Silenced Mbembe Muses

Abstract

Previous articleNext article FreeSilenced Mbembe MusesAlisa LagammaAlisa LagammaCurator in Charge, Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreWith its penetrating rawness and poetic lyricism, a recent acquisition by The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a striking centerpiece for the African collection (Figure 1a. Carved from a dense wood, this sculpture—addressing a subject of universal relevance, the relationship of mother and child—has endured some three hundred years since its creation by an artist active in what is today southeastern Nigeria, near the Cameroonian frontier (Figure 2).1 The integration of this work into the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing’s survey of sub-Saharan art introduces a seminal yet relatively unfamiliar sculptural tradition that is known through fewer than twenty works now preserved in the West. This essay examines the Metropolitan Museum’s Maternity Figure: Seated Mother and Child in relation to that body of work. It further addresses what is known about their collective history and seeks to integrate these fragmentary artifacts into a fuller picture of the role they may have played in their original communities.1a. Maternity Figure: Seated Mother and Child. Mbembe peoples; Ewayon̆ River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria, 15th–17th century. Wood, pigment, resin, nails, H. 42½ in. (108 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, 2010 and 2008 Benefit Funds, Laura G. and James J. Ross, David and Holly Ross, Noah-Sadie K. wachtel Foundation Inc. and Mrs. Howard J. Barnet Gifts, 2010 (2010.256). Photograph: The Photograph Studio, MMA1b. Detail of Figure 1a2. Map showing the Mbembe region. From Kamer 1974. © Hélène KamerThe Metropolitan Mbembe Maternity FigureIn the Metropolitan work, a seated woman gazes forward with her hands placed on either knee. The rounded volume of her head contrasts sharply with the rectilinear outline of her shoulders. Below the point of intersection of the limbs, the calves extend down vertically. At the compositional midpoint, the horizontal form of a child sweeps across the vertical axis of the female torso. That element extends with its head at the mother’s proper left hip and its legs wrapped around her right side. At the base and back of the female figure are signs that it was originally part of a larger entity. On the reverse side the exposed wood surface is raw from the neck down. Across the rest of what remains of the finished surface, the pronounced vertical grain is in vivid evidence throughout. Erosion has resulted in deeply grooved channels that powerfully define the overall aesthetic, and this weathering has instilled the subject with a heightened quality of endurance and fortitude. Despite this process of wear, a great deal of surface detail has survived. Crisp outlines of the ovoid ears project from the sides of the head, deep eye cavities command attention, and the face retains an expression of contemplative introspection. Paradoxically, exposure to the elements appears to have somehow distilled the work, so that its essence is revealed.This object was acquired in 2010 from Hiroshi Ogawa through Christie’s. Ogawa had purchased it in 1974 from Hélène Kamer’s gallery in Paris shortly after its arrival from western central Africa.2A Pioneering ExhibitionKamer presented Mbembe sculpture in the landmark exhibition “Ancêtres M’Bembé,” which introduced the international art world to what remains to this day essentially the Mbembe corpus (Figures 3–5).3 The eleven full-bodied, rugged, and rustic figures of monumental stature featured in that inaugural show presented a completely unknown sculptural tradition to connoisseurs of African art. That sensibility constituted a major departure from the established tastes for traditions like those of the Dogon of Mali and the Fang of Gabon that gallerists had emphasized since the early twentieth century. In the introduction to her catalogue, the sole monograph devoted to this tradition, Kamer (now Leloup) reflected on the new direction epitomized by this discovery: “For the last twenty years that I have devoted to ‘l’art nègre,’ I’ve seen the interest and taste of collectors evolve. In this art that was called ‘savage,’ a preference for forms already defined by a classic perfection developed: Fang statues, Baule masks, Benin bronzes. The criteria of quality were the fineness of the sculpture, harmony of the volumes, brilliance of the patinas, in short, the same as those used since the Renaissance to judge works of art.”4 For Kamer, the forms embraced up until then were assimilated relatively easily into Western tastes, but the tough boldness of this artistic vision represented a challenging departure.3. Invitation to “Ancêtres M’Bembe,” Galerie Kamer, Paris, May 28, 1974. © Hélène Kamer4. Installation view, “Ancêtres M’Bembé,” Galerie Kamer, Paris, 1974. © Hélène Kamer5. Installation view, “Ancêtres M’Bembé,” Galerie Kamer, Paris, 1974. Figure 21 in this article (Figure 1 on the gallery exhibition checklist) is not shown in this image, as that work was displayed in the gallery window (see Figure 4). © Hélène KamerThe unveiling of the Mbembe works made manifest a tradition unlike any that had defined African art until then and epitomized the potential for new revelations that remained possible in the field. In February 1974, shortly before the exhibition, one major work was acquired from Kamer by the curator Pierre Meauzé for the Musée des Arts Africains et Océaniens (now part of the Musée du Quai Branly), Paris (Figure 6). It was also published by the authority on Nigerian art, Ekpo Eyo, in the survey Two Thousand Years, Nigerian Art, issued to mark the Second world Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, which was held in Lagos, Nigeria, from January 12 to February 15, 1977. That seated figure, with its long attenuated limbs, arms extended forward and cupped hands resting on either knee, is now among the highlights of non-western art featured in the Pavillon des Sessions at the Musée du Louvre, Paris. The work’s human form is pared down to its underlying structure, so that its gender is difficult to determine. Surface erosion to the face has swept away most of its original features. All that survives are traces of horizontal depressions for the eyes and mouth as well as the slight vertical ridge of the nose and oval ears that project at either side of the head. Throughout, the exposed grain of the wood is emphatically horizontal, and successive parallel strata visually evoke layer upon layer of geological sedimentary deposits. In its report for the minister of cultural affairs at the time of acquisition, the Louvre’s laboratory analyzed the wood and identified it as Afzelia africana, otherwise known as “doucier” (a variety of oak), or “apia.” Several varieties of this tree are known to attain a maximum height of 65½ feet and a diameter of 6½ feet. X-rays revealed that the work is composed of a single piece of wood but that the nose had been reattached and partially restored. The author of the conservation report concluded, “The X-ray study of the entirety of the sculpture underscores the beauty of the work.”5 Despite the extent to which the representation has been distilled, the suggestion of an expression of intense reflection lingers.6. Seated Figure. Mbembe peoples; Ewayon̆ River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria, 17th–18th century. Wood (Afzelia), H. 25⅜ in. (64.5 cm). Musée clu Quai Branly, Paris (inv. MNAAN 74.1.1). Photograph: Hughes Dubois; Musée du Quai Branly/Scala/Art Resource, NYThe Discovery: From the Cross River to the Left BankThe international recognition of Mbembe sculpture resulted from field collecting by the African dealer named O. Traoré in dialogue with the eye and instincts of Hélène Kamer. Already established internationally as a leading dealer in African art, Kamer had undertaken extensive collecting on the ground in Mali, Guinea, and Ivory Coast earlier in her career. She recalls that during the 1970s West Africans regularly traveled to Paris with works that they had imported into France, and active collectors and dealers perused them in the hotel rooms of the sixth arrondissement that the Africans used as their base of operation.6 Through these channels, an influx of artifacts from the Nigerian-Cameroonian border region commenced, as a result of two phenomena: European art dealers were not traveling to this area because of the Biafran war, and Malians engaged in the art trade during the 1950s and 1960s, having exhausted sources for material closer to home, had continued to seek out artifacts farther and farther east.7 Kamer first became aware of Mbembe sculpture on September 29, 1972, when she encountered Traoré, a dealer from an established Malian family, at the hotel where he was staying on the rue de l’Ancienne Comédie. Among the works she saw that afternoon, a massive statue from Nigeria with broken arms immediately caught her attention. In acquiring that work, Kamer inquired about its origins. In order to protect his source, Traoré declined to discuss specifics of where it had been collected but promised to return with other examples as well as information on their use, significance, and subject matter, which he would gather from an elder on his next visit to the region.From his base in Lomé, Togo, close to the Nigerian border, Traoré made two further forays to obtain additional works for Kamer. He returned to Paris from the first trip on February 6, 1973.8 At that time he provided the provenance of the works he brought with him, relating them to a small group known as the Mbembe, located east of the town of Abakaliki in the former Anambra State in the Cross River region (Figure 7). He further reported that an Igbo elder had informed him that Mbembe chiefs oversaw annual tributes to the founder of their village’s lineage. Such celebrations took place in a large structure where all men who had proven themselves as warriors gathered. A monumental sacred drum, ten to thirteen feet long and adorned with representations of the founding couple, was the principal feature of this setting. The female subject depicted was the spouse who had given birth to the lineage’s first male descendant. Young men demonstrated their worthiness by placing before the drum, which served as a shrine, the severed head of an enemy they had slain.9 British colonial interdictions of such devotional practices contributed to the decline and gradual abandonment of these village sanctuaries. Traoré indicated that it was nonetheless necessary for him to obtain the consent of the community to acquire the damaged works that survived. On July 13, 1973, he returned to Paris from his final reconnaissance journey in search of Mbembe works. He had alerted Kamer in advance that nothing further remained in situ. In addition to transferring the last remaining sculptures for what was then a considerable price of 55,000 francs, he relayed information obtained from an elder concerning their association with historical figures. After that exchange, Kamer never heard from Traoré again. The content he provided was published with the launch of the gallery exhibition on May 28, 1974.10 In her commentary Kamer situates the provenance of all twelve works acquired over the course of her exchanges with Traoré in relation to the town of Obubura.117. Map of the Cross River region. From Partridge 1905Beyond those twelve Mbembe works, only about five others are identified in western collections, including two intact drums in Berlin’s Ethnologisches Museum (formerly Museum für Völkerkunde), both collected in 1907 (Figures 8, 9); a seated female figure in the national Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C. (Figure 10); a seated male figure now in a private collection (Figures 11a, 11b); and a seated male figure formerly owned by the French-born artist Arman.12 Within this context, the monumentality and full-bodied treatment of the examples first presented by Kamer are distinguished by an overarching stylistic consistency that suggests the work of three distinct hands.8. Slit Drum: Seated Figures. Mbembe peoples; Ewayon̆ River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria, ca. 1520–1620. Wood, L. 130 in. (330 cm). Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin, acquired from M. von Stefenelli (III C 21947). Photograph: © bpk, Berlin/Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen/Art Resource, NY9. Slit Drum: Seated Male Figure. Mbembe peoples; Ewayon̆ River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria, 19th century. Wood, L. 86⅝ in. (220 cm). Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin, acquired from M. von Stefenelli (III C 21948). Photograph: © Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin–Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Preussischer Kulturbesitz10. Maternity Figure: Mother and Child. Mbembe peoples; Ewayon̆ River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria, 19th–early 20th century. Wood, pigment, seeds; 26¾ × 19⅛ × 19¾ in. (68 × 48.6 × 50 cm). National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Museum Purchase (85-1-12). Photograph: © Photograph by Franko Khoury, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.11a. Seated Male Figure with Rifle and Bowler Hat. Mbembe peoples; Ewayon̆ River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria, 20th century. Wood, H. 39¾ in. (101 cm). Private collection. Photograph: © Pauline Shapiro/Sotheby’s11b. Back of Figure 11aA History Of The MbembeThe attribution of these works to a Mbembe cultural tradition identifies them with a term that was not in use prior to the nineteenth century. The communities to which these works have been credited were small, highly decentralized ones on the banks of the middle cross River and its northern tributary, the Ewayon̆, or Aweyon̆. Historically, raids by coastal peoples who supplied the Atlantic slave trade heavily affected the larger cross River region. The port of Calabar was the seat of that market and of the European presence from the sixteenth century onward. Until the late nineteenth century, however, European trade goods and Christian beliefs made their way inland indirectly through middlemen-merchants such as the people of Arochukwu, who fiercely prevented coastal traders from passing through their villages.13 The nineteenth-century colonial occupation of the region by Britain marked an end to the slave trade as well as to certain indigenous religious practices. A British government station for the cross River region was established at Ikom in 1884, and by 1900 its district commissioner Sir Ralph Moor had led a punitive expedition to Arochukwu. That campaign opened the way for British firms to develop trading posts upriver.14Over the course of the nineteenth century, migrations of peoples from the north and south toward the left banks of the Cross River led to the convergence of many rival groups. The term “Mbembe” came to be associated with a number of villages concentrated on the east side of the middle cross River and Awayong Creek, east of the eastern and northeastern Igbo peoples and west of the Ejagham, in the area around the town of Obubura in the former Ogoja Province. Anthropologist Rosemary Harris, who undertook field research in the region during the 1950s, has noted that in 1965 the designation “Mbembe” covered the compact settlements of a semi-Bantu population of less than 40,000 in villages of 100 to 3,000 inhabitants.15 The Mbembe observed a double unilineal kinship system in which rights to land and houses were inherited through the father and other movable property and jural rights over individuals through the mother.16 Ekamanei, or “born of the same mother,” denoted the latter and was conceived as a group among whom wealth was shared.17At the beginning of the twentieth century, each independent Mbembe settlement was led by a head chief appointed by his peers. In this capacity he served as the principal medium through which the community communicated with the spiritual realm, linking the living to the departed. who this were to as Sir Partridge a British colonial who served as district commissioner in the Obubura a with one such head chief in the of on an the provided the of his the of the and they to after the and to the when are about to birth to and other of the same the and of these I to the the to be to the and to Mbembe all men and identified with and men also to Such kinship and played a role in constituted an the village and a its in the Among their were the and of chiefs and the of association had the authority to the of individuals in a given community by on their In to such the its to the The of such to for the of new the 1950s, however, the had to such an extent that men were to the as most were the was and devoted to that into not only the of a but also evidence of demonstrated by the of an or was active the Cross River region during the nineteenth It had among the peoples by the as a association known as in the of southeastern Nigeria and From it was trade to including the and all of the semi-Bantu the and and some of the On a in a of brought a men their kinship individuals to attain of of was on and owned a shrine, and that were in a the On a its and highly decentralized a and a of that contributed to their A Mbembe to the twentieth century, a point of each Mbembe as well as those of the was a monumental drum, a with two at the known as an in a the served as an It was also the by which community were of and through which they communicated with their The was played with two of wood by the that or over a of ten from of or enemy to of the of or the launch of a the of the was used to the men to in and warriors by the with a head on their return from to Traoré, celebrations before the featured to of of its spiritual an of their and the centerpiece of each was given a and identified with a its creation was a and the time her she signs of wood in Mbembe communities and that artifacts were purchased from the and the process was the and of the tree from which the for the was and took or over the course of which the by the associated work was to feature a sculptural of or at one or both of the The human were a figure or a male and a head. the two be placed at of a single some drums were with a single figure at one end or the same figure at both who served as a district one classic in an the was a of its It was from a piece of wood, At either end a figure, male to the female to the and to the right of the on a was the of the male figure to the of the that of the mother the role of its in through the of served to the of the an of that she in the village of in in which a was a central The was the property of the had to mark the passing of one of their she not on any sculptural of the she that each before the and his by an at the The was of as a for and of That served to protect the and a to the or distinguished was a point of Mbembe spiritual and the subject of its artistic Two examples of Mbembe now preserved in Berlin’s Ethnologisches Museum were collected in 1907 in the cross River region by the von of one of those originally from the that it is and five hundred years (Figure This massive which about a and eleven feet in is highly so that the of the elements have been The exposed grain of the from which it was is as in the of the Seated Figure on at the (Figure 6). with the are at either At one they a seated figure his arms to his sides and the and at the other a figure is seated with his back with the That less figure a in his right and an object in the his with feet The other Berlin is a nineteenth-century from a settlement from (Figure end of that work a single seated male figure in his right a used in and in the left a head. At the time of its it was to have been and years This more recent work retains on its surface a great deal of and as well as such as and a the beginning of the twentieth century, when those works left the region, it appears that their use had been A in which such artifacts remained but were as is reflected in “The next called at a place on the left which has also long been The are and to information about them with a have all of A in the and the from the with interest in of Partridge the drums he saw association houses in the villages of (Figure and (Figure and drum, From Partridge at and From Partridge of the seated figures to Mbembe that are preserved in western to be originally part of monumental drums (Figures 6, 11a, This is in traces of the part of the structure, that at the base of these figures. The weathering of the of those suggests that the some time and that the figures remained in their communities long after they became figures are yet in a of and arms extended so that each on its knee. of them the of the the original have been It is possible that the figures were preserved as in their right the which was the most Seated Figure. Mbembe peoples; Ewayon̆ River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria, 17th–18th century. Wood, H. in. cm). Private of by de Seated Figure. Mbembe peoples; Ewayon̆ River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria, 17th–18th century. Wood, in. × cm). collection. Photograph: Seated Figure. Mbembe peoples; Ewayon̆ River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria, 17th–18th century. Wood, H. in. cm). Private Paris. Photograph: © Seated Figure (formerly Maternity Figure: Seated Mother and Mbembe peoples; Ewayon̆ River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria, 17th–18th century. Wood, H. in. cm). Private Paris. Photograph: © Seated Figure. Mbembe peoples; Ewayon̆ River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria, 17th–18th century. Wood, H. in. cm). and Paris. Photograph: © Hughes Maternity Figure: Seated Mother and Child. Mbembe peoples; Ewayon̆ River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria, 17th–18th century. Wood, H. in. cm). Private collection. Photograph: © Maternity Figure: Seated Mother and Child. Mbembe peoples; Ewayon̆ River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria, 17th–18th century. Wood, H. in. cm). Paris. Photograph: © Hughes In to the of these works, other figures with and may the Mbembe In her final with Traoré, Kamer information concerning traditions relating to three of the male figures and one which that those works and may be independent sculptures (Figures and the founding of new were to have had themselves depicted in a years before its the massive male figure in his left a head that is larger than his was identified as a great chief and founder of the village named after him (Figure to that tradition, sculptural was at his in the of the community to the and was the of annual celebrations that his The and rounded with the surface of the grain define a and Figure with as Mbembe peoples; Ewayon̆ River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria, 17th–18th century. Wood, H. in.