Giving objects a voice: conservation and the N. W. Thomas collection

UCL students conducting an inspection of objects from the N. W. Thomas collection at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology prior to their transfer to the UCL Conservation Lab. Photograph: George Agbo.
Among the many collaborations involved in the [Re:]Entanglements project is a partnership with the
Museum Conservation programme
at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology. Under the supervision of Drs
Dean Sully
and
Carmen Vida
, students on the graduate programme have been working on a selection of objects collected by
Northcote Thomas
during his anthropological surveys of Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Project coordinator, Carmen Vida, introduces some of the contributions of conservation in this the first in a series of posts from the UCL Conservation team.
Starting in February 2019, as part of the
[Re:]Entanglements
project, a selection of objects belonging to the
N. W. Thomas Collection
at the University of Cambridge
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
(MAA) have come to UCL’s
Institute of Archaeology
for conservation. The project is allowing us to interact with the collection in new ways and to approach, explore and elicit some of the past and present meanings of the archive Thomas put together. As a result, in many cases the objects in the stores are being studied for the first time and the cobwebs are being dusted off, sometimes quite literally.
Conservation
has a particular role in the [Re:]Entanglements project: not only does it ensure that the objects are stable enough to be used by anyone interacting with them, but as a distinct form of engagement, it provides intimate knowledge of the objects and can shed light on their make-up and their biography. Due to the lack of contextualising documentary evidence, museum objects often appear to be ‘mute’. But even where there is documentary evidence, the histories and narratives that have reached us provide one side – often
someone’s
side – of the story. Conservation can help provide a
voice
to the objects themselves, which may sometimes corroborate, but at other times question, the established histories associated with the objects. In doing so, conservation affords present day audiences the possibility to re-engage with the objects, whilst exploring the way in which the archive came to be both from past and contemporary perspectives.
Detailed documentation is essential in conservation practice. Here a student annotates photographs of a
mask collected in Ibillo
in present-day Edo State, Nigeria prior to conservation treatment. Photograph: George Agbo.
By the time the project is finished more than 40 objects will have been worked on at the Institute of Archaeology’s conservation lab and at the MAA. The objects being treated vary in type and size, and are but a small part of the N. W. Thomas Collection, which includes over 3,000 objects. Some will form part of the [Re:]Entanglements exhibition due to open in Cambridge in April 2021, whilst others are being conserved because, after over a century of existence, they have become unstable even when packaged away in a museum store. The work is being carried out both by professional conservators and students, and is allowing these students to develop their skills and further their training, another affordance of the project. We are also providing running some workshops for the
Art Assassins
, the youth forum of the South London Gallery, which is another collaboration within the [Re:]Entanglements project.
A fish trap collected by N. W. Thomas in Awgbu in present-day Anambra State, Nigeria undergoing reconstruction in the UCL Conservation Lab. Made from strips of bamboo, tied with plant fibres, this fragile trap was little more than a pile of sticks prior to conservation. NWT (2) 2, MAA
Z 13941
. Photograph: Paul Basu.
There is a whole array of tools and techniques that
we use in conservation to better understand the objects and inform our
treatments. Documentation is essential, starting with any existing historical
information to which we can correlate the object itself: documents,
photographs, previous museum information in the form of labels or markings on
the objects. Labels are interesting things: sometimes informative, sometimes
deceptive and indicative of misidentification at some stage. Our conservation
work on the N. W. Thomas Collection includes the preservation of labels and
museum numbers marked on the object, as they have by now become part of it and
of its history.
Documentation of labels associated with the fish trap being conserved.
Visual analysis of the objects can be extremely
revealing for a trained eye. We use microscopes to examine the surface of the
objects, looking for evidence of damage and instability, but also for clues as
to the history of the object: manufacture materials and techniques, damage and/or
repairs (whether before or after collection), evidence of rituals or of use are
all things we will be looking for in our work. All these tell stories and give
the object a new voice. Some of the objects treated so far exhibit extensive
pest damage, and microscopy has helped us find evidence of the pests
themselves, which will be later used by expert entomologists to identify the
species and give us a good idea of where the damage might have occurred. The
insect damage in some of the objects reflects their places of origin in West
Africa (termites) as well as their later history (wood boring insects that can
be found in the UK).
Horned mask, described by Thomas as
ofulu mpi
, collected in Awgbu, present-day Anambra State, Nigeria in 1911. Conservators use microscopes to inspect the insect damage: top-right: insect carcass; bottom-right: insect eggs. These will be sent to an entomologist for identification. NWT (2) 375,
MAA Z 14231.1
.
But conservators do not rely on visual inspection
alone and we are trained to use most of our senses as part of our work, not
just our eyes and hands. Smell, for instance, can help us identify fungal
infestation, or certain materials used in the past. And by listening to the
sound when we very gently tap a surface, we can ascertain the extent to which
it may be hollow under the surface as a result of pest activity. One sense we
are definitely not encouraged to use is taste! – not least because of the toxic
materials earlier conservators may have used to treat objects.
Other techniques we use help us to identify materials whether original or introduced by repairs done in the past.
Ultraviolet fluorescence
, for instance, can reveal the presence of modern adhesives and materials in objects. Chemical tests can help identify binders and pigments used in their decoration. Elemental analysis with portable technology such as p-XRF (portable
X ray fluorescence
, which detects inorganic elements such as metals and minerals) can help us identify not just what the objects are made of, but also, for instance, if they were treated with pest treatments no longer used such as arsenic or mercury salts. And we can use
Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy
(FTIR) to identify organic compounds. In this way we were able to establish, for instance, that a white deposit on one of the masks (Z 13728) was paraffin wax. This identification helped us both clean it safely by using the right solvents, but also to speculate that the mask may have received some treatment, possibly soon after arrival at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge. Paraffin wax was often used as a filler and protective coating treatment for wooden objects from the end of the 19th century and into the first half of the 20th century. In this case, our findings support documentary evidence from the museum’s
Annual Reports
in the years shortly after acquisition that the objects were cleaned, mended and restored.
Mask described by Thomas a
onye kulie
collected in Nibo, present day Anambra State, Nigeria in 1911. Using FTIR techniques, conservators were able to identify the white deposit evident on parts of the mask as paraffin wax, likely to have been used to treat the mask at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology soon after it was accessioned. NWT (2) 428,
MAA Z 13728
.
Excerpt from the Annual Report of the University of Cambridge Antiquarian Committee, 1914. The report notes that much of the museum assistant’s time ‘has been devoted to cleaning, mending and restoring’ objects collected by Thomas, many of which had been damaged in transit from Nigeria. The report also notes that Thomas himself spent a week at the museum ‘classifying and labelling his collections’. This would have been during the period of leave between his third and fourth tours.
Our work so far has also allowed us to interrogate and qualify some of the other knowledge resulting from the [Re:]Entanglements project’s
collections-based research
. Thomas’s correspondence, for instance, indicates that – in stark contrast to the current practice in his time – he commissioned some of the objects he collected to be made or else bought them at markets. One of the objects conserved at UCL in 2019 is an Igbo maiden spirit mask. The initial visual examination of the mask identified a number of historical repairs, including an iron sheet stabilising one of the bird figure on the proper right of the headdress, an iron staple across a crack on the proper left side of the headdress, and a plant fibre tie on the same area as the staple but further down. In the case of the iron staple and the fibre ties, they are covered with the same pigment used on the rest of the mask, suggesting they are original repairs. Checking the current condition against Thomas’s field photographs showed that the iron sheet repair securing the bird was already there when the mask was photographed by Thomas, presumably at the time of acquisition. These repairs could both be indicative of use prior to collection, in which case the mask would had had a previous life and not been simply commissioned by Thomas, or else be repairs carried out during the process of manufacture, not an uncommon occurrence. Currently we have not been able to resolve the matter of previous use in relation to this object, but nevertheless this conservation work has raised the question, allowing us to continue looking for evidence of previous use in other objects. That is one of the research questions we will be looking to find evidence for when treating other objects.
Maiden spirit mask described by Thomas as
isi abogefi
collected in either Agukwu-Nri or Nibo, present-day Anambra State, Nigeria, in 1911. Thomas also photographed the mask in the field (top right), revealing that the repair to one of the bird decorations was made prior to acquisition. A close examination of the the iron staple and fibre tie used to repair a split on the proper left of the mask shows that they are covered in the same pigment used on the rest of the mask, suggesting that the repair was done during the making of the mask. NWT (2) 390, MAA
Z 13689
.
To date, nine objects have received treatment, and
conservation of the remaining objects is underway. In this and subsequent
conservation-themed blogs we will be sharing some of the stories that are
coming to light as a result of the conservation work.
As
noted above, many of the objects undergoing conservation and being discussed in this series of posts will be exhibited at the [Re:]Entanglements exhibition at the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology due to open in April 2021.

Maiden-spirit
N. W. Thomas
collections
UCL Conservation
museum conservation
objects
mask


Fieldnotes: Chief Suri Kandeh’s kingbatankeh

Paramount Chief Kandeh Sori Kakanday III of Samaya, pictured with Northcote Thomas’s photograph of his ancestor Chief Alimami Suri Kandeh. Both wear the
kingbatankeh
as part of the regalia of office. Photograph by Paul Basu.
During our fieldwork retracing the journeys made by Northcote Thomas during his anthropological surveys in Southern Nigeria and Sierra Leone, it is a real privilege when we are able to identify the descendants of people that Thomas photographed. Photographs of individuals taken in the context of a colonial project are set free from the archive and become transformed into something magical, able to bring people face-to-face with their ancestors for the first time. People often remark with wonder how, after over a hundred years, through the
[Re:]Entanglements
project, the photographs have made their way back to the communities where they were taken.
It is equally remarkable when working with the
artefact collections
assembled by Thomas to identify
objects that Thomas photographed in the field
, and know these are the very same objects – they provide such a tangible link with the past.
When we visited Samaya, in
Tambakha chiefdom
, Sierra Leone, the power of photography and material culture to transport us in time and space was brought together. When Northcote Thomas visited Samaya in 1914, he made a number of photographs of Chief Almami Suri Kandeh. Suri Kandeh was a powerful paramount chief, reputed to have had 75 wives! The present paramount chief, Kandeh Sori Kakanday III, is a direct descendant of Suri Kandeh and was overjoyed to see the photograph of his illustrious ancestor.
Left:  Chief Alimami Suri Kandeh and elders (NWT 5189; MAA P.32937); Right: detail of  Chief Alimami Suri Kandeh (NWT 5195; MAA P.32946). Photographed by Northcote Thomas in Samaya, 1914. Note the
kingbatankeh
, with its suspension mount.
Thomas photographed Chief Suri Kandeh wearing his regalia of office, including a silver medal known locally as the
kingbatankeh
– the ‘king’s chain’. We were thrilled to hear that the medal still formed part of the paramount chief’s regalia. The
kingbatankeh
is not normally seen other than on special occasions, and it is normally only worn by a paramount chief once he has passed through
kantha
, a period of ritual seclusion, traditionally part of a chief’s coronation in northern Sierra Leone. Due to the exceptional circumstances of our visit, however, a ceremony was performed and we were able to see the
kingbatankeh
and photograph Kandeh Sori Kakanday III wearing it, even though he had yet to pass through
kantha
.
The
kingbatankeh
worn by Chief Alimami Suri Kandeh when photographed by Northcote Thomas in 1914. Note the suspension mount. Photograph by Paul Basu.
Actually, there are two
kingbatankeh
in Samaya, and this is something of a mystery. Thomas’s photographs of Chief Suri Kandeh show him wearing a medal with a suspension mount by which it is attached to a chain. According to an article in
Sierra Leone Studies
written by
Robert de Zouche Hall
, Governor of Sierra Leone between 1952 and 1956, this silver medal had been given to Samaya’s chief by Governor Sir Frederic Cardew in the late 1890s. This was around the time of the anti-colonial
Hut Tax War
in Northern Sierra Leone, suggesting that Samaya had been loyal to the British during the uprising. The medal, of a type struck in 1883, is still in the possession of the chiefdom, and bears the head of
Queen Victoria
.
We do not know the exact year that Suri Kandeh was crowned as paramount chief, so it is uncertain whether it was he himself who was awarded the medal by Cardew or his predecessor in office, Kandeh Satanlai. We do know, however, that Chief Suri Kandeh was held in high esteem by the British colonial authorities. In a colonial intelligence report on Sierra Leone’s protectorate chiefs, dating to 1912, it is stated that Alimami Suri ‘rules his country very well, and is highly respected by his subjects. A strict Mohomedan, and a true friend to the Government’.
Alimami Suri – ‘the best chief in the District’. Excerpt from ‘Information Regarding Protectorate Chiefs, 1912’, report held by the Sierra Leone National Archives.
The second
kingbatankeh
in Samaya is larger, does not have a suspension mount, bears the head of King George III and is dated 1814. These medals were known to have been distributed to ‘friendly chiefs’ in Sierra Leone in the 1820s and 30s. ‘Friendly chiefs’ were those who were willing to sign treaties and align their interests with the British. Such treaty-making  exploited enmities between local polities and was an insidious form of colonial expansion, eventually giving rise to the declaration of Sierra Leone as a British protectorate in 1896. The circumstances and date at which this larger medal came to Samaya are, however, not known to us.
The second, earlier
kingbatankeh
in Samaya, with the head of George III. Photograph by Paul Basu.
In his 1959
Sierra Leone Studies
article, Hall notes that one of the 1814 medals was in the possession of Paramount Chief Bai Samura of
Sanda Loko chiefdom
. According to Hall’s source (a colonial district officer), the medal was presented to Samura Renjia, a Loko chief based at Kamalo. Northcote Thomas’s tour took him to Kamalo in Sanda Loko after Samaya, and although Thomas made a photograph of the reigning paramount chief – also named Samura – this unfortunately appears to have been lost. When we visited Kamalo, we were, however, shown a photograph of Paramount Chief Samura Bangura, who reigned between 1942 and 1972, by his grandson Simeon F Bangura.
Photograph of  Paramount Chief Samura Bangura of Sanda Loko chiefdom, who reigned between 1942 and 1972, wearing the
kingdollar
, with the bust of George III. Courtesy of Simeon F Bangura.
This photograph shows his grandfather wearing what is known in Kamalo as the
kingdollar
– the medal with
George III
’s head clearly visible. This was also part of the chiefly regalia. Interestingly, even though the medal is known as the king’s dollar, the story is that it was presented by Queen Victoria. It might be noted that a treaty was signed between Sanda Loko and the British government in 1837, the year that Victoria came to the throne – it was on such occasions that the medals were presented (indeed, they are sometimes called ‘treaty medals’). It is not known what happened to the
kingdollar
.
These medals have an interesting history. As Hall notes, the 1814 medal was originally struck as a reward to North American Indian Chiefs who had supported Britain during the so-called
War of 1812
with the United States of America. Similar medals had been used as ‘tokens of friendship’ since the eighteenth century, often on the signing of treaties – a practice sometimes referred to as ‘peace medal diplomacy’.
Before being introduced in West Africa, the practice of gifting medals to native chiefs was employed in Britain’s North American colonies. Chiefs fighting alongside the British in the War of 1812 were awarded the same medal as that shown above with the head of George III and dated 1814. Left:
Tecumseh
(1768-1813), a Native American Shawnee chief who formed an alliance with the British during the War of 1812, painted version of a pencil sketch by Pierre Le Dru c.1808. Right: Shon-ka-ki-he-ga, Horse Chief, Grand Pawnees Head Chief, painted by George Catlin, 1832.
The practice of presenting medals to ‘friendly chiefs’ was subsequently introduced in West Africa. Hall discusses the various issues of medals used in Sierra Leone, including the two types we encountered in Samaya. Other types can be found on display at the
Sierra Leone National Museum
, including a much poorer quality pewter version of the 1814 medal introduced by
Governor Arthur Kennedy
in 1853. These were evidently of such inferior quality that chiefs were ashamed to wear them.
Pewter version of the 1814 issue medal introduced in Sierra Leone in 1853. An 1882 memorandum records that chiefs stopped wearing them because of being mocked by traders. This rare example is in the collection of the Sierra Leone National Museum. Photograph by Paul Basu.
When
Governor Arthur Havelock
revived the practice of medal giving in the 1880s (a time of extensive British colonial expansion and treaty-making in Sierra Leone), it was with the new, high quality, solid silver issue bearing the head of Queen Victoria – just like the one that Chief Suri Kandeh wears around his neck in Northcote Thomas’s photographs.
Download Robert de Zouche Hall’s article ‘Nineteeth Century Chiefs Medals’, originally published in
Sierra Leone Studies
in 1959.
Download

Limba
medals
regalia
Sierra Leone
chiefs
Susu
Kamalo
Samaya


It is I who come, Onyeso …

N. W. Thomas photographs of Onyeso of Agukwu Nri, pictured with oton, ofo and goat skin bag. NWT 2563 and 2564; RAI 400.15415 and 400.15416.
There is a wealth of cultural and historical knowledge locked away in the
sound recordings
that
Northcote Thomas
made during his anthropological surveys of Nigeria and Sierra Leone in the early twentieth century. Recorded on
wax cylinders
using a
phonograph
and without the benefit of a microphone, these sound archives are, however, some of the most challenging materials to work with. The audio signal is often weak, and the levels of noise very high.
Working with Yvonne Mbanefo of the
Igbo Studies Initiative
and thanks to a small grant from the
British Library
, which cares for Thomas’s wax cylinder recordings today, we have begun to transcribe, translate and re-record some of the the audio tracks. We have also been revisiting some of the transcriptions and translations that Thomas published in his Anthropological Reports. The original  transcriptions and translations have proven to be invaluable in re-engaging with the recordings, but they can also be quite inaccurate.
During his
1910-11 tour
of what was then Awka District (corresponding more or less to present-day
Anambra State
, Nigeria), Thomas spent a considerable amount of time at Agukwu Nri.
Nri
was an extremely important town in
Igboland
, the seat of the ‘highest ritual political title’, the Eze Nri. The reigning
Eze Nri
at the time of Thomas’s visits was Obalike. During the
[Re:]Entanglements
project, we have had the privilege of presenting Eze Nri Obalike’s grandson with a hitherto unknown photographic portrait of his grandfather made by Thomas.
‘Chief Onyeso and family’, photographed by N. W. Thomas, Agukwu Nri, 1911. NWT 2236. RAI 400.15837.
Another important figure in Nri at the time of Thomas’s anthropological survey was Chief Onyeso. Onyeso was the son of the previous Eze Nri, Enweleana, and had served as regent during the interregnum between the reigns of Enweleana and Obalike. Whereas the Eze Nri was a spiritual leader, it appears that Onyeso remained a powerful ‘secular’ leader. As well as photographing him and his family, Thomas recorded a speech by Onyeso. In this case, the original recording seems not to have survived, but there is a transcription and translation of the speech in Part III of Thomas’s
Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria
; a volume devoted to ‘Proverbs, Narratives, Vocabularies and Grammar’.
Pages from N. W. Thomas,
Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria
, Part III: Proverbs, Narratives, Vocabularies and Grammar, pp.92-3 featuring transcription of  speech by Onyeso.
Re-recording of Onyeso’s speech translated into standard Central Igbo by Yvonne Mbanefo and read by Oba Kosi Nwoba.
Below is a rendering of the text of Onyeso’s speech in standard Central Igbo together with a revised English translation, both provided by Yvonne Mbanefo.
Ọkwa mụ na abịa, Onyeso, nwa Ezenri,
It is I who come, Onyeso, son of Ezenri
Nna m bụ Eze. Egburu m ichi n’epughị eze
My Father was the King, I got Ichi marks before I got teeth
N’izu iri na anọ, nwa eze na-enwe eze,
At fourteen weeks the son of the King has teeth,
mana ọ bụrụ na ọ nweghị ichi,
But it happened that he didn’t have ichi marks.
Eze pụta, ma ichi adịghịị, anaghị ekwe, aga etufu ya.
but if the teeth come out without the marks, it is forbidden, they throw him away.
Obodo ọbụla mere mkpọtụ.
All the towns made noise.
Mana nwa eze, gaa n’obodo ahụ,
But the son of the king, went to the town.
Wee sị, emena ihe ọjọọ, e buna agha , anụna ọgụ
and said, ‘Don’t do bad things, don’t start wars, don’t fight’.
Ọ ihe a ka nwa Eze na-eme.
That is what the son of the King does.
Anyị na-eyi akpụkpọ agụ
We are the wearers of leopard skins
Ife siri ike n’obodo.
Things are hard in the town.
Anyị bụ ụmụ eze. Anyị ga-eje dozie ya.
We are the children of the King.
Ọbịa ka Gọọmentị jị bịa kpọlụ ndi Igbo niile.
The Government was visiting and took all the Igbo people.
Anyị wee sị ndị Igbo niile na ife anyị na-eme, ka ala dịrị anyị mma.
We are then saying that all Igbo that what we do, to make the land good.
Anyị bụ Nri, Isi ala Igbo niile.
We are Nri people, head of the entire Igbo land.
Anyị bụ isi ọbọdọ niile, mmadụ niile .
We are the head of all the towns, and all the people.
Oge ụwa Gọọmentị bịara , anyị wee lee, obodo mebie.
When the Government came, we looked, and the town got spoiled.
Prince Ikenna Onyesoh, the current Regent of Nri, looking at Northcote Thomas’s photographs of his great-grandfather, Onyeso, Agukwu Nri, 2018. Photograph by Paul Basu.
Onyeso’s speech is remarkable for many reasons. In this text, we can hear the voice of one of Thomas’s prominent interlocutors – a known, named individual, who Thomas also photographed. It is the voice of a confident, defiant member of an aristocracy, highly critical of the British colonial government, which has usurped the authority of traditional rulers, and undermined the status of the royal town of Nri. Onyeso asserts the primacy of the Nri people as the ‘head of the entire Igbo land’, a ritual and political status discussed at length by the Nigerian anthropologist M. Angulu Onwuejeogwu in his book
An Igbo Civilization: Nri Kingdom and Hegemony
(1981).
Onyeso also provides first hand details about some of rituals around his office and the political functions of the
nwa eze
, the son of the king. He refers, for example, to the traditional practice of infanticide. A newborn child is not supposed to have teeth, and if it does this was traditionally considered an abomination, resulting in the child being left to die in the forest. Similarly, a baby who cut his upper teeth first was also considered an abomination. Onyeso states that the sons of kings cut their teeth early, but that it is important for them first to have the ichi facial scarification marks made – if they haven’t received the
ichi
marks, the child, he says, will be thrown away. Onyeso proudly states that he received the ichi marks as a baby before his teeth came through.
Onyeso also explains that the
nwa eze
acts as a peace-maker, travelling to towns, quelling disturbances and quarrels, advising towns under the Nri hegemony to keep the peace. This was an important role for Onyeso since the Eze Nri himself was traditionally prohibited from travelling outside of Nri after his coronation. As Onwuejeogwu argues, the Eze Nri ‘ruled but was never seen by the people of his hegemony’. The sacred status of the Eze Nri was undermined by the British colonial authorities; part of the destruction of the traditional order to which Onyeso alludes in his speech.
And what of the Government Anthropologist? Thomas’s position seems to have been ambiguous. On the one hand, he was surely associated with the forces of colonialism that were destroying the Nri hegemony. On the other hand, however, he contradicted colonial officials and sent despatches to the Colonial Office arguing that the ritual authority of the Eze Nri should be respected. He also documented the voices and words of people like Onyeso, representing the experiences of colonisation from the perspective of the colonised in his official
Reports
. One wonders how many people, even to this day, have actually read Onyeso’s speech or recognized how subversive an act it was of Thomas to include such anti-colonial sentiments in publications funded by the colonial government and distributed to colonial administrators.
Many thanks to Yvonne Mbanefo,  Oba Kosi Nwoba, Janet Topp Fargion and British Library Sounds for supporting our research on Northcote Thomas’s sound recordings.

Pages from N. W. Thomas,Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria, Part III: Proverbs, Narratives, Vocabularies and Grammar, pp.92-3 featuring transcription of  speech by Onyeso.

Igbo
Phonograph recording
phonograph
Onyeso
Agukwu Nri


Omu and the red cap controversy in Okpanam

The Omu of Okpanam, photographed by Northcote Thomas in September 1912. NWT 4107 and 4108 (MAA P.32118 and P.32119)
Over the last ten months, as part of our fieldwork for the
[Re:]Entanglements
project, we have been conducting research with 17 communities in present-day
Anambra
and
Delta
states in Nigeria. We have been revisiting locations that formed part of
Northcote Thomas’s itineraries
during his 1910-11 and 1912-13 anthropological surveys of Igbo-speaking peoples, equipped with copies of Thomas’s
photographs, phonograph recordings and images of artefact collections
.
During our
conversations and interviews with community members
, and through setting up informal ‘pop-up’ exhibitions in these locations, Thomas’s photographs have elicited a wide spectrum of reactions, ranging from rejection and indifference to excitement, emotional connection, inquisitiveness, contestation and much more. In particular, we have been struck by how local people use their mobile phones to re-photograph the prints of Thomas’s photographs that we bring with us when visiting a community and how quickly these new
digital copies circulate on WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media to extended family and community networks internationally
.
Sometimes
a single photograph can provoke especially strong responses, often because it
touches on a ‘raw nerve’ or intervenes in contemporary issues, reminding us how
history matters in the present. Thomas’s photograph no.4108 is one such case.
NWT 4108. Northcote Thomas’s photograph of the Omu of Okpanam, 1912. Scanned from glass plate negative. (RAI 400.38268)
Photograph no.4108 is a portrait of a woman with white marks around her eyes and on her forehead created with
nzu
(kaolin chalk). Around her neck she wears an assortment of necklaces made from various beads and shells. On her head is a cap that has a band with a series of small triangular blades and feathers sticking out of it. According to the brief note in Thomas’s photo register, the subject of the photograph is the ‘Omu’ of
Okpanam
, in present-day Delta State, Nigeria.
Excerpt from Northcote Thomas’s
Anthropological Report on Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria, Part IV, Law and Custom of the Ibo of the Asaba District, S. Nigeria
, p.189.
In volume four of his
Anthropological Report on Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria
, Thomas gives some explanation of the role of the Omu in various communities in
Anioma
– the territory of the Igbo-speaking population West of the Niger River, which was the focus of Thomas’s 1912-13 tour. According to
Report
, Omu is the ‘market queen’, who presides over the market and serves the shrine in it. She enforces order, collects dues and controls the prices of goods for sale. In some places, Thomas records that the market cannot begin until the Omu arrives, and that she may fine the women of her town for non-attendance and forbid them to go to more distant markets instead of attending that in their own town. At Okpanam, Thomas tells us that the Omu sent her stool to the market as a sign for it to begin.
Northcote Thomas made around
30 photographs in Okpanam
, many recording the title-taking ceremony of
Obi Mgbeze
that was happening when he visited in September 1912. However, during our fieldwork in Okpanam, it was the photograph of the Omu that consistently attracted most attention and elicited the most comment.
Photo elicitation fieldwork in Okpanam. Left: great grandchildren of Obi Mgbeze re-photographing Thomas’s photographs of their great-grandfather’s Obi title-taking ceremony; middle: the present-day Omu of Okpanam, HRM Obi Martha Dunkwu, examining Northcote Thomas’s
Anthropological Report
and photographs; right: community members discussing Thomas controversial 1912 photograph of the Omu of Okpanam during the 2019 Iwaji (New Yam Festival). Photographs by George Agbo.
As Thomas’ photograph of the Omu was viewed and re-photographed, the recurring comment it produced was:
Okwa ha si na Omu adi ekpu okpu ododo
? (‘Why do people argue that the Omu does not wear a red cap?’) The comment indexes an ongoing contestation about the right to wear the red cap in the community.
The
okpu ododo
or red cap of the present-day Omu of Okpanam. Photograph by George Agbo.
During colonial times in Igbo-speaking areas of Nigeria, the red cap became part of the regalia of office for senior title holders, including the so-called ‘Red Cap Chiefs’ or warrant chiefs. More recently, concern has been expressed that this symbol of authority is being worn by those who have no right to wear it.
Article from the
Premium Times
discussing the appropriation of the red cap by those who are not entitled to wear it.
In Okpanam the issue of the
okpu ododo
or red cap has become
entangled in local political disputes. Traditionally, Okpanam’s community was
headed by the Diokpa-Isi, the eldest man in the community. As the
administrative demands on the Diokpa-Isi grew, and considering his old age, members
of Okpanam community at home and in the diaspora agreed to institute the new post
of Ugoani. The process, which began in 2004 and was approved by Delta State
government in 2009, was followed by the election of Dr Michael Mbanefo Ogbolu
as Ugoani in May 2010. Following the performance of the associated rite in
2011, he was given staff of office by the government. The Ugoani was intended
to act as the representative of the Diokpa-Isi and Izu Ani (General Assembly), but
remain answerable to them. Over the past few years, however the Ugoani and his council
have assumed greater power, such that the Ugoani has come to be recognized as
the modern political head of Okpanam by the State, while the Diokpa-Isi, Izu
Ani, Obi titled men and Omu have become regarded as ‘traditional’ roles. This
has led to tensions and the red cap has become a symbol of the squabble.
Article from
The Nigerian Voice
reporting on the Ugoani and Ugoani-in-Council position on the Omu’s entitlement to wear the red cap.
Against the custom of the community, which stipulates that only Obi title holders and the Omu (whose status is equivalent to that of an Obi) are eligible to wear the red cap, the Ugoani and his cabinet members began to incorporate the red cap into their regalia, even though they do not hold the Obi title. The Obis then sued the Ugoani and his council, demanding that they stop wearing the red cap. As the contestations escalated, both sides issued statements and counter-statements in the Nigerian press and in various online forums. Responses of the Ugoani and Ugoani-in-Council were reported in
The Nigerian Voice
, for example, stating that the Omu is only a chief (albeit a ‘respected and revered one’), not of equivalent status as an Obi, and is therefore not entitled to wear the red cap either.
These statements were refuted strongly by Obi title holders in Okpanam, who drew attention to the ancient institution of the Omu compared to the recent establishment of the Ugoani role. In a lengthy post to the
Anioma Trust Facebook page
, Obi Nwaokobia was reported as stating that the ‘Ugoani has no authority to make a statement on Omu Okpanam’. Obi Nwaokobia further explained that ‘the institution of Omu has existed [since] the founding of Okpanam’ and that she is ‘the Traditional Mother of the community and she enjoys all the rights and privileges of a Royal Mother’. When an Omu dies, like Obis, she is buried in a sitting position, and in Okpanam, the Omu is more than a chief but in the same rank as Obis.
When we came to Okpanam, we were not aware of the
contestation around the Omu’s status or her right to wear the red cap. When we
learnt of the controversy, however, it was not surprising to find that the
Thomas’s photograph of the Omu in 1912 elicited such a powerful response.
Although the photographs are monochrome, the style of the hat with its band and
feathers is clear. Here was irrefutable evidence that the Omu traditionally wore
the red cap.
Images uploaded to the
Okpanam Indigene Facebook page
juxtaposing Northcote Thomas’s photograph of the Omu of Okpanam, taking in 1912, and a portrait photograph of the present-day Omu, HRM Obi Martha Dunkwu. The post has elicited much comment.
For many, the ‘red cap controversy’ has been settled by an archival image. Photographs of Thomas’s photograph soon began circulating on social media after our visit, bringing it to the attention of the international Anioma community. At the
‘Okpanam Indigene’ Facebook page
, for example, Emma Agala juxtaposed Thomas’s 1912 photograph with that of the current Omu, HRM Obi Martha Dunkwu, and included a long extract from Thomas’s
Anthropological Report
on the role of the Omu. The extensive research of the
[Re:]Entanglements
project itself was cited as confirming its authenticity. Among the 59 comments to the post, Martha Dunkwu herself remarks: ‘You are right. The red cap is there, the feather, the beads, the Akwa Ocha. Did you notice that the Aziza [that] the male Obis use is on her red cap? It’s wonderful that the British in 1912 recorded Omu-ship in Okpanam’.
No doubt the debates will continue in Okpanam, but the
incident demonstrates how the ethnographic archive may intervene in
contemporary events in ways that we have not anticipated. Our fieldwork
following Northcote Thomas’s itineraries in West Africa can present many
challenges, but the story of Omu and her red cap reminds us of the importance
of bringing back this archive to the communities whose histories it documents.

Excerpt from Northcote Thomas’sAnthropological Report on Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria, Part IV, Law and Custom of the Ibo of the Asaba District, S. Nigeria, p.189.

Anioma
Red Cap
contestation
Igbo
Delta State
Okpanam
Omu
Facebook


Colonial Indexicality

Four of Kelani Abass’s ‘stamping history’ works, which form part of his
Colonial Indexicality
series, for the
[Re:]Entanglements
exhibition at the National Museum, Lagos.
On 21 September 2019, the
[Re:]Entanglements: Contemporary Art & Colonial Archives
exhibition opened at the
National Museum, Lagos
. The opening event was attended by an estimated 300 people, including many from Nigeria’s vibrant arts scene. Following on from our successful exhibition in
Benin City
, this collaboration between the [
Re:]Entanglements project
, the National Museum, and the Lagos-based artist Kelani Abass continues our exploration of artistic engagements with the archival traces of Northcote Thomas’s anthropological surveys.
Scenes from the
[Re:]Entanglements
exhibition opening, National Museum, Lagos, 21 September 2019. Photographs by Paul Basu and Nnaemezie Asogwa.
Unlike the Benin exhibition, this initiative focused specifically on the photograph albums from Thomas’s three Nigerian surveys, which we have discovered in the National Museum library and archive collections. Indeed, these albums, dating from 1909 to 1913, appear to be the only substantial archival traces of Thomas’s anthropological surveys to have survived in Nigeria. The initiative is also different insofar as it features the work of a single artist rather than a collective.
Pages from one of the photograph albums from Northcote Thomas’s 1909-10 survey of Edo-speaking peoples. Note the index panel at the bottom right of each page. National Museum, Lagos.
Over the course of a year, Kelani Abass has produced two series of works for the exhibition under the common title of
Colonial Indexicality
. These both employ techniques developed in earlier works by Abass, including his
Calendar
and
Stamping History
series, first exhibited at exhibitions at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos in 2013 and 2016 respectively. In both of these series, Abass explored a more personal history through sifting through the archives of his parents’ printing business in Abeokuta, incorporating both the technologies of hand-operated letter-press printing and the accumulated materials – photographs, leaflets, design motifs – deposited at the press by customers. The
Colonial Indexicality
series produced for the
[Re:]Entanglements
exhibition connects this family history with a broader cultural history as refracted through Northcote Thomas’s colonial anthropological lens.
Indexicality in its most literal sense. Northcote Thomas took over 8,000 photographs during his four anthropological surveys. Each was individually numbered and entered in a pre-numbered photograph register book. We know that negative No.649 is of a boy named Ike, and that this was one of 122 photographs Thomas made in Okpe.
The pervasiveness of numbering systems and indexes are, of course, characteristics of all archives, and the archives of Thomas’s anthropological tours are no exception. Thomas numbered each of his photographic negatives, for example, and he made notes about each negative in a series of pre-numbered photographic register books. Most literally, the negative number acts as an index in relation to corresponding prints, but also indexes other information, for instance, the identity of the person photographed, where the photograph was taken, and places the particular photograph in relation to a sequence. We know, for example, that Thomas’s negative number 649 is of a boy named Ike, and is one of a series of 122 photographs that Thomas made in Okpe in present-day Edo North in 1909. There is a further note in the corresponding photographic register – ‘meas.’ – short-hand for ‘measurement’, recording that Thomas also recorded Ike’s anthropometric measurements, indexing how this young man entered other forms of colonial scientific calculation.
It is no surprise, then, that the theme of numbers and numbering emerges prominently in Abass’s artistic responses to the albums in the National Museum. Indeed, each work in the
Colonial Indexicality
series bears a simple number as its title – the number of the particular photograph the work itself indexes.
Installation view. Room 1 of the
[Re:]Entanglements: Contemporary Art & Colonial Archives
exhibition, National Museum, Lagos. Note the juxtaposition of Thomas’s original photograph albums, the large-scale digital prints and Kelani Abass’s paintings. Photograph by Paul Basu.
The principle of indexicality is also evident in the very grammar of the exhibition. In the first room of the exhibition, we brought three elements into relation: examples of the original photograph albums from Thomas’s 1909-10 Edo tour; enlarged digital prints of a selection of pages from these albums; and a series of 12 mixed media paintings by Abass that respond to the particular qualities of these albums.
A page from Northcote Thomas’s 1909-10 Edo album alongside one of Kelani Abass’s
Colonial Indexicality
paintings (No.256). The index panel on the album page provides the inspiration for Abass’s background, while Thomas’s neg.256 (top left) is the source for the foreground figures.
The pages of the Edo albums are arranged in a uniform manner, with five photographs in a grid with a paper index panel cut to the same size as the prints and pasted in the grid. For each of the 55×68 cm paintings, created in acrylic and oil on canvas, mounted onto board, Abass reproduces these index panels as his backgrounds. He captures the ‘texture’ of the yellowed parchment-like paper panels, complete with Thomas’s handwriting and various other ticks, annotations and crossings-out that have been added in different coloured inks. He then selects one of the photographs from the same album page, which he paints in tones which evoke the photographic originals. The number of the photograph is used as a title for the work, which is also inset into the painting either using letterpress types or components of a numbering machine.
Six of Kelani Abass’s
Colonial Indexicality
portraits, clockwise from top left, No.130, No.237A, No.239, No.248, No.245 and No.243. Acrylic, oil on canvas mounted on board with either letterpress type or numbering machine inserts.
In the second room of the exhibition, the juxtaposition of original archives, digital prints and Abass’s contemporary artworks continues. Additional themes of disintegration and dissolution are invoked here, pointing to the fragility of the archive and the impermanence of memory. In one 105×127 cm digital print of an album page from Thomas’s 1912-13 tour of Igbo-speaking peoples, for example, the faces in Thomas’s
physical type photographs
have faded to little more than ghostly impressions. Indeed, one objective of the exhibition was to draw attention to the urgent need for better storage and conservation of the National Museum’s important archival collections.
Installation view. Room 2 of the
exhibition. Enlarged, ghost-like images from the Northcote Thomas albums are juxtaposed with addition examples of the historical albums themselves and with the second part of Kelani Abass’s
Colonial Indexicality
series. This room also featured enlarged digital prints of some of Thomas’s remarkable panoramic photoagraphs. Photograph by Paul Basu.
Broken pages from one of the albums from Northcote Thomas’s 1910-11 tour of Igbo-speaking peoples. Some of the albums in the National Museum are in extremely poor condition and in urgent need of conservation.
Abass refers to the second series of works in
Colonial Indexicality
as a continuation of a ‘performative oeuvre’ that ‘calls attention to the interplay of manual and mechanical processes involved in the production of printed works, photographs and drawings’. This work comprises of five interlinked 126×90 cm ‘drawings’ of Northcote Thomas photographs, which have been laboriously made using a hand numbering machine.
Kelani Abass’s hand numbering machines. He used such stamping machines as a child in his parents’ printing company, now he uses them as a medium for his performative art practice.
The use of the numbering machine as a medium again relates to Abass’s family history and childhood memories. After a day at school, Abass and his siblings would help out in their parents’ print shop, using these automatic numberers to stamp sequences of numbers in newly printed invoice books and other stationery. In relation to the [Re:]Entanglements project, Abass was struck by the sequential printed numbers evident in the stationery used by Northcote Thomas. Indeed, to create these ‘stamping history’ drawings he used stamping machines with a similar font style to the numbers used in Thomas’s photographic registers.
Juxtaposing Northcote Thomas’s photograph no.1639 (top left) with Kelani Abass’s Colonial Indexicality No.1639 (top right). Below are details of the work, showing how the image is made up of multiple stamped numbers.
The numbers that Abass stamps in these works are not arbitrary either. They index both the specific photographs from the Thomas archives that Abass reproduces, but also act as a form of accountancy, allowing Abass to quantify his artistic labour and reflecting the labour entailed in producing the anthropological archive in the first place. Thus, Abass’s first impression in this work was the number 1155, corresponding with Thomas’s negative number 1155. After each impression, the number on the stamping machine increases by a digit to 1156, then 1157 and so on. At the end of the process of creating these five works, the final number stamped was 85,867. Thus Abass is able to quantify the work as representing 84,710 acts of stamping – this Abass conceptualises as a process of ‘stamping history’, and of ‘making or marking time’.
The grid-like layout of these five ‘drawings’ echoes the layout of the photographs in Thomas’s albums, but also speaks to the fragmentary nature of the archive – an assemblage of parts that must be assembled together in order to make sense. The actual archive is rarely so complete, and the bigger picture is often based on as much conjecture as it is evidence.
Left: Plate XIV from Northcote Thomas’s Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria, Part 1. Right: Enlarged detail of the same photograph showing the halftone printing technique.
It is, of course, only when one stands back from Abass’s large-scale stamped drawings that the picture, quoted from Thomas’s archive, becomes clear. Up close, one sees a mess of over-lapping stamped numbers. Seen from a distance, however, the individual numbers from which the pictures are made disappear and the eye perceives the pattern. It is the same principle as
halftone printing
– the technique used to print Thomas’s photographic plates in his published reports (a set of which also resides in the National Museum library). Indeed, the same principle applies to Thomas’s original photographic negatives and our digital scans of them today, in which the coating of  granular light-sensitive crystals is translated, imperfectly, into pixels. Switching to a metaphorical register, Abass’s work reminds us that what we perceive in the colonial archive depends on where we stand, as well as how close we look.
Video documentation of the
[Re:]Entanglements: Contemporary Art & Colonial Archives
exhibition, National Museum, Lagos.
[
Re:]Entanglements: Contemporary Art & Colonial Archives
is open at the National Museum, Lagos until 27 October 2019. Do go along if you can and let us know what you think!
Read
Molara Wood
‘s review of the
Colonial Indexicality
exhibition in
The Lagos Review
.

numbering
Kelani Abass
art
artistic intervention
colonialism
photography
archives
collaboration
National Museum Lagos


Nigerian String Games

A page from one of the albums from N. W. Thomas’s second and third tours showing some of Thomas’s photographs of string figures and their names. (UK National Archives)
In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, anthropologists were fascinated by the seeming ubiquity of the popular pastime of ‘
string games
‘ – the making of ‘string figures’ or ‘cat’s cradles’. As the pioneering British anthropologist,
Alfred Cort Haddon
wrote in 1906,
In Ethnology, nothing is too insignificant to receive attention … To the casual observer few amusements offer, at first sight, a less promising field for research than does the simple cat’s-cradle of our childhood; and, indeed, it is only when the comparative method is applied to it that we begin to discover that it, too, has a place in the culture history of man.
Haddon encountered the game during his 1888 visit to the islands of the
Torres Straits
(the channel between northern Australia and New Guinea). He observed that the Torres Strait string figures were much more elaborate than those he recalled from his childhood in England.  He also noted that they were  more often made by a single ‘player’, rather than two – and by no means was the game restricted to children. He collected examples of completed figures, which he subsequently donated to the
British Museum
.
String figure mounted on board collected by A. C. Haddon in the Western Torres Strait islands in 1888, representing the crayfish (kaiar). Donated to the British Museum in 1889. (British Museum
Oc,89+.207
)
Haddon continued to document string games when he returned to the Torres Straits in 1898 as leader of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition. With
W. H. R. Rivers
, he formalised a ‘method for recording string figures’ and published this in the anthropological journal
Man
in 1902. Rivers and Haddon stressed the need to document the various stages of making each figure, rather than merely photographing, drawing or even collecting the finished figures. They proposed a nomenclature for describing the various steps and actions involved in making string figures, and this has been adopted by many subsequent researchers.
Pages from Caroline Furness Jayne’s 1906 book,
String Figures: A Study of Cat’s-Cradle in Many Lands
, showing the method for recording string games. Haddon wrote an ‘ethnological introduction’ to the volume.
During his 1910-11 anthropological survey in Southern Nigeria, which focused on the Igbo-speaking people of what was then Awka District (more or less present-day Anambra State),
Northcote Thomas
took two series of photographs of string games. He recorded ten string figures in Agukwu Nri and three in Ebenebe. These are among the earliest photographs of African string figures. Thomas did not write about string games in his reports or other publications, and no field-notes survive from this tour, so we do not know if he documented the games according to Rivers and Haddon’s methodology, or whether he simply took photographs of the finished figures.
Philip Noble, who co-founded the
International String Figure Association
in 1978, has made a study of Thomas’s photographs of Nigerian string figures. In an article ‘Some Nigerian String Figures’ published in the
Bulletin of the International String Figure Association
in 2013, Noble reconstructs the methods by which the figures were made. The article is republished, with kind permission of Philip Noble and the Bulletin’s editor, at the end of this blog. Philip Noble has also very kindly created a series of short videos for
[Re:]Entanglements
in which he demonstrates how each of the figures was made.
Thomas recorded the Igbo name for each of the figures. These would have been recorded in the local Igbo dialects, and Thomas’s phonetic spelling of Igbo words is idiosyncratic. In the following sections, we include Thomas’s English translation of the names, his rendering of the Igbo names, and also a translation of the names from English into standard Central Igbo, courtesy of Yvonne Mbanefo. Northcote Thomas records the Igbo word for string games generically as
akpukba
–
Ọkpụkpa
simply means ‘to make or create something by hand’. Igbo-speaking friends and correspondents have told us of other words for string games:
Ikpo ubo
(‘to play strings’),
Gadas
,
Atụmankasa
. Some of these may refer to particular figures rather than the game more generically. As always, we welcome any feedback on these string games and their names – please leave a comment.
1. Trap to catch thief
N. W. Thomas:
Eta nanwani ori;
Central Igbo:
Ọnya onye ori
‘Trap to catch thief’ string figure, photographed by Northcote Thomas in Agukwu Nri, Southern Nigeria, 1911. (NWT 2836; RAI 400.16249)
Philip Noble notes:
This is figure is known throughout West Africa, and often has the same name. In most locations a second player inserts a hand or finger into the lower trapezoid. When the first player releases his thumb loops and extends the figure, the second player is caught in a noose.
2. Basket spirits use to carry person
N. W. Thomas:
Okba mwo ji ebu mwadu
; Central Igbo:
Nkata mmụọ ji ebu mmadụ
‘Basket spirits use to carry person’ string figure, photographed by Northcote Thomas in Agukwu Nri, Southern Nigeria, 1911. (NWT 2836; RAI 400.16250)
Philip Noble notes:
This figure is also known in Congo, Sudan and Equatorial Guinea. In Nigeria the design represents a palanquin (sedan chair) for transporting a chief. In its most primitive form a palanquin consists of a basket suspended between two parallel poles. The inclusion of the word ‘spirits’ in the title may refer to an ancient custom, recorded by P. A. Talbot, in which a large palanquin borne on the shoulders of six men, was used to transport a ‘spirit’ during a funeral ceremony.
3. Big piece of yam
N. W. Thomas:
Ibeji okotoko
; Central Igbo:
Nnukwu ibe ji
‘Big piece of yam’ string figure, photographed by Northcote Thomas in Agukwu Nri, Southern Nigeria, 1911. (NWT 2838a; RAI 400.16252)
Philip Noble notes:
Identical or closely related figures are known throughout Africa. Nigerian yams belong to the genus
Dioscorea
. Prior to cooking, yams are peeled and cut into cubes, which are represented by diamonds in the corresponding string figure.
(See video below.)
4. Child of monkey eats and tears its tail
N. W. Thomas:
Nwenwelie ora odo; Central Igbo: Nwa enwe rie ọ dọkaa ọdụ
‘Child of monkey eats and tears its tail’ string figure, photographed by Northcote Thomas in Agukwu Nri, Southern Nigeria, 1911. (NWT 2838; RAI 400.16251)
Philip Noble notes:
The construction is similar to a figure called ‘A Pair of Scissors’, published by Kathleen Haddon and Hilda Treleaven in
The Nigerian Field
in 1936, and another called ‘Aeroplane’ recorded by George Cansdale in Ghana.
5. Corpse and cloth
N. W. Thomas:
Ozu nakwa
; Central Igbo:
Ozu na akwa
‘Corpse and cloth’ string figure, photographed by Northcote Thomas in Agukwu Nri, Southern Nigeria, 1911. (NWT 2840; RAI 400.16253)
6. Big belly of old woman
N. W. Thomas:
Okulu agadin waiyi
; Central Igbo:
Nnukwu afọ agadi nwaanyị
‘Big belly of old woman’ string figure, photographed by Northcote Thomas in Agukwu Nri, Southern Nigeria, 1911. (NWT 2840a; RAI 400.16254)
Philip Noble notes:
This figure is identical to No. 19 in George Cansdale’s collection, ‘Ghana String Figures’, published in
The Nigerian Field
in 1993, which has the name ‘When this animal went to fetch water, the sun came down’. In the Nigerian counterpart the loose hanging loop represents the sagging belly of an old woman.
7. Bull with long horn
N. W. Thomas:
Okefi mpi agi liga
; Central Igbo:
Okeehi ogologo mpi
‘Bull with long horn’ string figure, photographed by Northcote Thomas in Agukwu Nri, Southern Nigeria, 1911. (NWT 2842a; RAI 400.16256)
Philip Noble notes:
The design represents a bull’s triangular face and his two horns. This figure is the same as one called ‘Bat’ published by Kathleen Haddon and Hilda Treleaven in
The Nigerian Field
in 1936. It was also recorded by the geologist, John Parkinson, in Yoruba-speaking areas of Southern Nigeria and published in 1906, also named ‘a bat’.
Excerpt from John Parkinson’s article, ‘Yoruba String Figures’, published in the
Journal of the Anthropological Institute
in 1906, with figure of the ‘bat’ string figure.
8. Net for load
N. W. Thomas:
Ozo anele
; Central Igbo:
Ubu ibu
‘Net for load’ string figure, photographed by Northcote Thomas in Agukwu Nri, Southern Nigeria, 1911. (NWT 2842; RAI 400.16255)
Philip Noble notes:
This figure is widely distributed in Africa, where it often represents a ‘net’. It is the same as one called ‘A Bridge’ published by Kathleen Haddon and Hilda Treleaven in
The Nigerian Field
in 1936.
9. Mask for ‘juju’
N. W. Thomas:
Oga
; Central Igbo:
Ihu mmanwụ ọgwụ
‘Mask for “Juju”‘ string figure, photographed by Northcote Thomas in Agukwu Nri, Southern Nigeria, 1911. (NWT 2844a; RAI 400.16258)
Philip Noble notes:
The figure is widely distributed in Africa. It is the same as that published by John Parkinson in 1906 under the name ‘Moving Figure’.
10. Fowl’s anus
N. W. Thomas:
Ubwadiye
; Central Igbo:
Ike ọkụkọ
‘Fowl’s anus’ string figure, photographed by Northcote Thomas in Agukwu  Nri, Southern Nigeria, 1911. (NWT 2844; RAI 400.16257)
11. Rope on back
N. W. Thomas:
Bokulei
; Central Igbo:
Ụdọ n’azụ
‘Rope on back’ string figure, photographed by Northcote Thomas in Agukwu  Nri, Southern Nigeria, 1911. (NWT 2846; RAI 400.16259)
Philip Noble notes:
The central string represents a rope, presumably on the back of a person who is face down. The figure is identical to that published by Kathleen Haddon and Hilda Treleaven in
The Nigerian Field
in 1936 under the name ‘Dead Man Lying on a Bed’.
12. Trap
N. W. Thomas:
Ibudu
; Central Igbo:
Ọnya
‘Trap’ string figure, photographed by Northcote Thomas in Ebenebe, Southern Nigeria, 1911. (NWT 3499; RAI 400.20057)
Philip Noble notes:
This figure is the same as ‘Bongo Skin’ and ‘Buffalo Skin (Pegged Out)’ respectively published by George Cansdale in 1993 and C. L. T. Griffith in 1925, both recorded in Ghana/Gold Coast.
It would be interesting to find out if such string games are still played in Agukwu Nri and Ebenebe, and, if so, whether these figures and names are still known. We will try to investigate this in our
fieldwork
.
Written instructions for recreating each of the string figures photographed by Thomas can be found in Philip Noble’s full article ‘Some Nigerian String Figures’, which can be downloaded from the link below.
(
Please note that there are some discrepancies between the names of string figures used in this blog and those in Philip Noble’s article. I have used the captions of the photographs in Thomas’s albums as the most reliable guide, but, since some of the photographs share the same negative number, it is possible that Thomas got these muddled up himself!)
Many thanks to Philip Noble and Mark Sherman for permission to draw upon and republish Philip’s article, to Philip for producing the excellent demonstration videos, and to Yvonne Mbanefo, Emeka Maduewesi and Ayodeji Ayimoro for their help with Igbo names for string games.
Philip Noble, 2013, ‘Some Nigerian String Figures’, Bulletin of the International String Figure Association, Vol. 20, pp.39-63.
Download

Pages from Caroline Furness Jayne’s 1906 book,String Figures: A Study of Cat’s-Cradle in Many Lands, showing the method for recording string games. Haddon wrote an ‘ethnological introduction’ to the volume.

Philip Noble
Rivers
Haddon
N. W. Thomas
anthropology
games
string figures
string games


Kelani Abass [Re:]Entanglements exhibition

We are delighted to announce the next
[Re:]Entanglements
project exhibition, which will be taking place at the
National Museum, Lagos
, between 21 September and 27 October 2019.
The exhibition is the outcome of a collaboration between the [Re:]Entanglements project, the Lagos-based artist Kelani Abass, and the National Museum, Lagos. The exhibition features a series of new contemporary artworks by Kelani Abass, which respond to archival holdings in the National Museum of Northcote Thomas
photograph albums
. This will be the first exhibition at the National Museum that focuses on the Museum’s archival collections, and that brings together contemporary art and colonial archives.
The photograph albums were originally deposited at the Colonial Secretariat in Lagos at the time of Northcote Thomas’s anthropological surveys. They are the only substantial part of the Thomas collections that remains in Nigeria. At the beginning of the [Re:]Entanglements project, we believed these to be duplicates of photograph albums that are held in the UK’s National Archives (originally kept in the Colonial Office Library in London) and at the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. When we tracked the albums down, however, we discovered that the albums from Thomas’s 1909-10 tour in Edo-speaking areas of Nigeria were actually very different from the albums in the UK, not least in the layout of the photographs on the pages and inclusion of additional descriptions on each page.
A page from one of the albums from Northcote Thomas’s 1909-10 anthropological survey of Edo-speaking peoples of Southern Nigeria in the archival collections of the National Museum, Lagos, Nigeria.
The exhibition will include displays of the original albums, and juxtaposes Kelani Abass’s new works, produced on various media, with large scale digital prints of pages from the albums. Abass has created two series of works for the exhibition under the title
Colonial Indexicality
. First, is a series of 12 works produced using acrylic, oil on canvas and letterpress type, which explores the archival textures of the albums from Thomas’s Edo tour. The paintings reproduce the yellowed paper panels on the album pages, including texts in various coloured inks and pencils, some in Thomas’s own hand. On each canvas Abass has painted one of the photographs from the corresponding album page, capturing the aging of the photographic images in the subtle tones of his paint. Inset in each panel, letterpress type blocks with the corresponding number of the photographic image is set.
Three of Kelani Abass’s works in his
Colonial Indexicality
series, which will feature in the
[Re:]Entanglements: Contemporary Art & Colonial Archives
exhibition.
A second series of works forms a large-scale intersecting collage reproducing five of Thomas’s photographs. Remarkably, these are ‘painted’ using a hand automatic number stamping machine. Like dots in halftone photographic printing, from a distance the photographic image can be seen, but as one approaches, the integrity of the image breaks down to its component ‘dots’, which in this case are each unique numbers. This speaks powerfully to seemingly obsessive use of numbers used by Thomas to index not only the photographs he made during his anthropological surveys, but also his sound recordings, artefact collections, botanical specimens and indeed every page of fieldnotes. This gives rise to the title of Abass’s work for the project,
Colonial Indexicality
.
Details of one of Kelani Abass’s ‘stamping history’ works for the
Colonial Indexicality
series. Large scale reproductions of photographs from Northcote Thomas’s albums are created using a handheld numbering stamp (see close up on the right).
The ‘dissolution’ of the photographic archive so powerfully evoked in Abass’s works, is reflected too in the large scale digital prints of Thomas’s original albums. As such the exhibition is also a reflection on the precarious state of the archive itself – especially in West African institutions. The condition of the albums is extremely poor as a result of the environmental conditions in which they have been stored and pest damage. They, along with many other collections in West African museums and archives, are in urgent need of conservation care if they are to survive. This can be seen, for example, in the way in which the photographs in some of the albums have faded – in some cases, they have become almost invisible. As well as drawing attention to the precarity of the archive, this speaks eloquently to fading of memory – something that we have been very aware of during fieldwork in Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
Fading photographs, fading memories. A page from one of the albums from Northcote Thomas’s 1912-13 anthropological survey of Igbo-speaking peoples of Southern Nigeria in the archival collections of the National Museum, Lagos, Nigeria.
It has been especially rewarding working with Abass on this collaboration, since the themes of the [Re:]Entanglements project link closely with themes that he has been exploring in other work over a number of years (see, for instance, this
interview with Kelani Abass
). We were introduced to the work Abass produced for his solo exhibitions
If I Could Save Time
and
Àsìkò: Evoking Personal Narratives and Collective History
at the
Centre for Contemporary Art
(CCA), Lagos, and we are especially grateful to Iheanyi Onwuegbucha, curator at CCA, for working with us on the curation of the exhibition at the National Museum. We are also very grateful to Mrs Omotayo Adeboye, Curator of the National Museum, and Mr Taye Pedro, Librarian and Archivist at the National Museum, for providing access to the collections and hosting the exhibition. Without their support the exhibition would not be possible.
[Re:]Entanglements: Contemporary Art & Colonial Archives
is on at the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos between 21 September and 27 October 2019. See our next
blog about the exhibition
, including video documentation of its installation and opening event.

Kelani Abass
art
photography
archival turn
archives
memory
National Museum Lagos


110 years of photographing N. W. Thomas collections

Five photographs, spanning a century, of the same
agbazi
mask collected by Northcote Thomas in Fugar, North Edo in 1909 (NWT (1) 2654; MAA
Z 12287 A
).
As part of the
[Re:]Entanglements
project we have sought to
document the material culture collections
assembled by
Northcote Thomas
during his anthropological surveys in Nigeria and Sierra Leone as thoroughly as possible. An important aspect of this has been to photograph the collections at the University of Cambridge
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
stores, and then to use the photographs during our fieldwork activities in which we have been revisiting the communities from which they were originally sourced.
Left: George Agbo, postdoctoral researcher on the [Re:]Entanglements project, photographing
Isi abogefi
mask collected by Northcote Thomas in Agukwu in 1911 (NWT (2) 390, MAA
Z 13689
); right: community members in Nise, Anambra State, Nigeria, discussing photographs of objects collected by Thomas in the town during fieldwork (photograph by George Agbo).
As we have been pursuing this research, we have encountered various other photographs of the Northcote Thomas collections. Indeed, we have discovered that some objects in the collections have been photographed many times since they were collected – starting in 1909 with Northcote Thomas’s own field photographs. In this article, we bring some of these photographs together as a kind of visual history of the photographic documentation of the collections.
The relationship between photography, ethnographic objects and ethnographic display has been the subject of much academic discussion. The manner in which objects have been photographed has shaped how such objects have been perceived, often within a strong Western
modernist aesthetic
, constituting them as ‘art objects’.
Walker Evans
‘ photographic documentation of African masks and sculptures displayed at the ‘
African Negro Art
‘ exhibition at the
Museum of Modern Art
, New York in 1935 is a famous case and has been the subject of an exhibition and catalogue in its own right –
Perfect Documents
. As well as lighting and framing, a key part of this aesthetic is the separation of an object from its context, accentuating the object’s formal qualities, while disembedding it from the cultural context that often gives an object its original meaning and significance. This practice was evident in Northcote Thomas’s own use of a blank photographic background sheet, and it is there, too, in our own photographic documentation of the objects. It has been difficult to escape these dominant photographic tropes, although we have also tried to experiment with other approaches in our
creative collaborations
with local artists.
[Re:]Entanglements team members, Katrina Dring and Paul Basu, setting up the photographic background paper at the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology stores. (Photograph by George Agbo.)
Northcote Thomas, 1909-15
Northcote Thomas made extensive use of photography during his anthropological surveys as we have discussed in many other project
blog posts
. While much of his photographic documentation was focused on
people
and their cultural practices, he also devoted considerable energy to photographing local
material culture
, including everyday utensils, tools and technologies, as well as ‘decorative art’ and objects associated with ceremonies, rituals and ‘secret societies’. Much of this material culture was photographed
in situ
in its cultural as well as physical context. Very occasionally it appears that Thomas acquired objects that he had first photographed in their original context, such as this
ikenga
-like figure that Thomas collected in Fugar in the north of present-day Edo State, Nigeria.
Ikenga-like figure identified by Northcote Thomas as
Akosi
, collected in Fugar, Northern Edo, 1909. (Photograph by N. W. Thomas, NWT 1095, MAA P.29204; Object NWT (1) 2659, MAA
Z 12293
.)
In addition to photographing objects
in situ
, Thomas also photographed objects isolated from their cultural context. This is evident, for example, in these photographs of masks collected by Thomas during his first and second tours respectively. Thomas photographed many masquerade performances, showing how masks were just a part of a much more elaborate performative display that included full costumes, music, dance, other ceremonial objects and audience interaction. On occasion, he was able to collect entire masquerade costumes, but, as with other collectors, he also collected head pieces alone. While we do not know the circumstances in which he collected these for sure, we do know that at least some of the objects he collected were specially commissioned from artists – this may have been the case with these masks from Fugar and Agukwu. Note the physical arrangement of the masks from Fugar on the left, and the use of backdrop and a book as an improvised mount in the photograph on the right.
Left: Twin masks described by Thomas as
Ibonodike
, collected in Fugar, present-day Edo State, in 1909. (Photograph by N. W. Thomas, NWT 1088, RAI 400.17528; Objects NWT (1) 2602a & 2602b, MAA
Z 12252 A
&
Z 12252 B
.) Right: Mask described by Thomas as
Isi abogefi
collected in Agukwu, present-day Anambra State, in 1911. (Photograph by N. W. Thomas, NWT 2934b, MAA N.78430; Object NWT (2) 390, MAA
Z 13689
.)
During Thomas’s second tour, which focused on the Igbo-speaking peoples of what was then Awka District (present-day Anambra State, Nigeria), Thomas started lining up the objects he had collected to photograph them prior to having them shipped to the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (then known as the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology). This example shows a series of items with Thomas’s original object numbers (352 to 372), collected in Awgbu and Enugu Ukwu. One can get a good sense of Thomas’s photographic backcloth here, supported on bamboo canes, which were in turn supported by two assistants, whose hands can be seen on either side! These photographs have been extremely useful in identifying Thomas’s collections in the Museum’s stores today, since many objects have since become separated from their labels. We have not, however, been able to locate all these objects.
Array of objects collected by Thomas in 1911 in Awgbu and Enugu Ukwu, present-day Anambra State, Nigeria. (Photograph by N. W. Thomas, NMT 2934, MAA N.78429.)
Arts of West Africa
, 1935
To date, the earliest photographs we have discovered of Thomas collections after they had entered the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge were published in 1935, 20 years after Thomas returned from his final tour. These are two photographs of the same
Aule
mask collected by Thomas in Agenebode, North Edo, in 1909. They were published in a book entitled
Arts of West Africa
, which was commissioned by the UK’s Colonial Office following the recommendation of its Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies. In the acknowledgements it is stated that the book’s plates were produced by the ‘expert photographers’ of the Empire Marketing Board, under the supervision of
John Grierson
, pioneer of the British
Documentary Film Movement
. It is also noted that ‘the British Museum afforded special facilities for the photography of [the] objects’, including those lent by other museums. It is likely, therefore, that the
Aule
mask was sent to the British Museum to be photographed.
Plates XX and XXI in
Arts of West Africa
(1935).
Aule
mask collected by N. W. Thomas in Agenebode in 1909 (NWT (1) 2722, MAA
Z 11910
).
It is interesting that the editors of the book considered it worthwhile to illustrate the mask with two different views (it is the only example in the book). In the description of the mask in the text, reference is made to photographs taken by Thomas of Igbo hair designs similar to those carved on the mask published in
Peoples of All Nations
in c.1920. The photographs show how lighting and camera angle can be used to dramatize the appearance of the mask.
British Museum, dates unknown
We have recently chanced upon a series of photographs of Northcote Thomas collections in the
British Museum
. Only one of these had a catalogue note mentioning the name of Thomas, but we were able to identify others and the British Museum catalogue will be updated accordingly. It is not clear whether the photographs were all taken at the same time, or if they were photographed at the British Museum or supplied to the Museum by Cambridge. Nor do we have any information about the year in which they were taken. It is possible that they were also photographed for the
Arts of West Africa
book, but not included – we don’t know.
Below we provide three examples, juxtaposed with our own photographs of the same objects. These highlight another value of historical photographs of objects, insofar as we are able to compare them with the objects as we encounter them today. The first photograph is of the same
Aule
mask collected by Thomas in Agenebode and published in
Arts of West Africa
. As can be seen in the recent photograph on the right, the mask has been fitted onto a wooden display mount. These mounts are also evident in some of the Len Morley photographs taken in the late 1940s. This mount is not present in the British Museum photograph of the same mask on the left, suggesting that the photograph was indeed taken earlier – perhaps in the 1930s.
Aule
mask collected by N. W. Thomas in Agenebode in 1909 (NWT (1) 2722, MAA
Z 11910
). Left: photograph in British Museum collection, date unknown (BM
Af,B62.18
); right: photograph taken by George Agbo for [Re:]Entanglements project, 2019.
Comparing historical and contemporary photographs also allows us to gather information about the changing condition of objects. The foot of this
ngene
shrine figure
from Awgbu, for example, has clearly been damaged since the British Museum photograph on the left was made. Actually, during our collections-based research, we have located the missing part of the foot and this figure will be repaired prior to being displayed at the
[Re:]Entanglements project exhibition
at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, in 2021-22.
Ngene
shrine figure collected by N. W. Thomas in Awgbu in 1911 (NWT (2) 378, MAA
Z 14234.1-2
). Left: photograph in British Museum collection, date unknown (BM
Af,B62.11
); right: photograph taken by George Agbo for [Re:]Entanglements project, 2019.
In the example below, we can see that a piece of patterned cloth was originally attached to the mask when it was collected and has subsequently been lost. In fact, on closer inspection, we see that this is the same
Obo
mask collected in Fugar that Morley photographed (see below). The negative of Morley’s photograph has been printed back to front, such that the large crack that appears on the left side of the helmet can be see on the opposite side. The fact that the mask is attached to a wooden mount in Morley’s photograph of 1949, but is no longer attached to the cloth, also suggests that the British Museum photographs are earlier. Today, both the cloth and the wooden mount are missing.
Obo
mask collected by N. W. Thomas in Fugar, 1909 (NWT (1) 2662, MAA
Z 12297
). Left:  photograph in British Museum collection, date unknown (BM
Af,B62.16
); right: photograph taken by George Agbo for [Re:]Entanglements project, 2019.
Len Morley, 1949-51
In 1947, a faculty photographer was appointed to work in the Anthropology and Archaeology sections of Cambridge University, including at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology – his name was Len Morley. He continued working at the Museum until 1974. To date we have been able to identify around 15 objects from the Thomas collections photographed by Morley between 1949 and 1951. The objects are taken against a plain background and include a small scale. Two of the masks in the examples below have been fitted with wooden mounts similar to that discussed above, giving an indication of how they would have been exhibited in the Museum at the time.
Three examples of Len Morley’s mid-20th-century photographic documentation of masks collected by Northcote Thomas in North Edo in 1909-10. From left to right:
Ogbodu
, collected in Agenebode (NWT (1) 2729, MAA
Z 11917.1
),
Amababa
, collected in Irrua (NWT (1) 2566a, MAA
Z 12816
),
Obo
, collected in Fugar (NWT (1) 2662, MAA
Z 12297
).
Some masks are difficult to photograph without expensive purpose-designed mounts due to their shape and weight-distribution. In one remarkable photograph taken by Len Morley, we can see how he addressed this problem by getting an assistant, or perhaps a member of the Museum’s curatorial staff, to wear the mask. The area around the mask has then been painted out on the print making it suitable for publication purposes.
Moji
mask, collected by Northcote Thomas in Afikpo, present-day Ebonyi State, Nigeria in 1912-13, photographed by Len Morley in 1951. (NWT (3) 50, MAA
Z 13585
.)
African art publications, 1960s-80s
A number of objects from the Northcote Thomas collections have featured as plates in more recent popular reference works on African art. In
African Sculpture
by
William Fagg
and Margaret Plass, first published in 1964, the authors use explicitly European art historical vocabularies to discuss African objects. At the time the book was published, Fagg was Deputy Keeper of Ethnography at the British Museum. Margaret and Webster Plass were American collectors of African art; Margaret donated their collection to the British Museum after her husband Webster’s death in 1952.
Fagg and Plass use the example of a mask Thomas identifies as
agbazi
, which was collected in Fugar in 1909 to illustrate what they refer to as an ‘African Gothic’ style (‘the strong tendency towards a ‘
Gothic
‘ verticality in African woodcarving’, p.101). The mask, which also appears in the photographs at the top of this post, appears to have been photographed lying on the floor of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge.
Front cover and p.101 of William Fagg and Margaret Plass, African Sculpture, first published in 1964. The photograph on p.101 is an
agbazi
mask collected by Thomas in Fugar in 1909 (NWT (1) 2654; MAA
Z 12287 A
).
Like William Fagg,
Frank Willett
was a leading Africanist anthropologist and archaeologist. Having spent a number of years working in the antiquities department in Nigeria in the 1950s, at the time he published his classic survey of African art in 1971 he was Professor of African Art and Archaeology at Northwestern University in the USA.
African Art
has remained in print ever since, and was revised in 2002. Willett used a photograph of a carved wooden figure Thomas collected in Sabongida, in the so-called Ora country, north of Benin City in his introductory chapter, discussing the development of the study of African art.
Willett refers to the ‘cubist qualities’ reflected in the artistic traditions of the Edo-speaking peoples. He also notes how little known these artistic traditions are when compared to the ‘better known art of the Benin court’. Thomas’s label and catalogue entry describe the figure merely as a doll. A piece of string is tied around its neck, attached to which are two cowrie shells.
Front cover and p.31 of the revised edition of Frank Willett,
African Art
, the original edition of which was first published in 1971. The figure on p.31 is described by Thomas merely as a doll, collected in Sabongida Ora in 1909 (NWT (1) 2164; MAA
Z 13449
).
A photograph of the
Isi abogefi
mask
collected by Thomas in Agukwu, discussed above, was published by G. I. Jones in his monograph,
The Art of Eastern Nigeria
, published in 1984.
Gwilym Iwan Jones
was a colonial administrator in Igbo-speaking Eastern Nigeria between 1926 and 1946. During his time in the Colonial Service he undertook anthropological training at Oxford. In 1946, he left the Colonial Service and became a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Cambridge, specializing in Igbo art. Jones made extensive collections himself, now in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and he was also an expert photographer – his
photographs of Igbo masquerade performances
are especially well-known. In the 1930s and 40s, he worked in many of the same areas that Thomas visited during his second and third tours (1910-13), and he makes frequent reference to Thomas’s collections in the book.
Jones uses the mask as a particularly fine example of a ‘maiden spirit’ helmet mask. The marked-up, camera-ready artwork used in the production of Jones’ book can be found in the archives of the  Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, among Jones’ papers.
Isi abogefi
mask collected by Northcote Thomas in Agukwu, present-day Anambra State, Nigeria, in 1911 (NWT (2) 390, MAA
Z 13689
). Left: camera-ready artwork of Figure 46 (MAA archives); right: Figure 46 of G. I. Jones,
The Art of Eastern Nigeria
.
Jean Borgatti, 1969
In 1969, the art historian Jean Borgatti conducted the first comprehensive research on Northcote Thomas’s collections, focusing on the material he collected in North Edo sixty years previously. This research would form an important part of Borgatti’s MA dissertation, ‘The Northern Edo of Southern Nigeria: An Art Historical Geography of Akoko-Edo, Ivbiosakon, Etsako and Ishan’, submitted to the University of California, Los Angeles in 1971. Her decision to concentrate on this area was a response to William Fagg’s observation that ‘the arts of the Northern Edo and Ishan have remained “a universe … practically unknown to the outside world, but which is extremely rich in new forms”‘ (Borgatti 1971: 2). Building on her MA work, she would go on to conduct PhD research in the same region and, indeed, devote much of her career to studying the arts and masquerade of North Edo (see, for example, her
guest blogs
for the [Re:]Entanglements project).
Borgatti made extensive use of photography in her research on the Thomas collections at the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, using formal analysis to categorize the artworks according to a series of ‘style provinces’. She focused especially on carved figures and mask types. As well as presenting the photographs in the appendix of her MA thesis, she used these in her PhD fieldwork, during which she would rephotograph many of the same masquerade types, providing a remarkable analysis of how they have changed and developed over several decades.
Examples of Jean Borgatti’s contact sheets of her photographic documentation of N. W. Thomas’s North Edo collections in 1969.
Roger Blench and Mark Alexander, 1983-90
Prior to the [Re:]Entanglements project, the most sustained attempt to document Northcote Thomas’s collections was carried out by Roger Blench and Mark Alexander in the 1980s. Blench and Alexander were graduate students in the Anthropology Department at Cambridge. Together they set about cataloguing Thomas’s papers, sound recordings, photographs and material culture collections across various institutions. Blench presented an overview of the results of this survey in an article, ‘The Work of N. W. Thomas as Government Anthropologist in Nigeria’, published in
The Nigerian Field
in 1995. They also published a bibliography of Thomas’s written works, while Alexander used Thomas as one of a number of case studies in his MPhil dissertation, ‘Colonialism and the Political Context of Collection: A Case Study of Nigerian Collections in the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology’, submitted in 1982.
As part of this work, Blench and Alexander created a computerized database of the Thomas collections and photographs in Cambridge, and photographed as many of the objects as they could locate. Blench notes that many seemed to be missing. In the early 1990s, Blench and Alexander pursued other interests and passed on their catalogue and photographs to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Their photographs are pinned to the reverse of the Thomas object index cards in the Museum’s original card index catalogue system. While we have made many discoveries since, Blench and Alexander’s work with Thomas’s collections may certainly be regarded as laying the foundations of the [Re:]Entanglements project.
Examples of Roger Blench and Mark Alexander’s photographs of Thomas collections pinned to the reverse of MAA index cards. Anticlockwise from top right:  guitar (NWT (4) 132, MAA
Z 14553
), charm (NWT (4) 130, MAA
Z 14551
) and powder horn (NWT (4) 100, MAA
Z 14527
), all collected from Yalunka-speaking areas of Sierra Leone (probably Musaia); charm (NWT (4) 74, MAA
Z 14502
), collected from Sendugu, Sierra Leone.

Three examples of Len Morley’s mid-20th-century photographic documentation of masks collected by Northcote Thomas in North Edo in 1909-10. From left to right:Ogbodu, collected in Agenebode (NWT (1) 2729, MAAZ 11917.1),Amababa, collected in Irrua (NWT (1) 2566a, MAAZ 12816),Obo, collected in Fugar (NWT (1) 2662, MAAZ 12297).


Fieldnotes: protection from witchcraft

‘Charms’ collected by Northcote Thomas in Sierra Leone, 1914-15. Clockwise from top left: Sacrifice to keep children well (MAA
Z 14477
); Charm to protect kola tree (MAA
Z 14479
); Charm (MAA
Z 14499
); Charm for kola tree (MAA
Z 14502
).
Sometimes the most potent objects are not the most visually striking. This is true of the various ‘sacrifices’ and ‘charms’ that
Northcote Thomas
collected in Sierra Leone in 1914-15, and now held by the
University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
. They take many forms – cloth covered bundles, a few sticks tied together, crumbling packages – yet they are also some of the most powerful objects in the Thomas collections. They have the power to protect people and their property from malevolent forces, including witchcraft, which might bring sickness, crop failure or other calamities.
‘Sacrifice’ in house in Kamalo to protect from evil and bring good sleep. Photographed by N. W. Thomas in 1914. (MAA  P.33089)
Witchcraft and the various means to protect oneself from it appear to have been of particular interest to Thomas during his tour of mainly Temne-, Soso-, Koranko- and Limba-speaking communities in northern Sierra Leone. He devoted a number of chapters of his
Anthropological Report on Sierra Leone
to the topic and related matters. This reflects the centrality of the issue to the communities he worked with.
He evidently struggled to make sense of the numerous rites, ceremonies, sacrifices, amulets and charms that were employed by different communities to protect themselves from malevolent forces. This no doubt reflects the anthropologist’s desire to make distinctions between and classify the practices and objects he encountered. Thus, in Chapter 7 of his
Report
, Thomas discusses various rituals, sacrifices and magical things under categories of ‘satka’, ‘wanka’ and ‘kanta’, and yet in his descriptions the distinction between these is often blurred and confusing.
Pages from N. W. Thomas’s
Anthropological Report on Sierra Leone
, including a table in which Thomas attempts to produce a typology of
wanka
.
The ‘belief’ in witchcraft is still
very much part of life in Sierra Leone and it is not unusual to see protective
amulets, charms and other devices, especially in rural areas. The need to
protect oneself from malevolent forces (the invisible ‘bullets’ of a ‘witchgun’,
for example) is strongly felt and local herbalists or ritual specialists
perform important roles in their communities. Although these charms are often
constructed from ordinary things (basketwork, calabashes, eggs, stones, fishing
nets), these have been ritually transformed. Thomas concluded that the objects
were often selected because of their mimetic properties – a fragment of old
fishing net thus becomes a ritual trap, for instance.
‘Sacrifice against fire’, photographed by Northcote Thomas in Fundembia (?), 1914. NWT 5735; MAA P.33428.
Satka
are often set up outside people’s houses. They typically take the form of long poles, on top of which are suspended various things – sometimes a white or red cloth, sometimes a small fan or basket, sometimes a small bell. Thomas observed these too: ‘Chief among mimetic rites’, he wrote, ‘may be mentioned the custom of hanging up a fan which swings in the breeze and is believed to be efficacious in blowing away evil influences’ (Thomas 1916: 53). We were given a similar explanation at the village of Katumpeh, on the road between Kamalo and Kamakwie. Mr Abraham Dumbuya explained that his previous house was damaged by strong winds, so he had this
satka
made. Now when evil comes with the wind, it sees the
satka
and jumps over the house, leaving it unharmed. Instead, the
satka
welcomes in good luck. Another man in the same village explained that when his
satka
swings in the breeze, it will invite good luck to the household.
Satka
outside house in Katumpeh, on the road between Kamalo and Kamakwie. Photographs by Paul Basu.
When we brought copies of Northcote Thomas’s photographs of Mamaka to show the present-day community, we asked about the various
wanka
he had photographed. One type, in particular, was instantly recognized. Thomas describes this as a type of ‘sacrifice’ ‘put at the entrance to a farm … to keep away witches, bad
krifi
[spirits], and evil-disposed persons and influences’ (Thomas 1916: 53).
‘Sacrifice at entrance to farm’, photographed by Northcote Thomas in Mamaka in 1914.  NWT 5863; MAA P.33523.
In Mamaka, we were later introduced to Mohammed Kamara, a herbalist or
omen
, who agreed to let us film him making such a charm, which he described as a
kantha
. He explained that farmers would approach him to make the
kantha
. It would be set up at the entrance to a farm at the time of hoeing the soil, before planting. The
kantha
can be re-used from year to year, but a new ceremony must be performed each year. The kantha includes a raw egg wrapped first in a red cloth, then covered in a piece of old fishing net. These have previously been transformed into powerful things using herbs or medicines. These are placed in a basketry receptacle that has been woven into long strips of cane. The receptacle is then covered in another piece of red cloth and another piece of old fishing net, which is bound in place. Just like the example photographed by Northcote Thomas in 1914, this is then suspended on two poles and set up at the entrance of a farm. At key points in the making of the
kantha
, Mohammed spoke words that ‘activated’ the charm. The egg, he explained, was like a bomb – if a witch passed by, it would explode. The fishing net was a ritual trap.
Documentation film of Mohammed Kamara, herbalist, making a kantha charm to protect farm from witchcraft.
Mohammed learnt the skills of a herbalist from his father, Pa Almamy Kamara, who had, in turn, learnt the art from his mother, Yanna Kanray. He explained that not everyone has the power to make such charms and cure diseases. One must be gifted with ‘four eyes’ – that is, the ability to engage with the spirit realm. We asked how much a farmer might pay him for a kantha and he explained that it depended on how much he was able to pay. We asked that the
kantha
Mohammed made for us be given to a poor farmer who could not afford to pay. We hope that it will protect his farm from harm and bring a good harvest!
The finished
kantha
that Mohammed Kamara made for us in Mamaka. Photograph by Paul Basu.
Sierra Leonean charms on display in the ‘Potent Things’ installation at the [Re:]Entanglements: Colonial Collections in Decolonial Times exhibition, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, June 2021 to April 2022.

Pages from N. W. Thomas’sAnthropological Report on Sierra Leone, including a table in which Thomas attempts to produce a typology ofwanka.

Anthropological Report on Sierra Leone
witchcraft
satka
charm
kanta
Sierra Leone
wanka
Mamaka
ritual