon earlier European reports on Benin City such as Roth’s (1903) translation of Nyendael’s 1702 account. The relation of present-day oral traditions to notions of history is complex. Past events are often collapsed or condensed into each other to create particular significances that relate as much to present as to past circumstances.4 Even when purporting to represent past events, oral traditions are not a static crystallisation of these past events but have a continuing dynamic that locates them in relation to present-day circumstances, as the contemporary transformations in the narratives of the origins of the founding of the dynasty demonstrate (Akinola 1976). These contexts of usage so modify the narratives that the further back in time they reach the more the story they tell becomes obscured or mythologised. They also become overlaid and transformed by the ongoing dynamic that relates them to the sequence of contemporary events that ensures their continuing survival through time. Thus a present-day oral narrative may bear a partial

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correspondence to the historically distant events that it is purported to depict, but its siting in relation to particular institutions such as those of the ruling dynasty may regulate its capacity to change or acquire innovative features (Law 1973).5 Thus major difficulties and problems attend attempts to use oral tradition to reconstruct the history of the region, or rather the histories of the various localities or groups in the region. The relationship of present-day oral narratives to particular localities has not been developed in research on Benin until recently, with the exceptions of Egharevba (1951, 1974) and D. BenAmos (1975). More recent research has been undertaken by Ogbomo (1997a, 1997b) and Okpewho (1998). A few narratives were collected by Europeans prior to the British expedition of 1897, but the majority were recorded after this date – first by the colonial authorities as part of the information they amassed about the area (Butcher 1937); then by anthropologists and art historians (Bradbury, Fieldnotes: R Series, n.d.); and, finally, by indigenous inhabitants (Egharevba 1968; Eweka 1992; Aisien 1991). In all cases the authors’ relationships to the oral traditions which they seek to represent are not transparent but used to present particular agendas. Thoughout these narratives, with few exceptions, a predominant bias to the institutions of the Oba of Benin both before and after 1897 has governed collection (Picton 1997; Usuanlele and Falola 1998). Narratives collected by the colonial authorities were used to assist the implementation of their administrative policy and arbitrate between rival groups. The development of the policy of Indirect Rule, with its use of pre-colonial institutions, was at first based on the various chiefs who had cooperated with the colonial administration in the aftermath of 1897 (Igbafe 1979). With the death of the exiled Oba Ovonranmwen, this policy permitted the restoration of the office of Oba in his son Oba Eweka II. However, there was also a move at that time to institute a new descent line by making Obaseki the Oba (Igbafe 1979, 1991), against which Oba Ovonramwen’s son had to petition the colonial authorities. This raises the question of whether the move to insert Obaseki as king followed established practice, notwithstanding the manner in which dynastic oral tradition works to deny the possibility. In the event, the accession of Oba Eweka II allowed the administration to impose policies that had the sanction of ‘traditional’ authority in the office and person of the Oba and the acquiescence of the institutions which the Oba headed. The collation of information necessary to administer the Edo-speaking region was a process in which local inhabitants participated, often using selected and suitable oral traditions to further their own political ends in the reorganisation of the political structures. In many instances oral traditions are likely to have been recast in relation to the centralisation of Benin City as a colonial administrative centre (Darling 1984: 34–44). Its prestige and status encouraged many regional communities to lay claim to a relationship to it.

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Claims such as these long preceded the colonial era, but the aims behind them now reflected the new involvement with the colonial authorities and the very different exigencies of the colonial infrastructures. The Oba of Benin and the institutions that underpin him were dominant and formative in the history of the region. Historically the political processes by which the Oba augmented his authority throughout the region contributed to regional alignments. With the status of Benin City now enhanced as a site of colonial administration, this further contributed to its dominance. However, the construction by researchers of such a focus or framing of material elicited, and the predominance of sources which centre on the Oba of Benin and his institutions, tend to mute the complex regional histories of the various localities of the Edo kingdom. Precedence is accorded to a particular claimed history, whereas the events and trajectories of actual history are much less known and, in many instances, contemporary knowledge of the outcomes is much less certain. It is the presentation of a history of Benin City very much bound up with the making of dynastic time through the narratives of successive Obas of Benin, to whom all innovation and events are linked (Bradbury 1959b). However, many other regional narratives do not relate to the palace organisation of Benin City. They present local conditions and relationships, many of which are autonomous of those of Benin City, and often offer a local view of regional relations and histories. Darling (1984: 42–4) provides an example in relation to the oral traditions concerning the iya (earthworks) that are found throughout the kingdom: these traditions, along with the ways in which the iya are constructed within the settlements, suggest that they date from ‘conditions of pre-dynastic autonomy’, despite their local attribution as defensive bulwarks for or against Benin City. But these regional narratives are also not transparent in the local claims which they make, for they are often used to legitimate contemporary as well as past claims. They do provide some light on local history, although the ways they relate to other local histories are as complex as those discussed above. The usefulness of these narratives also tends to diminish the further back in the historical record they refer. Fewer related narratives with alternative interpretations of events are available for comparison. They compete with the presentation of a legitimate authority that is constructed by the oral traditions of Benin City, which are linked and conflated with the genealogy of the ruling dynasty. This effaces other versions of history as promoted and contested by other individuals and groupings of individuals over time. Attempts to reconstruct traces of these histories from oral traditions as the body of evidence are beset with difficulties and open to divergent interpretations. Darling provides an interesting example of alternative interpretations of the extant oral traditions in his examination of relationships between Udo and Benin City, when, instead of accepting the more orthodox account

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of their interrelationship, he makes the suggestion that in the past they may have belonged to different cultural zones (Darling 1984: 148–67). Oral traditions are used by individuals in particular contexts of practice. In using oral traditions as a form of evidence for particular kinds of interpretation, their contexts of practice need to be evaluated as these shape the ways in which they can be understood. As an example of this approach in relation to a particular artefact, I have discussed the parrot’s tail feather. It is through an understanding of the contemporary uses of such traditions that an approach can be made to towards reconstructing the past. As one means by which individuals in contemporary Edo society articulate notions of the past, oral traditions are part of ‘society as it is’. SOCIETY AS IT IS

‘Society as it is’ is a framing that depends on many complex presuppositions. It is a descriptive term for the contested social relations that individuals construct in a historical context. Although ‘society as it is’ is a convenient label for designating a body of evidence, it is predicated on a model of society with all the limitations that are inherent to it. Characteristically, it presumes a continuity through time, from which it follows that contemporary institutions can be compared with those of prior historical eras, and can even be used to reconstruct them. Thus those modified institutions which have survived into the present day (and which have been variously documented during the colonial period) can provide valuable insights into the ways that these institutions were used by individuals in prior times. However it is quite possible for an institution to change radically from one historical context to the next. The example of the Uzama n’Ihinron (hereditary chiefs with their own notional kingdoms in Benin City) is a case in point: their roles changed during the reign of Oba Ewedo from autonomous chiefs to subordinates within the palace organisation, as described in the oral traditions (Egharevba 1968: 9–10). However these very traditions, irrespective of their historical veracity, can be used by individuals as models for the basis of action in contemporary Edo society, just as they had been in pre-colonial times. Indeed Bradbury (1968: 193–252) presents a very subtle and complex account of how models of the supposedly traditional Benin polity were used in municipal political struggles in the 1950s. Local notions of continuity through time can sometimes be taken as evidence of the continuity of that society for the researcher. Within the Edo kingdom this idea of dynastic continuity is the means by which legitimation of its authority is achieved. Disjunctures and ruptures in economic, political or social terms do not always feature in these legitimations of authority – rather they tend to be effaced and erased, and the actual historical events of rupture elided. For example, the claims of dynastic continuity from Eweka I are questionable when one examines the apparent rotation of kingship

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in the royal family in the period of succession from Oba Ahenzae in the mid-sixteenth century to Oba Oreoghene in the late seventeenth century. Dynastic oral traditions have difficulty in accounting for this disruption in terms of that succession and its legitimacy (Egharevba 1968). THE MATER IAL REMAINS OF THE PAST

‘The material remains of the past’ are the only concrete evidence (as opposed to the narrative record of the oral tradition and the sporadic observation of European visitors) of human activities in the pre-colonial Edo kingdom. However, the evidence provided is partial. Some materials are more able than others to endure the passage of time and the harsh conditions of the tropical climate. Nevertheless, a substantial number of artefacts made of brass, ivory and coral, as well as less durable media such as iron, ceramic, leather and wood, have survived from the pre-colonial Edo kingdom. But very little archaeological exploration has been permitted in Benin City and then only at sites of little importance, with the result that it offers a rather rudimentary perspective. With the notable exception of Darling’s researches (1984) on the the earthworks that surround Benin City but also extend across large areas of the region, the archaeological evidence for the wider region is even more scanty, to say the least. And yet archaeology offers perhaps one of the most effective means of evaluating the material impact of human activities through time and space in the region. Thus the artefacts that have survived from 1897 constitute the body of material evidence that has played a significant part in forming art historical approaches to Benin. The majority were in Benin City at the time of the British Punitive Expedition of 1897 and were removed from their locations unrecorded. Many of the contexts in which they were situated were destroyed by fire, especially those artefacts at the palace, during the British occupation of Benin City. Thus evidence for the contexts of artefacts in the palace shrines is dependent on shrines as reconstructed in the new palace (built in 1914), together with a few photographs and drawings which are not always easy to interpret. For example, there were said to be thirteen separate courtyards with altars dedicated to deceased kings.6 On the other hand, the plaques which once had adorned the wooden pillars supporting the verandas of these courtyards had already been removed, perhaps in the process of rebuilding the palace. They were found in a storeroom in the palace, where they were consulted as local evidence of matters of costume and regalia. The British Punitive Expedition returned with these objects to England as part of the spoils of war. The official booty comprised only the plaques, which were sold off to provide pensions for the wounded and widows. The remainder was privately held by officers as trophies of war. Dealers in antiques were soon buying this material, either from the government sale of

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plaques, or from members of the Expedition. Within a very few years they had become art objects with a value placed on them in the antique and tribal art markets of Europe. They were sold to collections and museums as examples of the art of other societies, the most substantial collection group ending up in Berlin (Luschan 1919). Their visibility in these new contexts of use led to the production of a ‘history’ in which to place Benin artefacts, made in several media. From quite early on books and articles were being produced on the subject of Benin (Luschan 1919; Pitt-Rivers 1900; Read and Dalton 1899; Roth 1903; Thomas 1910b, 1910c). Notable among these artefacts are the lost-wax castings in mostly leaded brass (composed of copper and zinc; a few were cast in leaded gunmetal, an alloy composition of copper, zinc and tin presumed to be early in the dating sequence). They have a permanence and a capacity to survive through time which surpasses many other media. However their dating remains problematic. Thermoluminescence dating can be obtained from the cores but the results are quite variable, with a margin of error that gives a wide overlapping of possible sequential dates for comparisons between artefacts. This renders potential dates for a dating sequence of artefacts difficult to elucidate by this means, applied as it is within the context of a span of only a few hundred years of lost-wax casting production. In terms of metallurgical composition, the brass in the leaded brass and leaded gunmetal is either from trans-Saharan trade (as is the case in the lost-wax castings produced at Ife) or coastal trade from the late fifteenth century (Ryder 1977: 40). A clear progression is evident in the style of brasscastings between mid- and late-period castings (Elisofon and Fagg 1958: 57–8, 66–8), and this progression mirrors or exemplifies the changes in composition of brass in Europe – although this is not a certain guide, as in the re-use of the alloy some zinc is lost. It is possible that some artefacts were melted down over time in order to supply brass for new works, although artefacts placed on the shrines of the Oba of Benin are less likely to have been treated in this way. Indeed, with respect to metallurgical composition, the most definite means of dating can be applied to objects containing over 33 per cent zinc. This can be attributed to new metallurgical techniques introduced in Europe in the late eighteenth century, though probably not widely available until the nineteenth century (Craddock 1985: 25). The importation of leaded brass in increasing quantities from Europe led to a general trend towards a greater content of zinc in brasscasting. But in individual brasses there is a wide range of variability, which makes comparison of individual artefacts, or small groups of artefacts, difficult to say the least. As Craddock and Picton note, ‘Clearly either we cannot rely upon what have appeared to be stylistic certainties, or we cannot rely upon metallurgical analysis in support of a chronology or stylistic development. The latter seems much more likely at present’ (Craddock and Picton 1986: 13–14).

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Those castings which do not fit the mid-to-late schema are stylistically of what Fagg designated as the early period (1963: 32–3); but, more significantly, they are of leaded gunmetal. In the period before direct European contact, bronzes (copper and tin) were cast at Igbo-Ukwu – a technology that is probably of local inception and utilised local resources (Chikwendu and Umeji 1979; Chikwendu, Craddock, Farquar, Shaw and Umeji 1989); whereas leaded brasses (copper and zinc) were cast at Ife – a trans-Saharan importation, suggesting that the early gunmetal castings (copper, zinc and tin) seemed to have drawn on both sets of resources until the advent of the Portuguese. In Benin City the brasscasting ward, Igun-eronmwon, was established by Oba Oguola according to the dynastic tradition as published by Egharevba (1968). Connah (1975) excavated bronze bracelets that were beaten, not cast, at a thirteenth-century site. From this evidence copper and its alloys were known in Benin prior to European contact, but the question is raised of when casting began, and whether different alloys were distinguished in the making of castings. To the latter question the evidence from alloy compositions (Craddock 1985; Craddock and Picton 1986; Willet, Torsney and Ritchie 1994) suggests a negative answer. With respect to the origins of casting, notwithstanding the origin narratives of the present day, the brasscasting ward is composed of groupings with different origins (Gore 1997; Girshick Ben-Amos 2003). Apart from Ife and Benin there are a range of artefacts that suggest other casting centres, as yet unknown, west of the river Niger during this period. At the riverine village of Tada on the Niger to the north of Ife was discovered the cast seated figure that is stylistically similar to the castings at Ife, and is considered emblematic of the hero Tsoede who founded the pre-Jihad dynasty of Nupe kings. However, other figures also found at Tada are clearly quite different stylistically and so presumed not to be Ife works. Other figures found at Jebba (upstream from Tada) are also distinct in terms of style. The existence of this stylistically diverse range of castings suggests that there were other, as yet unknown copper-alloy casting centres in this region. Moreover, there are several casting centres to the west of the lower Niger known from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as Ijebu-Ode, Owo and the villages of Obo-Ile and Obo-Ayegunle in the north-eastern Yoruba-speaking areas (Williams 1974: 211–17; Picton 1995: 336). Prior to these known centres there is the cumulative evidence of a range of diverse castings, including figure sculptures, bells, vessels and animals, that Fagg (1963) terms the Lower Niger Bronze industries, made of alloys of copper and tin (and consequently locally sourced); this has led Picton (1995: 336) to observe that ‘indigenous casting technology was more widespread in the proto-historic period of the Lower Niger region than has been supposed’.7

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In Benin City the early-period castings, composed of leaded gunmetal (copper, zinc and tin, and drawing on the overlap between trans-Saharan and local sources) are presumed to predate the arrival of Europeans. Girshick Ben-Amos (1995: 26) has suggested that the stylistic differences between early-period leaded gunmetal heads and the middle- and late-period leaded brasses indicate different uses: as trophy heads of vanquished rivals, for the early heads, and ancestral memorial heads for the middle- and lateperiod heads. On ancestral altars throughout the Edo kingdom and beyond, such as at Owo, ram’s head carvings were placed on the male ancestral altars. The ram’s head, in at least some of these contexts, is related to the sacrifice of a ram to that shrine. Picton (personal communication, 1990) has further suggested that these stylistic differences and their placing in a chronology distinguished, for one thing, by different metallurgical composition, may mark a change of significance of these heads. Given that royal and chiefly altars in Benin City draw on a widespread regional practice, it is clear that ram’s heads and human heads have some kind of equivalence in this context. Now the ram is there as an image of sacrifice. This offers the possibility that in Benin City images of the heads of vanquished rivals took the place of ram’s heads on royal altars, and that this is how the tradition began. But even during the same historical period different groupings may have created differing contexts of significance for the same or similar artefacts, as the previous chapter suggests, making the actual historiography difficult to recuperate (Picton 1990a). However, these artefacts are also a record of the context of ideas and practice which produced them. As such their historical development as a tradition (or aggregation of traditions) and the concrete conventions of ideas and practice have been surmised by scholars as discrete sequences in terms of formal stylistic and iconographic traits (Elisofon and Fagg 1958: 57–8 and 66–8). These have been linked to a constructed chronology by reference to historical narratives and European records. Dark (1973: 5–7) has elaborated on this chronology by starting from the reference point of 1897 and working backwards on the assumption that the later heads were most similar to those produced in the twentieth century. Williams (1974: 137–78) has offered an alternative interpretation of the chronology, using the plaques as the main evidence for his proposals. But there are substantial difficulties with his chronology: with its reliance on the plaque form over that of the Benin heads; with the historical assumptions that he makes about metal-casting technologies in West Africa; and with his emphasis on a selective diffusion of arbitrary forms (Posnansky 1977: 289–300). The construction of a chronology, dependent as it is on stylistic seriation, is based on premise and hypothesis. As Vansina concludes: Today we know that in the thirteenth century tin bronze arm or leg rings (manilla) were manufactured in Benin and that established

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nineteenth-century works were in leaded brass … Traditions tell us that one king ordered a stool to be fashioned as a replica of one made two hundred years earlier. Thus revivals of older forms in plaques and heads are not to be excluded either. The whole sequence will certainly be more complex, when unravelled, if it ever is, than the logical sequence posited by style seriation alone suggests. (Vansina 1984: 96–7) Variations of form and style can be used to present a typology of seriation with which to explore various hypotheses as to chronology, stylistic development and innovation. These can be correlated with certain key events that shape current knowledge of Edo art history. These are the advent of the present dynasty with a mythic derivation from Ife; the arrival of the Portuguese in the fifteenth century; the warrior kings of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century; the seventeenth-century decline of the Edo kingdom and its early-eighteenth-century revival; and the British Punitive Expedition of 1897. However in order to understand the production and conventions of form and style of these artefacts in their historical period, it is necessary to examine the Edo contexts of ideas and practice in which they were situated. It is only by these means that an art history of these artefacts can be further developed. The four bodies of evidence that Ryder categorises as necessary for the reconstruction of the past of an African people are not unequivocal in the information and insight they present. These bodies of evidence are formed, determined and articulated by the disciplines from which they are drawn and the inherent presuppositions upon which each discipline is built. The models constructed in these disciplines are selective and hierarchised in relation to the domain of their particular field of evidence. This process of selection and hierarchisation is also imposed upon domains of material drawn from other bodies of evidence. For the relationships between the different disciplines order the ways in which evidence derived from differing disciplines is combined. A selective weight of authority can be ascribed to material derived from another body of evidence which so obtains an ascendant legitimacy that departs from its legitimacy as constructed within and as part of that other discipline. In this case of the production of research and analysis into the Edo-speaking area, oral traditions are often articulated to legitimate particular constructions and interpretations of aspects of Edo society and history. The precedent of an oral tradition is often used by authors to provide privileged and uncritical mandates for their interpretation in which reference to a strand of an oral tradition is presented and stands as an assumed actual history. Broadly speaking, there is some kind of correlation between stylistic development and oral tradition, notwithstanding the uncertainty of each. However, the assumption that the twentieth-century corpus of myth can

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be used directly to explain the art of the previous periods, most especially the plaques, is problematic. Comparing the accounts given here of the parrot’s red tail feather with the ways in which other animal images feature in Benin art – as when leopards are invoked to explain kingship (Girshick Ben-Amos 1976b, 1995) – highlights a problem: that the extensive use of this imagery in the contemporary period tells us less about the past than is often claimed (other than that we can assume some kind of inheritance of form and practice). Until the discontinuities (as well as the continuities) between pre-colonial and present-day uses of imagery are addressed, this aporia will persist (Picton 1997). T OW A R D S A N A R T H I S T O R Y

Before the work of R. E. Bradbury, there had been some literature focusing on Edo ideas and practice in relation to artefacts, but these had been on a limited and anecdotal basis, whether from Western commentators or Benin insiders – although for differing reasons (von Sydow 1938: 55–62; Akpata 1937: 5–10). Western commentators lacked a depth of knowledge of Edo society, whereas insiders were addressing a non-Edo audience to whom basic references had to be explained. In the literature on Benin and Edo society, Bradbury’s study of the Ezomo’s Ikegobo (1961: 129–38) was the first in-depth attempt to examine an artefact in some of its various contexts of use in relation to the ideas upon which an artefact and its uses were predicated in Edo society. Perhaps most important of all, the paper looked at some of the changing contexts of such an artefact through time. Approaching the artefact from an anthropological viewpoint, Bradbury set out his objectives as follows: In this paper I shall not be concerned with the technical or aesthetic qualities of the casting. I propose, rather, first to show its meaning for its owner as a supposed ‘historical record’ and secondly to consider it and other ikegobo as ritual objects in the context of the Benin cult of the hand. (Bradbury 1961: 129) His study of the artefact related it to both its present-day contexts as a representation of past events of the founding Ezomo of this family in the seventeenth century, and its use as an artefact made for the cult of the hand. In relation to the cult of the hand, he articulated a typology and iconography that concurred with art historical approaches of the time, although he brought to bear a depth of knowledge of the variation of Edo practices and ideas that moved beyond the more usual and limited representations of art history of Edo and African society. In the course of his study, however, Bradbury also touched on several features of this particular artefact. The ikegobo is cast in brass, which, as Bradbury noted, ‘is the almost exclusive preserve of the Oba’; and he related this to the family narratives of the

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Ezomo family, which describe it as being made in secret. He also suggested that the ikegobo may not have been made at the time ascribed to it (the accession of Ezomo Ehenua, the founder of the current line of Ezomo, at the beginning of the eighteenth century). But he left open the possibility that it was a replacement of a prior artefact or was simply made at a later date for another Ezomo, and then drawn into the family narratives of this founding Ezomo. Although Bradbury emphasised the ikegobo’s similarities to other ikegobo artefacts, in many respects the particular study of this concrete example implicitly undermined some of the classificatory seriations that art historical studies of the Edo-speaking area had established for such objects. For an Ezomo (whether Ezomo Ehenua or a later Ezomo) to make an ikegobo in brass, which was the sole province of the Oba (and the Iye n’Oba, the queen mother), merited attention and some form of explanation. Bradbury suggested that the Ezomo was making claims to a precedence – either of Ezomo Ehenua through his relationship as a son of the previous Oba; or of the Uzama as a hereditary titled order with their own courts (even if on a smaller scale) and similar rights to the Oba of Benin within their settlement area; or indeed to both these forms of precedence. In these contexts the use of brass for the ikegobo still holds within a paradigm of contrast between different media (such as brass/wood and ivory/brass) that were used as a means to differentiate the status of different categories of people in the Edo kingdom.8 Whatever the particular reasons for its production, it suggests that there is more to a history of art of Benin than placing forms in a temporal sequence according to variations of style, decorative detail and metal content. Rather there were Edo conventions of practice which, on the basis of the evidence presented in this case study of the ikegobo, might be open to change, innovation and contradiction by individual agency. One cannot presume that at other times in the historical record such changes and differing uses of conventions did not also occur. Similarly the study underlines the possibility that the actual relations of artefacts to oral traditions were more complex and problematic than had been acknowledged up to this time. Bradbury’s fundamental research and the research produced by the Benin Historical Research Scheme, of which he was a substantial member, shifted the emphasis in studies of Edo society more towards an analysis of representations constructed within the society. From the 1960s onwards in the United States of America there was increasing funding and intellectual backing for the production of art historical studies on Africa. The work of Paula Girshick Ben-Amos was prominent in the shaping of approaches to art historical studies in Edo society in the United States of America during this period. Although she was trained as an anthropologist, her concerns focused on the artefacts produced in Benin society. Using the vast array of research and material of

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Bradbury as a starting point, Girshick Ben-Amos (1980: 94–5) continued the development of a history of artefacts situated in (as opposed to taken from) Edo society. Her research, based on fieldwork undertaken in the mid1970s, mainly centred on the court of the Oba, although she considered some non-court art as well (Girshick Ben-Amos and Omoregie 1969; Girshick Ben-Amos 1973, 1994, 1997) which she compared or related to the institutions of the Oba of Benin. In her studies Girshick Ben-Amos has emphasised two major approaches to the field material that she has used. First there is the reconstruction of a past Edo society, utilising some locally preserved oral traditions (relating to the institutions of the Oba of Benin) in order to understand some of the contexts in which artefacts were produced and used in different historical periods. Second, she adopted a structuralist model in order to analyse various domains of ideas and practices in contemporary Edo society. I shall consider these in turn.9 The institutions of the Oba of Benin, however modified in colonial and post-colonial times, are the principle focus or frame of her research. The extrapolation of prior historical conditions from contemporary society rests on inherent assumptions, as discussed earlier in this chapter. Girshick Ben-Amos’s use of narrative traditions from the institutions of the Oba of Benin as well as local histories such as those produced by Egharevba (1968) and others encapsulates a particular interpretation of history, one that asserts the hegemony of the Oba of Benin. Although dynastic history has an authority derived from its production by this dominant political institution in Edo society and is a major ethnographic source of materials, such framings can also collude with its hegemonic positioning, and thereby place its positioning beyond question (Picton 1997). Her approach to artefacts produced to meet the requirements of the Oba of Benin distinguishes between some of the different ideas and practices which contextualised the production of that court art. She establishes a comparison between the Igbesanmwan (ivory and woodcarving guild) and the work of some emada (court pages) who carved while in the service of the Oba of Benin. In this comparison she differentiates between the ideas and practices that distinguish each group in its production of artefacts and its relations to the Oba of Benin. This exploration of court art was a major contribution to art historical studies of Edo society. It overturned some of the prior assumptions underlying approaches towards the court art of Benin. These approaches had elaborated a homogeneous court art as a distinct style, which was contrasted with notions of a tribal art (Girshick Ben-Amos 1975: 170). Kasfir (1984: 163–87) has observed that notions of style have often been conjoined with a range of implicit assumptions in the art history of Africa. These assumptions assign seemingly impermeable boundaries and classifications, which reduce complex temporal and spatial

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relationships between groupings of peoples and their productions of artefacts to simplistic and reductionist categorisations. In her study of the Igbesanmwan, Girshick Ben-Amos used its oral traditions to provide the basis for a differentiation or contrast in the working methods and production of artefacts between the Igbesanmwan and some of the emada. She distinguished between the ‘traditional’ practice of the Igbesanmwan that conforms to a limited canon or repertoire of designs and those of the emada, who are depicted as a late-nineteenth-century and twentieth-century phenomenon and have a more ‘innovative’ approach to design. These early-twentieth-century emada have developed into a class of woodcarvers who have continued to the present day under the sometimes denigratory appellation of tourist art (Vogel 1991: 238). Clearly the oral tradition which she cites in regard to the Igbesanmwan can be used in one context as a charter to legitimacy, as she so rightly observes. However, a substantial number of wooden artefacts have been recorded in the Western art auction rooms with an ascribed date prior to the twentieth century, like the stool (Lot 86) offered for sale at Sotheby’s on 9 November 1993, which seems to pre-date the British Punitive Expedition of 1897. In any event this stool is evidence of a tradition of wooden artefacts that is longstanding and comparable to any of those ascribed to the Igbesanmwan. The design and style of this particular stool can still be found in many of the woodcarving workshops in Benin City. Thus in a manner similar to Girshick Ben-Amos’s analysis of Igbesanmwan woodcarving, one could characterise this tradition as longstanding, replicative and ‘traditional’ in its use of pattern, form and use. The contrast perhaps lies more in the means of legitimation, which for the Igbesanmwan draws specifically on a collective legitimation as a ward deriving its patronage from the Oba of Benin. The artefacts categorised as being part of an emada production at one time, despite the contrast drawn with those of the Igbesanmwan, are more difficult to place in the historical trajectory of a single tradition. They may have been produced by members of the Igbesanmwan as part of their production, as well as by the emada of the court whom Girshick Ben-Amos describes. However there may also have been other carvers. Von Sydow (1938: 61) observed: ‘Each guild of woodcarvers formed its own territorial unit (idumu) with a constitution similar to that of a village.’ Although he was describing the situation in 1936, it suggests that there may have existed other woodcarvers, organised either collectively or on an individual basis prior to 1897, producing wooden carvings; and indeed, there are other independent centres of production in the region, as the ekpo masking traditions attest. Alternatively, could there have been older traditions of carving whose history was erased during the reinvention of the kingdom by Oba Eweka II? The representation of a class of woodcarvers (recognised as a group

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of emada in the twentieth century by Girshick Ben-Amos) as innovative and more informal in composition is, perhaps, a legitimation that is more recent. It may be linked to ideas of the artist as a unique creative individual derived from a Western romantic tradition within the twentieth century and disseminated through art education. Similarly, without the support of an institution such as the Igbesanmwan, an individual’s claim to particular and unique skill acquires more importance in attracting patronage against competitors. These woodcarvers may have been able to attract new forms of patronage from early on in the colonial era (although such artefacts may have been produced and traded prior to this date). As a result, this new patronage and a cash economy perpetuated by the colonial administration would enable such carvers to work more independently of particular institutions. Their legitimation is now constructed upon these new forms of patronage and the changed expectations of these carvers (whereas the same class of carvers prior to 1897 may have had a quite different form of legitimation that related to those pre-colonial circumstances). In any event, such a grouping of woodcarvers is part of a long-standing trajectory and shares a number of commonalities of practice with the Igbesanmwan. Although there may not be the corporate ritual practice of the Igbesanmwan, even today some individual woodcarver will often work at carving with ritual assistance and preparation, such as sacrificing to Ogun and other deities. The difference in emphasis, perhaps, is that the Igbesanmwan produced ritually sanctified artefacts on an institutional basis for the royal altars in the palace. In contrast, as Girshick Ben-Amos observed (1975: 185), ‘They (the emada) possessed none of the characteristics which defined Igbesanmwan carving as culturally significant and lacked any traditions of origins which would have placed them within the dynastic chronological framework so necessary for establishing cultural worth.’ Her analysis privileged the traditions of the Igbesanmwan as an easily identifiable class in an established institutional relationship to the Oba of Benin. Woodcarvings that remain outside of this category are perhaps less amenable to such a typology and it is rather through various differing, complex and individual trajectories of legitimation and patronage that such artefacts were produced. Thus a focus on the framing that the court of the Oba provided may create a colluding hegemony that obscures how other forms of artistic practice take place. The second feature of Paula Girshick Ben-Amos’s research was her use of a structuralist approach – derived from a synchronic linguistic model developed by Saussure ([1916] 1974) and subsequently extended to domains of culture by Levi-Strauss (1968a) – to analyse some domains of significance in Edo society. In her article ‘Men and Animals in Benin Art’ (Girshick Ben-Amos 1976b) she examined the differentiation of categories and classificatory orders between different classes of animals found in the

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iconography of various artefacts in Edo society. In considering the classes of animals that featured, she employed a triple contrast in the relationships that her structural model delineates: these were hostile/docile, beautiful/ ugly, real/metamorphosing. She argued that the relations between these different classes of animals, defined by recourse to particular characteristics found in nature, are also used in the court art to represent particular sets of human relations which are consequently constituted as part of the inherent ‘natural’ order found in nature. In this way the legitimacy of these institutions are upheld and a hegemony underpinned. The idea is further extended to those sets of animals which transgress, in some way or another, this natural order of classification, and so can be used to represent illegitimate power in the social order. In the absence of a detailed history, this structuralist approach was to provide a new avenue towards understanding the contextual significances of iconography in these artefacts in pre-colonial Edo society. A notable example is in offering an explanation of the limited range of animals that feature in the iconography of the plaques. The plaques appear to have been made over a relatively short period of time and lack any art history and scant history beyond the artefacts themselves. Where such lacunae exist, this approach offers perhaps the only art historical analysis that extends beyond mere description. It provides an explanation of why such animals should appear as a key component of the iconongraphy. The relations between animals in the plaques, she argues, maps out relationships between different classes of people, most notably in the unique category of the Oba. The relationships between animals and the contrasts between kinds of animals offer visual metaphors of hegemonic social relationships that place the Oba as part of the natural world and, therefore, at the head of a social hierarchy that is beyond contestation. This approach was a major and innovative contribution to the study of the Edo-speaking region and offered a means of purchase for understanding some of the iconography deployed at the palace of the Obas of Benin. However, this explanation is based on the series of homologies that are presented between the classes of animals, a ‘Benin cosmology’ and the ordering of social relations.The use of such homologies poses many problems in describing social relations as well as in terms of the production and use of aretefacts. Dan Ben-Amos (1987: 296–303) modified this argument to suggest that these homologies are restricted in application only to some domains of ordering and classification. He further proposed that animals represented in the verbal genre of aranmwen (animal narratives) constitute a separate symbolic domain from that of the visual mediums. In this way he sought to account for his preliminary observation that the unity of this ‘symbolic universe’ mapped out by the structuralist approach is seemingly full of inconsistencies and contradictions.

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Darling (1984: 27–8), observed that land use and ecological habitats are conceptualised in complex and diverse ways, not altogether surprisingly if one considers the multitude of various resources culled from such ecological habitats, some of which Darling listed (1984: 29–30). However, he noted that Girshick Ben-Amos subscribed in her use of a structuralist model to a major dichotomy between Edo conceptualisations of the home, owa, and the bush, oha, which is extended to apply to a whole range of social and semantic domains. Darling suggested that these dichotomies are partial in their significances (1984: 30). As has been noted in the previous chapter, oha itself is not synonymous with the deep forest, egbo, although is often used as a shorthand reference when broad distinctions are to be made between differing and contextually contrasted social spaces. Similarly, my fieldwork examined how there are continuities and discontinuities in social practice; and how individual agency constructs significance upon the relations between these continuities and discontinuities but also intervenes to create new continuities and discontinuities in social negotiation. When structuralism as a synchronic model of analysis is imposed on contemporary social processes, structural sets of relations, established between different orderings, tend to replace a complex history of human agency that created those social processes. This can blur and blend imperceptibly with assumptions about the continuity of society, and these sets of structural relationships, taken as a constant, can be applied to a Benin society that is distant in time. Specific histories of groupings of peoples and artefacts are elided in this form of analysis, and human agency is subordinated to structural relationships (a mentalist means of analysis). One slips, as Bourdieu observed, from the model of reality to the reality of the model (1977: 29). A structuralist model is predicated upon a model of communication. The structural relations revealed by this analytical model have a semantic significance for the researcher, who lacks social competence in the society, whereas for individuals in the society these relations are a given but lack such significances. Significance is rather created by the agency of individuals who manipulate, extirpate or concur with such relations in conjunction with other individuals. Significance often lies in discriminations of practice which are impermeable to the researcher, who lacks the depth of time and the knowledge this gives of practice, contexts of different practices and their particular histories. Structural models are often applied indiscriminately by outside researchers to divergent and sometimes mutually exclusive contexts of practice to produce a homogenised version of the society that excludes the often contested agency of individuals within it. Girshick Ben-Amos has extended the structuralist model that privileges the Oba of Benin and the palace in a manner beyond the actual limits of the authority of these institutions to become a self-generating representation of Edo society in its

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entirety. As a consequence the complexity and forms of hegemony exerted by such institutions, as well as their history, are effaced in her analysis and construction of an art history (Girshick Ben-Amos 1976b, 1995). The Oba of Benin and the institutions that underpin him have asserted a political ascendancy. But this has been part of the complex history of the region, of which little substantial historical material is at present known. The four bodies of evidence which Ryder cites do, at least, provide a means of critically assessing many of the hypotheses currently put forward. The works of Bradbury (1959a, 1973c), Darling (1984), Ogbomo, (1997a, 1997b) and Okpewho (1998) have suggested the need for a more complex appraisal of these regional histories, while those of Nevadomsky (1986, 1987, 1988a, 1989, 1993b) indicate a diversity of contemporary society suggestive of a similar diversity in the regional histories that must be taken into account by looking beyond a structuralist mode of analysis. The use of a homogeneous ‘Benin cosmology’ by Girshick Ben-Amos has disregarded, perhaps, a multiplicity of regional and local conditions of conceptualisation by other institutions and individuals. Because this cosmology has been extended back through time, it has collapsed actual historical trajectories into its unitary framework, eliding local regional ideas and practices such as, for example, those of the autonomous local communal deities of village clusters. A case could be made for such a unitary model as part of the strategies of the Oba of Benin and the institutions that underpin him to place and maintain the office and the person of the Oba as the overarching linchpin of a cosmological order. But Girshick Ben-Amos has assumed this as an a priori reality without considering the impact of local variation in ideas and practices on a Benin cosmology or cosmologies. Indeed, historically it is precisely such a range of different regional ideas and practices that the Oba of Benin and his institutions have exploited. By placing the Oba’s person (as well as the office) in exclusive relations to these differing regional trajectories, the Oba-ship has secured itself from emulators attempting to rival its unique sets of legitimations. These complex historical trajectories have been reduced to a static set of categories that leave the history of African art in a framing that is resistant to variation, change or even hiatus, even while it is admitted that it must have developed to that point. The temporal inception of these trajectories is, moreover, consigned to the mythological, where it is not available for investigation other than from a structuralist viewpoint. In her later work Girshick Ben-Amos (1999) makes an interesting contribution that moves away from the structuralist approach. She re-evaluates the latter part of the trajectory of palace court art of the eighteenth century and links it causally to the history of the reconsolidation of the ruling dynasty as the ideological project of kingship at that time, after a period of decline. The evidence, derived from European and New World sources, is perhaps still problematic in Ryder’s terms: does it contribute to a recuperated history of

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the Edo kingdom, other than as part of a history of the European presence? Nor does the argument for this causal relationship consider the approach of Wolfflin (1950), for example, who argues that forms of art change over time as a response to prior art forms and as part of the internal dynamic of ongoing ideas and practices as a tradition of art making. The use of the structuralist approach by researchers in the Edo region is instructive for the ways in which it orders material in a transparent alignment with a local political hegemony, as can be seen, for example, in the use of a unitary ‘Benin Cosmology’. Its indiscriminate usage has emphasised an ahistorical representation that ignores the depth of actual and differing historical trajectories. Its use in relation to the Benin material has, for the main part, produced a self-generating and totalising ordering; almost inevitably, this order extends arbitrarily beyond the particular contexts to which it may have some application. In particular contexts structuralist approaches can have some use as a means of analysis. This can be seen, for example, in the study by Girshick Ben-Amos (1975) of carving at the palace. In comparison, some of the later work of Bradbury (1973a: xviii; 1966: 153) moved towards an analytical use of research material that converged with some of the approaches of structuralism, but he combined this kind of approach with a subtle and perceptive historical perspective that allowed an examination of indigenous models of conceptualisation within the historical trajectories that occurred. Structuralist analysis can be of use as a partial approach, offering a cursory initial survey of semantic significance for the researcher during his or her preliminary research in the field. In order to achieve an analytical understanding of such a political hegemony and how it was achieved, however, it is necessary to move beyond representational paradigms. As a preliminary step, present-day dynastic myths need to be critically taken apart. First, one should aim to understand how these traditions are imbricated in a twentieth-century reconstitution of kingship within the colonial and post-colonial state – the aporia referred to by Picton (1997). Second, one should analyse the ways in which they are used to constitute a hegemony of centralised political authority claimed for the history of Benin City and the wider region. CONCLUSION

In addressing an art history of the Edo kingdom a conundrum is posed by my fieldwork.The current approach in Benin art studies is to stress the continuities between the past and present as a way of understanding artworks that have been produced from at least the fifteenth century onwards. In this account kingship provides a stable context of patronage which, despite an interregnum of seventeen years at the end of the nineteenth century, reconstitutes its institutions seamlessly with their pre-1897 existence and

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continues to shape the forms of artwork produced by specialist wards and elsewhere within Benin City. The Oba of Benin continues to be seen as the political and spiritual head of the Edo people, although kingship was reinstituted in 1914 as part of a colonial administration and subsequently incorporated within the Nigerian nation state. Notwithstanding these major changes and the preceding hiatus, many researchers emphasise certain aspects of kingship almost as if these stood outside the domain of the nation state, as Nevadomsky has observed (1997: 26–7). This raises many questions, among which are the ways in which Edo cosmology is constructed, and the relationships between the Oba and practitioners of the local Edo religion – which is implicitly assumed to be hierarchised (Girshick BenAmos 1994: 133; 1995: 19). Visual traditions at the shrines are interpreted as a reflection of this hierarchy of relationships. My fieldwork, which approaches the local religion from a grassroots perspective rather than that of the palace, suggests a very different arena of action. The contemporary urban shrine configurations are developed by charismatic ohens through their individual skills and compete against each other and a range of other religions, most notably the orthodox and Pentecostal churches (formerly the challenge came from Aladura churches) but also Hare Krishna, Rosicrucians and other denominations. The legitimation afforded to ohens by the deities by whom they are possessed provides the means for incremental change but also, as importantly, for major innovation and change.The urban contemporary shrine configurations are dynamic and innovative, especially as they draw on diverse and heterogeneous regional cultural repertoires.This particularly applies to the commissioning for shrines of artefacts made by a range of different people. Moreover the making of these artefacts and the contexts in which they are placed create multiple and diverse meanings within these visual traditions. Kingship (Nevadomsky 1988a, 1989) also draws on these same cultural devices and religious repertoires to make the unique person of the king and his office, and this raises questions about how the court art was understood prior to 1897. If there are continuities with the past, my fieldwork suggests that as innovation and change are part of Edo social processes and visual traditions in the twentieth century, they are also part of the pre-1897 trajectories. On the other hand, if the twentieth-century trajectories are different, then the claims of continuity and the superimposition of ethnographic materials, often set in the context of a timeless ‘ethnographic present’ (Fardon 1990) – a framing elicited in the colonial and nation-state periods and applied to the pre-colonial Edo kingdom – need to be re-evaluated in a much more critical fashion. What is evident is the need to distinguish the processes of legitimation, whether of shrine or palace (Picton 1997), and consider how this results in particular mediated accounts of the history of the Edo kingdom and its artefacts.

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It is quite possible to argue that prior to 1897 the social processes of the region were differently articulated. The city of Benin was under the economic and political control of the palace institutions, whether by the actual person of the Oba or by factions of chiefs who claimed legitimacy through his office. This control exerted in the city extended to the shrines which, with their capacity for conferring political legitimation, were not allowed to operate autonomously in the city beyond the remit of the family unit.10 Similarly, in the village clusters the legitimacy of authority was articulated through the communal village deity shrines. However, regionally these shrines conferred a political legitimacy which allowed for the possibility of a local autonomy that could vie with that of Benin. Thus there was an emphasis on the establishment of often diverse spiritual and political relations by the Oba of Benin with regional groupings through the medium of shrines and their deities. These relations with different regional groupings (often in close proximity), each with their own localised conditions of ideas and practices, are indicative of a wide diversity of conditions for individuals in the region. Bradbury (Bradbury 1967a: 8) suggested that there had been large-scale social mobility, which may have been part of this process. Key to my research has been the relation between the institution of the urban shrine configurations and the individual agency of charismatic ohens (and other individuals). This has been elicited by the use of biography as presented to me by ohens and artists. The biographies have been used as a means of exploring the trajectories and positionings of various individuals (although limited by the situational contexts of such interviews; interviews and observer participation continued throughout my time in the field). As important, biography has been used as a means of approaching the ways in which individuals involved with the urban shrine configurations conceptualised some of the ideas and practices which make up those cults. The songs performed there are also used to examine ideas and practices at shrines. They provide another means of exegesis to bring out the multiple meanings of artefacts at these shrines, as well as being part of its complex configuration of ideas and practices. In this way I have been able to explore the relations of the verbal to the visual in the making of meanings and so consider the conceptual bases that underpin the use of artefacts and the differing intentions of the various individuals who make use of such artefacts. My fieldwork suggests that many avenues of investigation can lead towards an understanding of contemporary Edo society, its artefacts and the visual traditions in which they are made and situated. It suggests that the creative possibilities open to individuals participating in them are more complex and diverse than has been assumed in much of the art history produced about the region. This also has implications for the actual trajectory of the histories of art of the region. The ideas and practices of the urban contemporary shrines of Benin City suggest various possibilities for creativity, fluidity of

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social conditions, differing means of legitimation and positionings for individuals, and groups of individuals, which seem at great variance with most of the material presented by researchers in Benin studies. An implicitly hierarchic social model, in which traditions are often unconditionally presumed to be longstanding and comparatively unchanging, has been presented by a framing centred on the institutions of the Oba of Benin. These presuppositions permeate both methodology and theoretical models within a self-substantiating discursive domain. Underpinning the assumptions of such theoretical models is the notion of continuity over time. Individuals within the institutions of the Oba utilise dynastic traditions for quite different intentions and purposes to those of external researchers. Clearly the difficulties of developing an art history of the region have led to an almost complete reliance on these dynastic traditions, and indeed here art history reproduces the prevalent assumption of Edo society. This dominant dynastic tradition is central to the history of the region but it also has hegemonic status. The complexity, richness and diversity of histories in the Edo region have been effaced, even (and perhaps especially) by the institutions of the Oba of Benin and the formation of a city state – whose court art has excited such interest amongst art historians. The complex questions of how such a hegemony of dynastic traditions was established and maintained are left unquestioned and a hagiography is substituted. The relations of this hegemony to different groupings within the Edo area at various historical periods are erased to leave a taken-for-granted representation of Edo society that implicitly corresponds to that of the narratives of the ruling dynasty. My fieldwork argues for a more nuanced appreciation, critically and theoretically, of the complexity, richness and diversity which is necessary to avoid a superficial or reductionist understanding of Edo society. There is also the additional question of the hiatus imposed by colonial rule and the exile of the Oba of Benin, and how this problematises research. Furthermore, this is not the only hiatus to have taken place in the Edo kingdom, and prior occurrences have also to be considered. It is through an understanding of regional developments, both between different regions and within local areas, that a clearer notion of the history of the Edo-speaking region can be elaborated. A literature that might provide such an understanding is emerging, as Ogbomo (1997a, 1997b) and Okpewho (1998) suggest, although constituted within the paradigmatic framings of their respective disciplines rather than within a multidisciplinary perspective. It is through these means that alternative claims and narratives can be used in a methodology to unearth those histories and through them an art history of the region. Whether or not there was a hiatus in the articulation of social processes as a result of its subjugation to British rule in 1897, there is enough evidence

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to suggest diverse conditions of possibility for individuals in the Edo region, although articulated in different ways at different historical periods. This book on urban cult configurations presents evidence of contemporary ideas and practices which use and refer to localised traditions. As a means of legitimation in Benin City, these are presented as historically longstanding and immutable when, in fact, their actual ideas and practices are often innovative and creative. The conditions of possibility of these urban cult shrine configurations are rooted in the urban cash economy of the twentieth century and yet many of their presuppositions underpin family shrines, village communal shrines and the shrines of the Oba. Finding nuanced ways to understand and account for this dynamism and diversity of visual traditions in the Edo-speaking region is the mission of the art historian, whether the art under scrutiny is made prior to 1897, in the twentieth century or at the present time.

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1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

INTRODUCTION The lost wax (cire perdue) method of brasscasting begins with a clay core upon which wax is invested and then shaped into decorative forms. It is then covered by a series of further clay investments, beginning with fine layers and progressing to thicker ones. From the waxed core wax extensions (known as runners) are led out, and also covered in clay. The clay is left to dry out. Then it is heated, with the wax liquefying and running out. Between the clay core and clay investment lies the hollow where the wax used to be. The sculpture is upturned and secured – by being stabilised in the ground in the case of large sculptures. Molten metal alloy is then poured through the now upturned runners and follows the hollow shapes left by the wax. When the metal has cooled the outer clay investment (and as much of the internal clay core as possible) is removed, leaving the cast metal sculpture. Indeed, the Portuguese commissioned salt cellars, pedestal cups and forks from the ivory and wood carving ward for export to the courts of Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, although by the nineteenth century the origin of these artworks in West Africa had been forgotten (Bassani and Fagg 1988). It is no coincidence that this appreciation came at a time when European imperialism and empire building was at its height; there was a certain retrospective appreciation of earlier empires, of which the Edo kingdom was a newly discovered example. Despite this, there is a great divide in the respective levels of interest accorded to artefacts made by brasscasters before and after 1897. The former, with its given provenance, is highly valued in economic and aesthetic terms, whereas post-1897 casting is not considered in the same terms and remains rather unappreciated. Some African artists, such as Samson Mudzunga (Nettleton 2005) of South Africa, are blurring such distinctions in the international circuits of élite cosmopolitan art.

CHAPTER 1 1. Dapper never visited Benin City and relied on prior seventeenth-century Dutch accounts. 2. This is often cited in the literature, drawing on Bradbury’s fieldwork, but is a more elaborate and densely complex description of Ewuare’s actions prior to becoming Oba which seems to locate the river from which he took the beads (and the Ebo n’Edo which he found on top of the beads) as near or bordering on an Itsekiri-speaking river area (Bradbury, n.d. Fieldwork notes R Series). 3. Notions of kingship are also subject to change over time and care must be taken not to conflate present-day formations with pre-colonial forms and their historical trajectories.

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4. Four hereditary nobles – the Oliha, Edohen, Ezomo and Ero (Partridge 1975: 28) – claim that their titles precede the advent of this dynasty. But there are other traditions, such as that Oranmiyan bestowed the Uzama n’Ihinron titles on the Benin elders who supported him, whilst the title of Oloton was given to his own brother (Marshall 1939: paragraph 25–26); another version credits Oba Eweka I with creating and conferring these titles to create councillors of state and hereditary nobles (Egharevba 1968: 9). 5. Care needs to be taken in differentiating between slaves gathered on the Benin river from the Delta communities and those obtained through direct trade from within the Edo kingdom via Ughoton and Benin City – two locations for the trading for slaves. 6. According to Bassani and Fagg (1988: 40–2) it was considered inferior to Indian pepper and realised a lower price than its Indian counterpart. 7. See Mark’s (1988) account of visual representations of Africans in the renaissance and the ways in which they were articulated in terms of kingship in a tradition of Christian iconography. 8. Law highlights Bosman’s comment on the importance of fish as a commodity between the coast and the interior (Law 1989a: 221; Bosman 1967: 462). 9. The brasscastings assumed to be earliest on a number of criteria were made in an alloy of copper, zinc, tin and lead known as leaded gunmetal (Craddock 1985; Craddock and Picton 1986). It is often suggested that these castings were thinner owing to a relative scarcity of materials (later remedied by the Portuguese through their trade in leaded brass manillas), which led to the majority of brasscastings being cast in leaded brass alloys of predominantly copper and zinc (Fagg 1963: 35). 10. Clay is utilised in the process of brasscasting by the ‘lost wax’ method. 11. These trading factories were not necessarily manned continuously, even at the outset (Ryder 1977: 33). 12. Pepper from India and Benin was monopolised by the Portuguese crown, and by 1506 a royal decree forbade trade in pepper from Benin so as not to to harm the profitable revenues of the Indian trade, although some quantities were drawn illicitly from Benin thereafter (Ryder 1977: 38–9). 13. The exact identity of these beads is still open to debate, but Portuguese trading invoices described a range of coloured stone from blue veined with red to yellow and grey (Ryder 1977: 37). For further discussion which illuminates the complexity of regional trade exchanges in beads, see Fage 1981, Euba 1981 and de Negri 1964. 14. Chief Inneh stated that Oba Esigie was an inventive brasscaster and loved it so much that he spent much of his time at Igun Street (personal communication, 11 February1998). 15. A letter dated 21 November 1514 from King Manuel to the Oba of Benin states that ‘For when we see that you have embraced the teachings of Christianity, like a good and faithful Christian, there will be nothing in our realms with which we shall not be glad to favour you, whether it be with firearms or cannon and all other weapons of war for use against your enemies …’ (Ryder 1977: 47). 16. A specialist ward, known as Iwoki, that looked after the Oba’s guns and cannons ascribe their formation to this time. In their twentieth century oral traditions some Iwoki members claim descent from Europeans known as Ava and Uti, who were reputed to flank the Oba with guns as members of this ward do on some ceremonial occasions up to the present day (Bradbury 1959b: 279). 17. A letter from the enclave of Principe to the Portuguese crown seems to indicate the death of an Oba in 1517 (Ryder 1977: 50), after which all record of this

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initial mission ceases, suggesting that it met with failure on the accession of a new Oba. 18. Jones (1998: 5–7) suggests that Dapper’s information depended on a Dutch factor based at Arbo near to Benin City. 19. Dutch pre-eminence was consolidated in 1621 by the formation of the West India Company, which sought to exercise a monopoly on trade backed by the armed support of the United Provinces. 20. Arbo became an important focus of trade for the next sixty years and the Dutch established a trading factory there, with the English following suit in 1633 despite Dutch protests (Ryder 1977: 90). Loebbo, which lay lower down on the main Benin river, also became a settlement for trade. 21. Jones (1998: 18, note 56) notes that Dutch records (Jones 1995) mention ‘three-strip’ and ‘five-strip’ cloths, whereas Dapper refers to three- and fourstrip cloths he calls Mouponoqua. Bradbury in Hair (1969: 256) identifies it as ukpo nokhua big cloth. European ears tend to hear words as beginning with consonants whereas Edo words often begin with vowels which elide into the next word. It is not improbable that mouponoqua is omo n’ukpon n’okhua, child of the big cloth, which categorises the different sizes of the big cloth obtained by sewing up three or four rather than five strips together. 22. It was during this era, according to present-day dynastic traditions, that the Iyase (the supreme town chiefs who conducted war campaigns) were forbidden to return to Benin City at the conclusion of their campaigns, so as to prevent potential rebellions by the Iyase returning with an army. 23. See Ryder (1977: 118–19) for a brief discussion of difficulties in correlating European reports of these developments with twentieth-century dynastic traditions. 24. Further trade also developed at nearby settlements such as Boededoe at Ovenama creek, where a Delta population supplied merchandise drawn from the Yoruba-speaking areas through the lagoon system as far away as Lagos. 25. Although cloth from Benin was no longer in major demand along the coast of West Africa, its purchase was still a precondition of trade with the Oba of Benin. 26. The Ezomo title was incorporated into the hereditary Uzama n’Ihinron title order that installs the Oba at coronation. 27. This is possibly Ugha village in the north-east (Thornton and Ben-Amos 2001; Egharevba 1947). 28. Moreover, on the death of the Oba of Lagos his remains were sent to the Oba of Benin. 29. Connah (1975: 62–7) noted the presence of a large number of human bones deposited in what he presumed was a cistern dated to the thirteenth century, suggesting that the practice of human sacrifice was evident at a much earlier date. 30. But Connah’s analysis (1975, 62–7) of the human bones indicates 41 women thrown into a narrow, well-like cistern, which he considered as female ritual sacrifice dating to the thirteenth century. 31. Indeed the length of the civil conflict in Oba Adolo’s reign may have been conducive to the incorporation of the varied and increased forms of punitive human sacrifice as part of a habitual practice at the court of the Oba of Benin (a ‘habitus’ similar to Bourdieu’s concept, 1977). 32. On the difficulties of separating out ritual and punitive categories in the taking of human life in West African societies, see Law 1985; Williams 1988; Wilks 1993. 33. For a discussion of this issue see Wilks 1993: 215–40; Williams 1988: 433–41.

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34. Punitive measures were advocated by Macdonald, who had been appointed Commissioner and Consul-General for the Oil Rivers and subsequently (1888) the Niger coast protectorate. 35. During this period Vice-Consul Copland-Crawford was instructed by Moor to visit Benin City in September 1895 with an armed party but, after being confronted by a body of Edo soldiers at Ughoton, was forced to retire rather than precipitate a violent confrontation. Similarly Captain Maling of the Sapele barracks, on a separate mission, was turned back while heading towards Ologbo (Home 1982: 27). 36. Chief Ologbosere continued to resist for another two years until his capture in May 1899. 37. To complicate matters further, these genres of European writing incorporate various modes of intertextuality in their borrowings from earlier reports that further confuse; Law identifies three elements as plagiarism, harmonisation between texts and misunderstandings of the information by the authors (Law 1987; Jones 1990). 38. Blackmun’s comprehensive engagement with the historical trajectories of the ivory tusks similarly highlights these issues (Blackmun 1984). 39. Lucky Igbenedion won the governorship a few years later, in 1999. 40. This is the former Benin Division, which the British colony recognised as the area over which the Obas of Benin had authority after reinstitution in 1914. 41. These areas can also be described in terms of the colonial and post-colonial divisions of the state into local government areas. 42. Tribute is no longer demanded but gifts can still be offered according to the exigencies of particular situations. 43. In other contexts edion can refer to the deceased members of a social grouping, who represent that grouping in the spirit world. 44. In villages where hereditary forms of leadership occur, they coexist with the office of odionwere. The distribution of authority between the offices can vary greatly at different locations and also depends on negotiation between the individuals concerned. 45. For example, Girshick Ben-Amos mentions explicitly ‘the court of the queen mother and other feudal chiefs’, indicating the conceptual paradigm presupposed (Ben-Amos 1994: 133). 1. 2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

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CHAPTER 2 The number of ukhurhe (rattlestaffs) indicates the number of generations since the shrine was first set up by a senior son. Semantically the Edo word ko, to plant, describes this process of installation of the deceased father as a member of the collective ancestors (Bradbury 1965: 100). Many Edo people consider that a living person and his or her ehi alternate in incarnating in the material world, their respective positions reversing with each new incarnation (Bradbury 1973b: 273–4). Some say that the person and the ehi incarnate a maximum of seven times – or fourteen times in total. The prevalence of obo and ikenga shrines opens up a debate on the construction of centralised authority – which in Benin City depends less on corporate collective identities based on descent and close kinship (such as the lineages found among Yoruba-speaking peoples) than on personal achievement (Bradbury 1961). Women who do not produce children are often divorced or marginalised in domestic households headed by men. Madam Odigie (see Chapter 4) considers Olokun as specifically a deity for

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women, as does the native doctor and artist Omoruyi Ogbemudia at Evboesi (Lan 1995). However, many other ohens and native doctors make no such contrast on the basis of gender. 7. Structuralist contrasts between the wild and the home or the notion of the domestication of the wild in the village shrine do not adequately describe the ways in which the paired shrine is conceptualised or utilised (Levi-Strauss 1968b; for the unpacking of this concept, see MacCormack and Strathern 1980; for the concept in the context of Benin City, see chapters 7 and 8). 8. The claim to Oba-ship initiated by the present incumbent in the early 1990s articulates, among other matters, strategies to access directly the resources of the Nigerian nation state. 9. Separating out the religious as a discrete entity from the political with which it overlaps is perhaps a fruitless task and the imposition of Western categories. See Louis Brenner (1989) for a discussion. 10. Igue by the late twentieth century combined a series of festivals that were spaced out in the Edo calendar (Girshick Ben-Amos 1995: 103–4). 11. However, these are conceptualised as the locality whereby a deity metamorphosed from a person into a new part of the physical landscape. 12. Thus the communal shrine dedicated to Olokun at Evboesi was set up in the reign of Oba Adolo in the nineteenth century, on the initiative of his mother who came from there. 13. Ikhinmwin saplings were a common sight during the 1990s, although in the twenty-first century their presence in public spaces seems to have declined. 14. The difference may also reflect Melzian’s interest, in devising an Edo–English lexicon, in linguistic categories rather than diverse conceptualisations and associated social practices. 15. Presuppositions of dualism derive from Greek and Judaeo-Christian trajectories of European philosophy which construct oppositional contrasts to underpin knowledge of the world (Descartes 1989). They cannot be presumed to translate semantic categories of a differing society and linguistic categories where other philosophical presuppositions hold. 16. And, as Brenner notes (1989: 87) ‘historically within Africa, those institutional and conceptual distinctions which contemporary scholars might describe as religious, political, economic or social, do not seem to have existed’; although such institutionalised categorisations and discourses are now used in Africa, they do not erase the overlapping participatory processes engendered in the resolution of disputes or claims at these shrines. 17. The adoption of a policy of indirect rule by Lord Lugard may have further diminished the perceived necessity or importance of Christian conversion of local populations as part of the colonial regime (Ayandele 1966: 159). 18. Where expedient, shrines may reside at an alternative location, often the household of the initiating chief priest, who administers sacrifices there on the appropriate occasions. CHAPTER 3 1. Both male and female ohens are usually involved in assisting with initiation. 2. Ogun has a wide regional diffusion, possibly linked to iron ore sources and production through which various forms of gender differentiation are constructed (Barnes and Girshick Ben-Amos 1997: 39–64). 3. In the community of Evboesi, where Olokun is a community deity, there is a gender differentiation – at least among older members of the community – between native doctors (ebo, plural of obo), who are male, and initiation into the

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deities, which is considered part of the female domain. This contrasts strongly with traditions practised in Benin City and by former inhabitants of Evboesi who have taken up permanent residence there. 4. The average weekly wage in Benin City at that time was less than eighty naira. By 1996 the cost of initiation had increased to 20,000 naira, while the average weekly wage was 400 naira. 5. The Igbo term is in general use nowadays in Benin City – igbakhuan is the Edo equivalent. 6. Orhue is a combination of chalk and kaolin derived from the banks of rivers. It features in a range of social contexts. It is handed out to celebrate good news and at shrines is linked directly to the deities (Rosen 1989). 7. For convenience, except where the differentiation between Igie ohen and ohen is salient, ohen will be the standard designation. All named ohens are Igie ohens. 8. As far as can be determined, this system of counting owes nothing to Christian and Islamic systems of reckoning weekly intervals. However it will be noted later on that the day of worship at these shrines can be made to conform to the colonial week. 9. In some instances the oracle can indicate that these palm kernels should be quickly withdrawn from the palm oil, but this does not signify the customary start of the second stage of initiation. 10. This measures each of them as equivalent to a goat sacrifice. 11. Ogwega divination uses four chains with four Ogwega seeds attached to each chain, and requires separate initiation if it is to be learnt. Similar to Ifa, it is accompanied by divination poetry (Bradbury, Ogwega manuscript, n.d.) 12. Cases of diagnosed mental illness are sometimes brought to shrines and the individual is initiated into the deities identified as linked to the condition. Initiation offers a dynamic process that has parallels with Western psychiatric approaches (but note Brenner’s 1989 caution against reductionism in these kinds of parallels with Western disciplines and institutional trajectories). 13. This is not some predetermined, contractual payment in exchange for fixed service, but the generous and variable reward of the client in recognition and appreciation of the interventions of the ohen. 14. Markets and commodities can fluctuate hugely and rapidly between boom and bust cycles. For example, trade in rubber was profitable for two years up to 1991 and then declined dramatically with overproduction and a considerable fall in value in Western markets. 15. The difference in cost between consulting ohens and medical doctors has increased as the Nigerian economy has declined. 16. Some shrines have monthly cooperative saving schemes where each month the pool of contributions by members is drawn by a different member, providing a contingency fund against sudden financial difficulties. 17. Until his sad demise in 2004. 18. The use of such titles derived from the palace institutions does not imply some form of hierarchical or homologous relationship between these two institutions. Urban contemporary shrines of charismatic ohens are autonomous institutions, although in some instances an ohen may be offered a post within the palace institutions. There is a dialectical relationship in that both shrines and palace institutions draw on a common domain of ideas and practices, albeit configured in various ways (Gore and Nevadomsky 1997: 62–3). 19. The Igue festival of the Oba comprises several kingship ceremonies made up of otue ugie erhoba, ugie erhoba, ugie iron, otue igue, igue, emobo and ewere, of which otue igue is devoted to the head of the Oba of Benin (Bradbury 1959c).

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20. The point is that there is not a commensurate hierarchy or ranking but an evaluation in terms of these different skills and capacities (for an illuminating discussion of how different painters were evaluated in terms of particular qualities in fifteenth-century Italy, see Baxandall 1972). 21. The entire community of the shrine had bought the same design of cloth to wear as part of the annual festival celebrations as a uniform of solidarity. CHAPTER 4 1. Caution is advised: these representations are set within the narratives of the book and occlude further possibilities of agency and change over time. 2. There are, of course, many other similar networks made up of different ohens within Benin City, some of which overlap whereas others do not. 3. The cemetery as a public space derives from two sources: Islam and, in the instance of the Edo kingdom, principally colonial rule in mid-Western Nigeria. Some burials are still occasionally under the house or close by within the compound. 4. This is speaking in a ritually activated and empowered way, similar conceptually to the Yoruba word ase. 5. There are various species of wild yam (belonging to Dioscorea), making accurate identification difficult. 6. In Benin City there are various dance troupes that perform Edo dances and songs at social events and these performances can recreate the dances and songs dedicated to the deities. 7. For a discussion of material tropes in central Africa, see MacGaffey 1977 for a specific example; and for regional commonalities with Edo ideas and practices, see MacGaffey 2000. 8. In the event of a wife’s adultery, for example, any ensuing misfortunes and the remedy for them will be attributed to this conceptual framework, even in Christian households. 9. Isango corresponds to Sango, the Yoruba deity who was the fourth Alafin of Oyo. 10. Owewe is used onomatopoeically to describe the sound of a dane gun ‘exploding’. 11. A shrine dedicated to Erede is found at Chief Eson’s house in Ibiwe street, Benin City. 12. As a consequence her annual festivals were well-attended and dramatic events at which these younger ohens reciprocated through performance. 13. In addition, her Eziza title is Alazi no y ewee kpe ighede, ‘Alazi (ape) that makes the chest to beat music’, her Ogun title is Ughegbe, mirror, and her Isango title is Aina. 1. 2. 3. 4.

CHAPTER 5 Specialist wards are composed of separate descent lines that affiliated to the ward at different times and by different means (Gore 1997). Not without difficulties, as Igbafe noted (Igbafe 1991: 46–8). This also occurred at other historical periods, as the adoption of human heads instead of rams’ heads for the altar erha by chiefs in the reign of Oba Osemwende attests (Dark 1973: 34). Prior to 1897 they were entirely maintained by the largesse of the Oba, and by social advancement under his patronage. But in the reconstituted palace, provision of education and, in particular, training in occupations complied with the exigencies of the colonial regime.

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5. Ogbelaka is composed of many subsections which reflect its diverse origins (Eweka 1992). 6. This is especially pronounced at the Oba’s coronation, which witnesses the taking up, remaking and reproduction of these group identities with their rights, obligations and histories through the spectacle of collective performances celebrating the office and person of the new Oba. 7. According to Girshick Ben-Amos, Ovia Idah was described as onikaro, one who came first – a description that is used to argue that he is the first Edo-speaker to carve in ebony (Ben-Amos 1971: 123). Such claims are often made as a form of legitimation in Edo society where precedent is an important part of status. However, he is certainly the first to be documented. 8. Except when the artefact is made by the ohen for his or her own shrine. 9. Alcohol spirit described as ‘hot drink’ is presented to elders and used in ritual matters as the preferred drink. It is usually distilled locally. 10. The iconography is representations of awan and avalaka, tools used in blacksmithing. 11. There are longstanding historical antecedents, as the making of the Olokun shrine at Eboesi by brasscasters for Oba Adolo (see above) indicates. 12. See Gore (1997) for an account of a specific historical trajectory of incorporation of a family into Igun-eronmwon, and Ben-Amos (2003) for some general observations. 13. It was the mother of Oba Adolo who was instrumental in having the Olokun shrine built at Evboesi (where she was born), as it was her pledge that should her son succeed to the throne the shrine would be built (personal communication, Chief Ogbemudia, 1994). 14. In 2002 Chief Inneh asked all brasscasters to work, or at the very least to have a stall selling their works, on Igun Street in order to prevent this dispersion. 15. This is diagnosed through divination in response to persistent misfortune and affliction at the shrine. 16. The term ‘modernist’ flags his positioning in modernist literary and visual art movements. 17. Richard Amadasu is the Rich Amu (a signature he occasionally engraves on the back of woodcarvings) photographed by Peek (Consentino 1991: 250). 18. Sadly he died in 2005. 19. To help me understand some of Madam Ehidiaduwa’s contexts of practice prior to 1986, Professor Georgiana Gore kindly shared some of her fieldwork notes (1989). 20. Knowledge of these properties is not sufficient in itself; to be effective it is also necessary that the individual using the properties has been initiated as a native doctor or ohen (or both) and gained the proficiency to act in the erinmwin or spirit world. 21. Some artists working within modernist art movements, – such as the Nigerian artist Bruce Onabrakpeya in his shrine installations (Kasfir 1999: 188–9) or the African American artist Rene Stout (Harris 1993) – seek to draw upon these differing conceptual fields, but agency is still secured within modernist conceptions of the artist. 22. One of the few concerted studies is the work of Suzanne Preston Blier (1995), who explores power figures in Southern Benin and Togo. CHAPTER 6 1. The term ‘idea and practice’ does not imply a dualism between the two concepts but instead emphasises the interdependent relationship between them.

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2. This relies on a European framing whereby artefacts do not and cannot do anything, which may differ with local Edo framings of certain artefacts that are made with the intention of acting in the material world – such as an aban made to help win a law case. 3. Both have an equal weight and one genre is not favoured over the other, as it is the presence of the deity that is the key factor. 4. The Reformed Ogboni Fraternity (ROF) was founded in 1912 by the Reverend T. A. Ogunbiyi, the Anglican Archdeacon of Lagos. It drew some of its ideas from the Yoruba Ogboni association (a secret cult drawing its powers from the spirits of the earth) to provide an alternative to it while modelling itself as a form of ‘African Freemasonry’. 5. The alignment of the Reformed Ogboni Fraternity and the Otu Edo society with opposing nationalist political parties, respectively the Action Group and the NCNC (National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons), further exacerbated the hostility between the two sides. In the wake of elections in 1951 for a new Benin Divisional Council, which elected Otu Edo candidates, there ensued a violent backlash against the Reformed Ogboni Fraternity (Bradbury, 1968, 236-248; Igbafe, 1991). 6. It was also sung by Pentecostal occupants of shared taxis travelling to Benin City in 1990–4, perhaps as a response to perceptions of the persistence of urban shrine configurations by other non-Edo groupings in Southern Nigeria. 7. Peel (1968) documents the much earlier religious movement of Aladura churches of the 1930s and 1940s in the Yoruba-speaking areas: some of these churches established themselves in Benin City during this period. 8. In this context gbe contains its own implicit negative and so translates as cannot overcome. 9. The different ways in which a particular deity is conceptualised in different parts of the Edo-speaking area highlight its diversity of religious ideas and practices. 10. The logo used by the Oba of Benin on his stationery consists of the leopard and the elephant: the first representing royalty, the second power (J. N. Nevadomsky, personal communication, 1993). 11. Certain ohens (among them the late Chief Anthony Osugbo) are reputed to have introduced this form of communal Ogun worship into Benin City. 12. Some other deities can also be represented by the brass staff, such as Iyenomai (a form of Osun) and Mami Wata. 13. Oliha is nominally the king’s father within the palace institutions, and enacts this role in certain rituals. CHAPTER 7 1. Poetry or the arts of language are salient in Edo and Yoruba societies, as Barber’s work on Yoruba praise songs attests (1991). 2. This draws on Sperber (1974: 70), in particular his observation about symbols that ‘in contrast to what happens in a semiological decoding, it is not a question of interpreting symbolic phenomena by means of a context, but – quite the contrary – of interpreting the context by means of symbolic phenomena’. 3. It cannot be assumed that every aspect of events or performances in a given society necessarily produces commentary; some, indeed, may produce none at all. 4. There are other sources of red feathers such as the red-tipped crested touraco (which offers feathers of a deeper red), but these are distinguished from and are not substituted for that of the African Grey Parrot. 5. In actual practice even ohens who have not undergone this fourteen-day period

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of initiation wear the same feather to assert a claim to Igie ohen status. 6. Of course, in so doing they may be challenged by individuals who participate in the Oba’s institutions, and punitive sanctions may be exercised. 7. Such contexts are autonomous to the use of the vulturine fish eagle feather within the institutions that underpin the Oba of Benin. 8. The medicine is embedded in a leather packet sown with cowrie shells. Its composition was not disclosed but includes a red parrot feather, prepared in whatever way. The use of the feather stands for the parrot in a relationship of synecdoche. 9. Bradbury recounts a similar narrative in connection with the deity Ovia (Bradbury 1973c). 10. Titleholders in November 1991 were expected to contribute a minimum of 100 naira each as well as contributions of foodstuffs, new costumes and other goods. 11. By way of comparison, in Ebira red is the dominant colour of the most prestigious funeral cloth, also used in ancestral masquerade; red (violet plantain) feathers are worn on the red hats of chiefs; and the hero who introduced masquerade to Ebira was called Ododo (J. Picton, personal communication, 6 May 2005). 12. Bannerman (1953: 551–9) notes that the majority of touraco species have the same characteristic crimson feathers on their wings and the particular species is therefore difficult to identify by this feather alone. The two species that inhabit this area of southern Nigeria are the red-tipped crested touraco, whose habitat is the tree canopy in the high forest, and the violet plantain eater, which is a larger bird that occupies the fringing forest along the banks of streams and rivers, nesting in trees that are only 20–30 feet high. The first bird tallies more with Edo descriptions of awe. 13. The parrot also has this association, as Jungwirth (1968: 203) documents in the song sung by the Ifieto palace grouping: ‘High up on the top is ebakhue Our king is also high up.’ 14. Encyclopaedic memory, however, is not some stable edifice but rather, to quote Preziosi (1989: 154), ‘In constru(ct)ing the visual environment, we work with a mass of elements that have been codified in the course of individual and collective history. But such codifications are invariably ironic and transitory, perpetually subject to transformation and deformation, readable in terms of their materiality by attention to relations, locations and processes, and differences. Moreover, such codifications are invariably the contested grounds for the construction and construal of [social] sense: always orientated, never innocent; machineries for the social production of meaning in relation to other existing or potential productions; artifactual environments disciplining desire through the legitimation of socially specific realities.’ 15. Sperber’s discussion as applied to works of art emphasises a cognitive model of art which is useful in exploring the articulations of the parrot’s red tail feather, but its use in this context does not exclude the ways in which works of art have aesthetic, semiological and social as well as cognitive values. As Preziosi notes (1989: 179), ‘On that horizon, “art history” might be the history, theory, and criticism of the multiplicity of cultural processes that can be constru(ct)ed as enframing: an accounting for objects and their subject with all that might entail.’

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CHAPTER 8 1. The numbers in italics have been inserted into Ryder’s text for convenience in identifying the four categories that he suggested. 2. For a comparison see some of Jungwirth’s documentation of Okunonghae’s accounts of Esigie and Aruanran (1968: 158–86). Okunonghae was also an important informant for Bradbury. 3. The author can attest to this as in an interview conducted in 1991 with an Okhuaihe ohen, the ohen read directly from Egharevba’s work The Okhuaihe of Ikhuen (1974) in response to questions about the formation of the shrine. 4. Bradbury (1959b) evaluated how the reigns of particular Obas are linked to particular social innovations to articulate a construct of ‘dynastic time’ that embedded the hegemonic status of the ruling dynasty. 5. A key problem is how one interprets such oral narratives and how the conventions of their particular genre are unpacked. Smith’s (1969) comparison of Yoruba-speaking narratives of the founding of kingship in different polities is instructive in highlighting the commonalities of narrative structure in the legitimation of kingship. 6. Girshick Ben-Amos (1995: 53) estimates seventeen based on Allman (1898: 44), who in fact refers to ‘huge pits, seventeen in number found principally in the vicinity of the regal palace’. However, H. Ling Roth quotes his brother, the advance surgeon of the Expedition, who states that pits are found in each of the palace compounds but does not give a number (Roth 1968 [1903]:175) 7. The lack of known casting centres from this period reflects the paucity of archaeological excavation in the region but may also suggest that casters were a mobile group rather than permanently settled in particular polities or settlements. 8. Since Bradbury’s paper (1961) the Ezomo’s Ikegobo, with one part missing, has turned up in a collection given to the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Given its importance, it seems inconceivable that it would have been granted an export licence. 9. The attention paid to P. Girshick Ben-Amos’s work highlights the major contributions she has made to the study of art history in Benin, with such success that the approaches she deployed have over time become a paradigm that is taken for granted and needs to be critically reassessed. 10. But even here there is scope for alternative interpretations of history, as paternal shrines record the achievements of prior generations. The family that usually retains the Uwangue title record how an early titleholder defied the Oba by being buried outside the family compound in Ogbe (only the Oba can be buried in this area) – and how, when palace retainers came to remove the body, the grave transformed into a pool of water.

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GLOSSARY

aban ada ada adaigho agbon aghonghon ahianmwen ne ukioya ahode akhue ebo akhue-khue akhue obo Akpowa Alazi ame aranmwen Arhuarhuan arigho aro asa Ata of Igala, Idah atalakpa avan awan-Ogun awase awe awua awua erinmwin aza azen Azenu Bayano Araba (Yoruba) eba ebakhue eben ebo

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native handcuff, medicine or charm crossroad, junction ceremonial sword ritual costume material world shadow bird that warns of misfortune opener of the road initiation, bath of the deity seed of plant; form of divination fourteen-day native doctor initiation live in wealth; name of Olokun deity ape, name for Eziza deity water, sea animal narratives half-brother of the Oba Esigie species of crocodile shrine, face shield king of the Igala-speaking people centred on the town of Idah leopard in the wild afternoon tongs associated with Ogun pebble-sized medicine red-tipped crested touraco taboo, pollution taboo of the deity bells witches deity from the Eshan area important title in Isango worship red tail feather of African grey parrot red tail feather of African grey parrot ceremonial sword god; deity or as symbolic objects instituted to represent particular deities

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GLOSSARY

215

ebo Edaiken

white person heir to the throne of Benin, also member of Uzama N’Ihinron ede cap, crown edion village elders; in other contexts it can refer to the deceased members of a social grouping who represent that grouping in the spirit world edion ebo elders of the native doctors edion ewaise elders of diviners Edogun title of a war chief Edohen hereditary titleholder in Uzama n’Ihinron egbe body egbo praise song and dance form egbo deep forest Eghaevbo n’Ogbe palace Chiefs, one of three orders of titleholders of the Oba of Benin Eghaevbo n’Ore n’Okhua town chiefs, one of three orders of titleholders of the Oba of Benin egogo metal gong used in worship of Ogun eguae palace ehi spirtual counterpart to the individual, guardian spirit ehiendo alligator pepper, the indigeneous form of pepper Afromomum melegueta eho annual remembrance festival to deceased father ehoheziza whirlwind Eholo n’Ire hereditary titleholder in Uzama N’Ihinron eken clay Ekhaemwen Uko N’Ogbe junior grades of the titleholders of the Eghaevbo N’Ogbe ekhuae medicinal charm ekpen leopard Elawue head of village of Usen on the borders between the Yoruba- and Edo-speaking peoples ema small drum emada see omada ematon iron Emotan Edo heroine deified by Oba Ewuare, formerly marked by a tree but now a statue at which burial processions offer sacrifice Emuen ne Ekodin deity from Uhi eni elephant enogie hereditary chief of a village erekhue green fruit pigeon erha father erinmwin spirit world Ero hereditary titleholder in Uzama N’Ihinron errie harem Eruerie one series of the Ibiwe titleholders Esogban title of senior chief of the Eghaevbo’Ore

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Evbiekoi

principal village of village cluster of Ighuen that worship Okhuaihe as the communal deity common to them all evbirrevbo children Ewere leaf associated with good fortune, also ceremony held at Igue eyeye infants eze river, stream Eziza deity of the forest Ezomo hereditary titleholder in Uzama N’Ihinron and important war leader for the Oba of Benin Ezomo Ehenua founding Ezomo of current line of Ezomos ezuzu fan fi Olokun to do Olokun divination gbe to kill, beat, perform, dance ibierugha junior grade of the palace associations Ibiwe palace association that maintains the harem of the Oba, his wives and children ibu a tree, Conopharyngia pachysiphen and penduliflora idada hair in which the hair grows in a knotted spiral dreadlock fashion Idia mother of Oba Esigie, who held first queen mother title Idunmwun-Uhunmwun village community on the outskirts of Benin City ifiento bodyguard who accompany the Oba on public occasions to ward off spiritual dangers igan feather Igbaghon deity (consort to Olokun); name of leaf igbakhuan Edo word for water spirits that trouble an individual (equivalent of ogbanje) igbe ten Igbesanmwan woodcarving and ivory guild igborhue preparers of local chalk: they crush it into a fine powder igheghan small bell ighele men of the community whose ages range from twenty to the middle forties igho money Igie ohen chief priest, fully initiated priest Igue annual festival of the Oba of Benin Igun-ematon blacksmiths’ guild Igun-eronmwon brasscasting guild ihe deity whose shrines are believed to have been instituted by the deity transforming itself into an aspect of the environment ihonmwengbe act of purification ikegobo shrine to the arm ikhinmwin tree, Newbouldia laevis, considered to be the first tree and planted when a village or compound is first set up

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GLOSSARY

ikpema ikpigho Inneh Irighon iroghae Iron Isango Isekpokin iselogbe isoton

itee ivie Iwebo Iweguae iya Iyase iye iye ne ebo Iye n’Oba kemwinkemwin khorhion mose Oba Obalafon obele Obiemwen obo obo (pl. ebo) Odafen odigba odionwere ododo ogbanje (Igbo) ogbe ogboi ogbugbo

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drummers cowries head of the brasscasters’ ward village of the village cluster Ighuen youths who perform the communal labour of the community ceremony held at Igue deity associated with the sky, originating from the Yoruba-speaking area leatherworkers’ guild happy celebration ceremony in which the senior sons of each wife of the deceased parade through the town during the funeral rites continual menstrual discharge coral senior palace association customarily in charge of the Oba’s state regalia palace association that is in charge of the Oba’s private apartments and includes all household officials earthworks that surround Benin City and also extend across large areas of the region title of most important chief in Benin and head of Eghaevbo n’Ore mother mother of shrine queen mother section of market that sells medicinal items to be ugly to be beautiful ruler of Edo kingdom deity from the Yoruba region paddle deity, in some localities sister to Olokun, in other localities consort to the local community deity arm native doctor junior grade in the palace associations coral collar oldest man in village or quarter red cloth Igbo word used to describe water spirits that trouble an individual area of Benin City where palace of Oba of Benin is located uninitiated or ignorant person farmer

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ogharaba oghohon ogigban ogiso Ogun oguomwadia ogwega oha ohen okakao okao okha okha okhaevbo okhue okhuen-khuen oki okpagha okpobo (o kpe obo) okpovbie okun isoton Okhuaihe Oliha olode Olokun Oloton omada (pl. emada) omakhe ome omebo omo omobue omwanabe onogie (pl. enigie)

onotueyevbo Onwina Onwina n’Ido ore Orhionmwon orhue orinmwin

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breadfruit tree Artocarpous communis or the African breadfruit Treculia africana vulturine fish eagle thorny plant, known locally as wild yam rulers that preceded the reigning dynasty deity of iron personal servant tree, Detarium senegalense, also form of divination using the seeds bush priest or religious minister war leader leader historical narratives silk cotton tree, Ceiba pentandra leader of the people at Urhonigbe parrot species of climber (not known) circles tree, Pentaeclethra macrophylla washing of hand, initiation as a native doctor night dance sea, funeral box paraded during funeral ceremony deity of of village cluster of Ighuen hereditary titleholder in Uzama N’Ihinron, considered the most senior of the order shrine to the ikhinmwin tree deity of the sea and river hereditary titleholder in Uzama N’Ihinron ceremonial swordbearer of the Oba of Benin potter young palm frond moulder of shrine statues child clay sculptor practictioner of witchcraft hereditary title, formally recognised by the palace institutions of the Oba of Benin as the head of the village he who salutes (the Oba) for the village, represents the village community to the Oba of Benin carpenters’ guild weavers’ guild remainder of town outside of ogbe river deity, consort to Olokun combination of chalk and kaolin corpse; dead body

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GLOSSARY

orisa (Yoruba) Oroma oromwe Orunmila Osa osama ose Osun osuorhue otien oto otu otua Ovia ovien owa owe owewe oze saibo udahae Udo Ugbe ne owewe ughe ughegbe ugie uhunmwun ukhurhe uko ukpabo ukugba ukuse ulakpa uleku ulelefe umaranmwen Urhonigbe urigbe uru Uselu uwenrhien-otan

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deity deity associated with Olokun guinea fowl deity of Ifa, derives from Yoruba-speaking area supreme or high God brasscaster, sculptor beautiful power active in leaves and herbs large fluted moulding of native chalk fruit tree, Chrysophyllum albidum land divisions or grades of both Eghaevbo title orders tree, Cleistopholis partens deity associated with river Ovia slave home leg describes the explosion that is made by native dane guns lead (metal) to reveal the secret coral headband settlement to the east of Benin City that, according to oral traditions, once rivalled Benin City strike like an explosion entrance to the town mirror dance, celebration head staff placed on ancestral shrines senior untitled grade of Eghaevbo N’Ogbe or Eghaevbo N’Ore Nokhua chalk bearer belt musical instrument made from calabashes with beads strung around the outside clay Olokun pendant capped anthill animal narratives major settlement to the west of Benin City in Orhionmwon local government area anklets pot area outside Benin City where the queenmother to the Oba of Benin resides canes made from Glyphaea laterifolia

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uwu uyi Uzama n’Ihinron

zoy

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death respect hereditary titled order whose members install the Oba of Benin at coronation; considered descendants of chiefs who requested a new ruler to found the present dynasty pick out, choose

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REFERENCES

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Rowlands, M. 1993. ‘The good and bad death. ritual killing and historical transformation in a West African kingdom, Paideuma 39: 291–301. Ryder, A. F. C. 1961. ‘The Benin missions’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 2, 2: 231–59. Ryder, A. F. C. 1964. ‘A note on the Afro-Portuguese ivories’, Journal of African History 6, 3: 363–5. Ryder, A. F. C. 1965. ‘A reconsideration of the Ife–Benin relationship’, Journal of African History 6, 1: 25–37. Ryder, A. F. C. 1977. Benin and the Europeans 1485–1897, Ibadan and London: Longman. Sandoval, Alonso de [1627] 1956. Naturaleza, Policia Sagrada i Profana, Costumbres i Ritos, Disciplina i Catechismo Evangelico de Todos Etiopes, Bogota: Valtierra. Saussure, F. de [1916] 1974. Course in General Linguistics, London: Fontana. Shaw, T. 1979. Unearthing Igbo-Ukwu, Ibadan: Oxford University Press. Shelton, A. 1995. Fetishism.Visualising Power and Desire, London: South Bank Centre and Lund Humphries Publishers. Smith, R. 1969. Kingdoms of the Yoruba, London: Methuen. Sontag, S. 1966. Against Interpretation and Other Essays, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Sotheby’s 1993. Important Tribal Art, New York: exhibition catalogue, 9 November. Sperber, D. 1974. Rethinking Symbolism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spring, C. 1993. African Arms and Armour, London: British Museum. Steiner, C. B. 1994. African Art in Transit, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thomas, N. W. 1910a. Anthropological Report on the Edo-Speaking Peoples of Nigeria, Parts 1 and 2, London: Harrison and Sons. Thomas, N. W. 1910b. ‘Decorative art among the Edo-speaking peoples of Nigeria’, Man 37: 65–6. Thomas, N. W. 1910c. ‘Pottery-making of the Edo-speaking peoples of Nigeria’, Man 53: 97–8. Thomas, N. W. 1910d. ‘The Edo-speaking peoples of Nigeria’, Journal of the African Society 10, 37: 1–15. Thornton, J. 1988. ‘Traditions, documents and the Ife–Benin relationship’, History in Africa 15: 351–62. Thornton, J. [1992] 1998. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World 1400–1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, second edition. Thornton, J. and P. Girshick Ben-Amos 2001. ‘Civil war in the kingdom of Benin 1689–1721: continuity or political change?’, Journal of History in Africa 42, 3: 353–76. Turner, V. 1967. Forest of Symbols, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. Turner, V. 1969. Ritual Process, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. Usuanlele, U. and T. Falola 1998. ‘A comparison of Jacob Egharevba’s Ekhere VB Itan Edo and the four editions of its English translation, A Short History of Benin’, History in Africa 25: 361–86. van Dantzig, A. and A. Jones (transls and eds) 1987. Pieter de Marees, Description and Historical Account of the Gold Kingdom of Guinea (1602), Oxford: British Academy Press and Oxford University Press.

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van Gennep, A. 1960. Rites of Passage, transl. Monica Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Vansina, J. 1984. Art History in Africa, London: Longman. Verger, P. 1976. Trade Relations between the Bight of Benin and Bahia 17th–19th Century, transl. E. Crawford, Ibadan: Ibadan University Press. Vogel, S. 1988. ‘Africa and the Renaissance’, in E. Bassani and W. Fagg (eds), Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory, ed. S. Vogel, New York: Centre of African Art and Prestel, pp. 13–20. Vogel, S. (ed.) 1991. Africa Explores: Twentieth-Century African Art, New York and Munich: Center for African Art and Prestel. von Sydow, E. 1938. ‘Ancient and modern art in Benin City’, Africa 11, 1: 55–62. Welsh, J. 1926. ‘A voyage to Benin beyond the countrey of Guinea, set foorth by Master Bird and Master Newton merchants of London with a shippe called the Richard of Arundell and a Pinesse; written by James Welsh, who was chiefe master of the said voyage, begunne in the yeere 1588’, in R. Hakluyt (ed.), The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of The English Nation, ed. E. Goldsmid and G. Goldsmid, Glasgow: Vol. 11, pp. 317–18. Welton, M. 1968. ‘The function of song in Olokun ceremony’, Nigeria Magazine 98: 226–8. Wilks, I. 1993. Forests of Gold, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Willet, F., B. Torsney and B. Ritchie 1994. ‘Composition and style. an examination of the Benin “Bronze” heads’, African Arts 27, 3: 61–7. Williams, C. 1988. ‘Asante human sacrifice or capital punishment? An assessment of the period 1807–1874’, International Journal of African Historical Studies 21, 3: 433–41. Williams, D. 1974. Icon and Image, London: Allen and Lane. Wolfflin, H. 1950. Principles of Art History: The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art, transl. M. D. Hottinger, New York: Dover Publications. Wollheim, R. 1980. Art and Its Objects, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, second edition.

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1. The Oba of Benin (third from right and wearing red) at Emobo during the Igue festival accompanied by his chiefs including Chief Isekhere (fifth from right) who ensures the efficacy of ritual procedures (24/11/1991)

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2. Procession from Nekpenekpen community shrine to the palace of the Oba of Benin to pay their respects at the end of the annual festival (18/8/1990)

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3. Signboard advertising a native doctor. Alevbe is a bird that appears at dusk and hops from bush to bush leading the unwary astray. It highlights the powerful capacities that can be consulted (7/01/1992)

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4. Chief Anthony Osugbuo, a powerful ohen and native doctor, in his consulting room on the telephone (2/12/1991)

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5. Madam Odiah, the ohen Aitolekpenehae, during the day of her annual festival at Irokhin where her deity Okhuan resides. She is giving Okhuan’s blessings and protection to a baby of a devotee (1/10/1991)

6. Mr Efeobasota Osunde at his shrine to Ogun, the deity of iron and warfare (20/07/1990)

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7. (From right to left) Isango and Olokun shrines moulded by Mr Efeobasota Osunde for his wife (7/07/1990)

8. Cement memorial statue sculpted by Mr Sunday Osagie (15/01/1991)

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9. Madam Elema possessed by Olokun and throwing the eben, the ceremonial sword reserved for chiefs when they pay homage to the Oba of Benin. The deity Olokun legitimates her use of the eben (16/10/1991)

10. Mr Richard Amadasu carving in his studio with some of his youngest children (19/09/1991)

11. A panel carved by Mr Richard Amadasu which depicts the Oba of Benin and his chiefs at a palace festival (30/09/1991)

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INDEX

Abacha, S., 26 aban, 129–30 Abeghe deity, 100 Adigbe, ohen (Chief Solo Amayo), 75–9 annual festival, 57, 77 cap of cowries, 170 ohen Aibigie and, 81–2 performance by, 78 private consultation, 67 use of parrot feathers, 162 Adolo, Oba, 105 agbon (material world), erinmwin interaction, 29–30, 42 Aghoko, ohen, 136–7 Aibigie, ohen (Andrew Obaseki), 79–82 artefacts made by, 130–1 deities of, 79–80 Madam Odigie and, 152–5 payments to, 66 performance by, 153–5 shrine, 119 Aigbe, Madam Grace, 90 Aimienho, Madam, 101–2 Aitolekpenehae, ohen (Madam M. Odiah/ Fine Lady), 88–93 Ewere celebration, 70 payments to, 66 purification, 62–3 restrictions, 61 use of feathers, 172–3 Akaro, Godwin (ohen Asonmwonorrirri), 128–30, 163, 165 akhue ebo initiation, 50 Akpowa deity, 97, 98, 139, 147 Akpowa, ohen see Odigie, Madam Aladura churches ohen and, 75–6 witchcraft and, 44–5 Amadasu, Richard, 96, 120–3 Amayo, Chief Solo see Adigbe, ohen archaeology, 185 aro shrine, 42 art history, Edo kingdom, 190–202 artefacts art history, 190–8

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as artworks, 131–3 categories, 179 chronology, 188–9 documentary material, 179–80 material remains, 185–90 oral traditions, 180–4 understanding of, 157–8 use of, 134–5 artists autonomous, 106–8 biographies, 110–31, 200 patronage of, 104–6, 198–9 professionals and amateurs, 109–10 specialist production wards, 104–6, 110 study of, 131–3, 210n21 terminology, 109 training, 107–8 ‘artworlds’, concept of, 4, 6 Asonmwonorrirri, ohen see Akaro, Godwin Asonmwonorrirri, Samuel, 96, 110–14 awe (red-tipped crested touraco), feathers, 172–3, 212n12 awua erinmwin (prohibitions), 61 azen (witches), 44, 65 beads, trade, 13, 204n13 Ben-Amos, P. Girshick, 3–4, 22, 104–5, 109, 188, 191–8, 213n9 Bendel Crafts Shop, 121 Benin Bronzes, 1–2; see also brasscasting Benin City archaeology, 185 brasscasting, 187, 188 kingship, 28–9 name of, 26–7 oral traditions, 183 palace, 185, 213n6 reputation of, 18 urban cults, 4–5 see also Edo kingdom Benin cosmology, 197–8 biographies, as research tool, 200 Blackmun, B., 3–4 bowls, clay, 116

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INDEX Bradbury, R. E., 3, 10, 22, 180, 184, 190–1, 197, 213n4 brass, significance, 149–50 brass objects, for performance, 97 brass rings, 132 brasscasting, 12, 112–14, 186–9, 204n9 Britain colonialism, 19–21 removal of Benin artworks, 21–2 trade with, 18 British Punitive Expedition (1897), 21, 22, 185–6 Burton, R., 19 bush (oha), concept of, 167, 196 chieftancy, regalia of, 159–61; see also Obas Christianity ohens and, 75–6, 135–7 shrines and, 45–6, 125 cloth, trade, 15–16, 205nn21,25 colonial period British intervention, 19–22 craftsmen, 105 oral traditions, 182 social hiatus, 201–2 communities, ohen followers, 64–71 coral, significance, 38–9, 159–60 cosmology, 197–8 cowrie shells, 56, 170 dances by ohens, 71–3 initiation, 54 see also ugie avan (afternoon dance) Dapper, O., 9, 10, 11, 203n1 Dark, P., 2, 3 Darling, P. J., 181, 183–4, 185, 196, 197 deities female, 140 names of, 55–6 notions of, 41–2 see also ohens Dike, K. O., 3 disputes, resolving, 43 divination, 56, 99–100 documentary material, artefacts, 179–80 Dutch, trade with, 15–16 Earliece Idukpaye, Osaretin, 118–20 eba/ebakhue (red tail feathers), 159 ebo (deity), definition, 41 edion (elders) shrines to, 34–5 social organisation, 27–8, 206n43 Edo Development Progressive Union, 92 Edo kingdom art history, 190–202 artworks, 1–3, 14–15, 21–2

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245

continuities, 198–9, 201 definition of, 26–7 expansion of, 14 history, 180 material remains, 185–90 oral traditions, 180–4 origins of, 11 social organisation, 3, 27–8 society as it is, 184–5 twentieth century, 23–6 see also Benin City egbo (forest), 167, 196 Eghaevbo n’Ogbe, 28 Eghaevbo n’Ore n’Okhua, 28 Egharevba, J., 10, 181 Ehengbuda, Oba, 16 ehi (spiritual counterpart) of ohens, 63–4 shrine, 32–3, 206n3 Ehidiaduwa, Madam, 126–8 Ehidiaduwa, Osaremwida, 82–4 ehiendo (alligator pepper), 11, 58–9 Elema, Madam, 87 emada (palace pages), 105–6, 108, 192–4 Emokpolo, 151 Emuen ne Ekodin deity, 98, 99 erha (deceased father), shrine, 31–2 erinmwin (spirit world) intervention with, 42–5 Oba and, 29–30 shrines and, 31 Eronmwon, 149–50 Esigie, Oba, 13, 87, 97, 204n14 Europeans documentation of Edo history, 179–80 first contacts with, 9–15 perceptions of African art, 2, 9, 22–3, 203nn2–3 see also colonial period Evboesi, 105, 207–8n3, 210n13 Ewedo, Oba, 184 Eweka I, Oba, 11, 145 Eweka II, Oba, 21, 98–9, 105, 108, 182 Eweka, Prince Ena, 106 Ewere celebration, 69–70 Ewuare, Oba, 10–11, 38, 70, 159, 203n2 Eziza (forest deity) dance of, 72 Madam Odigie’s deity, 98, 99, 142 Madam Osughe’s deity, 101, 209n13 ohen initiation, 48 statues of, 116, 117, 127 Ezomo, 17, 145–6, 190–1 Fagg, W., 109, 187 feathers narratives, 162–8 practices, 169–75

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ART, PERFORMANCE AND RITUAL IN BENIN CITY

red and white, 159–62 significance of, 7, 158 FESTAC cultural festival (1977), 107, 125 fieldwork, 158 Fine Lady see Aitolekpenehae, ohen funerals, 160

Iyase, 17, 83–4, 136, 205n22 Iye n’Oba (queen mother), 77, 85–6 Iyeye (great mother), 87

gender relations initiation, 48, 207–8n3 ohens, 84–7, 102–3 shrines, 33–4 see also women guinea fowl, 163, 169

leaves, properties of, 44–5 leopards, status of, 55, 89–90, 139, 167, 211n10 Lewis, G., 158 lost wax (cire perdue) casting, 2, 12, 106, 112–13, 186, 203n1

head, significance of, 169–70 home (owa), concept of, 167, 196 household shrines, 31–4

Mami Wata, 49–50, 79, 93, 117 manillas, brass, 13 masquerade, 86, 161–2 material remains of the past, 185–90 Melzian, H., 41, 42, 207n14 missionaries, 13–14, 45

Ibie, C. O., 164–5 Idah, Ovia, 107, 210n7 Idahosa, Madam Dorcas, 87 Idubor, Felix, 124–5 Idunmwun-Uhunmwun, communal shrine, 36, 61, 82–4 Ife, brasscasting, 187 Igbafe, P. A., 104 Igbaghon, female deity, 83, 140 Igbesanmwan (wood and ivory carvers’ ward), 106, 107, 109, 192–4 Igbinedion, Esama, 115–16 Igbinedion, L., 25, 206n39 Ighuen village cluster, 35 Igie ohens (chief priests), 51, 56–7, 64, 159, 174–5, 208n7 women, 86–7 see also ohens (priests) Igue festivals, 36, 69–70, 169, 207n10, 208n19 Igun Street, 97, 113–14 Igun-ematon (blacksmiths’ ward), 106 Igun-eronmwon (brasscasters’ ward), 106, 112–13 ihe (local deity), shrines to, 35, 41–2 ikegobo, Ezomo’s, 190–1, 213n8 ikenga shrines, 33, 206n4 ikhinmwin trees, 40, 84, 207n13 Ikpekpe (cemetery deity), 76 Ikpiame, ohen, Igue festival, 69 illness divination, 63, 208n12 treatment by ohens, 64–5, 208n15 initiation, 50–1, 52–7, 64, 174 Irokhin village, 61, 88, 90 Isango, dance, 72 Isango society, 176 Isekpokin (leatherworkers’ ward), 106 ivory carvings, 9 Iyamu, Madam Asiruwa see Osagie, ohen

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Kingship, rituals, 17–18; see also Obas knowledge, acquisition of, 176–8

names, of deities, 55–6 narratives of feathers, 162–8 genres, 180–1 recitation of, 177–8 National Republican Congress (NRC), 25 Nevadomsky, J., 3–4, 22–3, 197 new yam festivals, 68–9, 137 Nomayisi, ohen, payments to, 66 Obas authority of, 14, 17, 24–6, 28–30, 145 colonial intervention, 19–21 coronation, 210n6 dynastic traditions, 10–11, 184–5, 204n4 genealogy, 180 institutions of, 182–3, 192, 197 patronage by, 104–6, 198–9 regalia, 159–60 shrines and, 35–7 spirit world and, 29–30 succession, 16, 184–5 trade negotiations, 13–14 Obaseki, Andrew see Aibigie, ohen Obaseki, Oba, 182 Obiemwen, female deity, 83, 118, 140 obo (arm), shrines, 33 obo (native doctor), 33, 44–5 Ode-Iberia, Chief, 96, 110–11 Odiah, Madam M. see Aitolekpenehae, ohen Odighi, 141 Odigie, Madam (ohen Akpowa), 79, 81, 98–100, 119 annual festival, 137–55 ohen Aibigie and, 152–5 parrot feather narrative, 163 odionwere (senior elder), 28, 34, 206n44

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INDEX ododo (red cloth), 171 Ogbe, Hilda, 121 Ogbomo, O. W., 182, 197, 201 oghohon (vulturine fish eagle), feathers, 159–62, 172 Ogun initiation, 50, 95 ohen of, 75, 76, 79 shrines to, 33–4 songs to, 147–8 Ogun ne ame, ohen see Osunde, Efeobasota Ogun Nomayisi, ohen see Oni, George Oguola, Oba, 13, 187 oha (bush), concept of, 167, 196 ohens (priests) annual festivals, 57 becoming an ohen, 48–9 biographies, 74–103, 200 dances, 71–3 followers of, 64–71 gender and, 84–7, 102–3 initiation, 47–8, 50–1, 52–7, 64, 174 institutional links, 176 Oba and, 36–7 payments to, 64, 66–7 performance by, 58–61 personhood, 63 practices of, 176–7 relations between, 71, 81–2 restrictions, 61–3 roles of, 35 shrines and, 39 skills, 64 songs by, 1357 testing of, 55 use of red parrot feathers, 159, 165–78 witchcraft and, 65 see also Igie ohens (chief priests) Okhuan, shrine to, 61, 66, 88–90 Okpewho, I., 182, 197, 201 Okhuaihe deity, 35, 93–4, 115 Olode shrine, 33, 84 Olokun (water deity) dance of, 72 depictions of, 119, 127 female deities of, 140 initiation, 52, 56 initiation of women, 50 shrines to, 33–4, 38, 39, 206–7n6, 207n12 status of, 141 Ominigie, ohen, 119, 162, 174 omo (child), 144–5 Oni, George (ohen Ogun Nomayisi), 123–5 onogie, 28 Onwina (carpenters’ ward), 106 Onwina n’Ido (weavers’ ward), 106 oracles, consultation, 49

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247

oral traditions, Edo history, 180–4 Orhionmwon no saibo, ohen, 55, 173 Orhionmwon river, 27, 55 orhue (chalk), 60, 78, 208n6 Oriele deity, 141 Oroma, female deity, 140, 155 Orunmila akhue-khue divination, 56, 80 initiation, 52, 56 red parrot feathers, 163–5 shrines, 122 Osa (supreme God), 41–2 Osagie, ohen (Madam Asiruwa Iyamu), 59–60, 93–8 Osagie, Sunday, 125–6 Osanobua, 163 Ose Nugba deity, 90–1 Osughe, Madam Mercy (ohen Ughe ne Eze), 87, 100–3 Osun deities, 76 shrines, 33 Osunde, Efeobasota (ohen Ogun ne ame), 92–3, 114–18 osuorhue (chalk figures), 92, 126–8 Otu Edo society, 135, 136, 211n5 Ovonramwen, Oba, 19–21, 23, 182 owa (home), concept of, 167, 196 owl, feathers, 173 Pacheco Pereira, D., 10 paintings, commissioned, 119–20 palm oil, trade, 18 parrot feathers narratives, 162–8 practices of, 169–78 wearing of, 158, 159, 161–2 patronage, by Oba, 104–6, 198–9 payments for statues, 111–12 to ohens, 64, 66–7, 169–70 Pentecostal churches, shrines and, 43, 44, 46 pepper, trade, 11, 12, 204n12 performance artefacts and, 134–5 by ohens, 58–61, 78 personhood, ohens, 63–4 Picton, J., 23, 188 political involvement, women, 85–6 Portuguese, contact with Edo kingdom, 9–15 Preziosi, D., 212nn14–15 priests see ohens ram’s head, artefacts, 188 Reformed Ogboni Fraternity, 76, 135, 136, 211nn4–5

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ART, PERFORMANCE AND RITUAL IN BENIN CITY

religion, grassroots, 199; see also Christianity; ohens; shrines Ryder, A. F. C., 179, 180 sacrifices, human, 18–19, 205nn29–30 Scheme for the Study of Benin History and Culture, 3 shrines Christianity and, 45–6 communal, 34–5 communities of, 64–71 conventions, 176 domestic, 31–4 gender divisions, 33–4 materiality, 37–9 Oba and, 35–7 paintings, 119–20 personal cults, 37 placement of, 40–1 semantics, 41–2 setting up, 52 statues, 92–3, 96–7 worship, 57–61 slave trade, 11, 14, 17, 18, 204n5 Smith, R., 213n5 Social Democrat Party (SDP), 25 ‘society as it is’, 3, 184–5 songs artefacts and, 157–8 Madam Odigie’s annual festival, 137–55 parrots in, 170–1 role of, 135–7 use of, 7 Sperber, D., 175, 212n15 ‘spraying’ of money, 169–70 statues brass, 112–13 cement, 115–16 clay, 111–12, 116 creation of, 111–13 for shrines, 92–3, 96–7 structuralist approach, 195–8 Tada village, 187 titles, conferred by ohen, 67–8, 208n18 trade beads, 13, 204n13

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British, 18 cloth, 15–16, 205nn21, 25 Dutch, 15–16 palm oil, 18 pepper, 11, 12, 204n12 Portuguese, 11–13 slaves, 11, 14, 17, 18, 204n5 Udo village, 27 Ugbezumale deity, 90 Ughe ne Eze, ohen see Osughe, Madam Mercy Ughoton, trading post, 12, 15, 18, 160 ugie avan (afternoon dance) initiation, 52, 56 of ohen Aitolekpenhae, 91, 92 regular, 57–8 rituals, 58 Uhuname, ohen, 69–70, 170–2 uhunmwun (head), shrines to, 32, 169 ulelefe (anthill), for shrines, 38, 96 University of Benin, art training, 107–8 Urhonigbe village, 27, 83 Vansina, J., 188–9 villages communal shrines, 34–5 social organisation, 27–8 vulturine fish eagle, white feathers, 159–62, 172 water spirit world, 40, 49–50, 59–60, 95, 141, 159–60; see also Olokun Welsh, J., 15 witchcraft, 44, 65 Wolfflin, H., 198 women economic position, 85 ohens, 86–7 political involvement, 85–6 restrictions, 61–2 shrines for, 33–4 see also gender relations woodcarvers, 107, 120–3; see also Igbesanmwan worship, rituals, 57–61

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