African Arts Gallery

African mask associated with funerary rites, offering a face coated with white clay marked with almond-shaped keloids, dark eye cavities, a reduced, prominent mouth. Locally abraded light patina, dark highlights.
The Idoma settled at the confluence of the Bénué and the Niger. Numbering 500,000, they are made up of farmers and traders. The neighborhood and therefore the influences of the Igbo, those of the Cross River and Igala ethnic groups have generated stylistic borrowings, and great tribal similarities. Royal lineage members of their oglinye society, glorifying courage, wear masks and crests during funerals and festivities. They also produce fertility statues with bleached faces and showing incised teeth. Janiform crests are generally exhibited at the funerals of notables. Members of the male Kwompten society, on the other hand, used statues named goemai as part of healing rituals.