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94 Mbembe Niger River Benue River Cross River Ewayon˘ River Gulf of Guinea Abuja Port Harcourt Area of detail Douala AFRICA Yaoundé 0 100 mi 0 100 km ART on View The Mbembe The attribution of these works to an “M’Bembe” cultural tradition identifies them with a moniker that was not in use prior to the nineteenth century. The term Mbembe came to refer to a series of villages concentrated on the east side of the middle Cross River and Awayong Creek, west of the Ejagham and east of the eastern and northeastern Igbo peoples, in the area around the town of Obubura in Ogoja Province (fig. 5). According to Rosemary Harris, who undertook field research in the region during the 1950s, the Mbembe observed a double unilineal kinship system in which rights to land and houses were inherited through one’s father, while moveable property and jural rights over individuals were inherited matrilineally (1965: 3, 8, 25). The latter affiliation was referred to by the term ekamanei, or “born of the same mother,” and was conceived as a group among whom wealth was shared.3 At the beginning of the twentieth century, each independent Mbembe settlement was led by a head chief. Individuals were appointed to that role by their peers rather than by inheritance and served as the principal medium through which the community communicated with the spiritual realm. Such priestly leaders linking the living to the departed were referred to as okpobam (Harris 1984: 61). Devotion to distinguished ancestors, afranong, was a focal point of Mbembe spiritual life and the likely subject of its artistic representations (Eyo 1977: 204). Accordingly, the Mbembe figurative works that FIG. 7: Slit drum: seated male figure. Mbembe, Ewayon River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria. 19th century. Provenance: Collected in 1907 by Max von Stefenelli; Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin. Wood. L: 220 cm. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin, inv. III C 21947. Photo: © bpk, Berlin/Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen/Art Resource, NY. FIG. 6: Slit drum with seated figures. Mbembe, Ewayon River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria. C. 1520–1620. Provenance: Collected in 1907 by Max von Stefenelli; Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin. Wood. L: 330 cm. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin, inv. III C 21947. Photo: © bpk, Berlin/Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen/Art Resource, NY. FIG. 5: Map showing the Mbembe region, Cross River Province, Nigeria. © Anandaroop Roy. FIG. 8 (right): Standing figure with trophy head identified as Chief Appia. Mbembe, Ewayon River region, Cross River Province, Nigeria. 17th– 18th century. Provenance: O. Traoré, Lomé, Togo; Hélène Kamer, Paris, 1973. Wood. H: 89 cm. Private collection, Paris. Photo: © Thierry Ollivier, Paris.


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