Mumuye, Nigeria   

The Mumuye live in northeastern Nigeria between the cities of Jalingo and Zinna, in a region that is bounded by the bend of the Benue river and the Cameroon border. Estimated to number 100,000, the people cultivate sorghum, millet, and yams and are divided into seven subgroups. If their languages present only a few different dialects, their customs and beliefs, on the other hand, are quite distinct. Nevertheless, they acknowledge a common origin and they all grant special importance to the village of Yoro, the residence of the primary master of the rain.

Due to the difficulty of access to their lands of rocky hills and savannas, the Mumuye remained in near total isolation until 1959, the date when they were definitively conquered by the English. For a long time, it was believed that, in C. Kjersmeier's words, "northern Nigeria was inhabited by almost unknown tribes who had produced nothing that might be described as art." Then, Mumuye statuary was discovered in 1968. One statue that had entered the British Museum at the beginning of the century had been attributed to the Chamba. In 1931, Meek described Mumuye customs in great detail, but focused only on the use of masks in dances of initiation, funeral rituals, harvest celebrations, and in the vabo cult.

With no royal system, like their neighbors the Tiv, the Mumuye are organized by age classes and choose a village chief who is assisted by a council of elders. The initiation of young boys begins at the age of ten and takes place in a tsafi hut, where the statues are kept.

Even though the Mumuye show great respect for the skulls of the ancestors, their statuary does not depict ancestors but rather incarnates tutelary spirits. Yet, statues reinforce the status and prestige of their owner who, as he holds them in his hands, has a dialogue with them and thus ensures his personal protection. The largest ones among them are used in divination, medicine (notably in cases of smallpox epidemics), and in trials when men in dispute swear on the statue, which they must kiss. As is the tsafi, the huts of the rain master and blacksmiths are taboo to non initiates and to women. They contain objects needed for the rain rituals. The pillar, topped by a sculpted head and placed in the center of the village, may be seen as a reminder of the statues themselves. Their size varies from 30 centimeters to 1.5 meters, but the average is between 70 and 90 centimeters. The incised lines may be shallow, average, or accentuated. The patina is obtained by a coating of oil or wax on the surface, and the color varies from a very dark to a light brown. Their grayish tone is due to accumulated dust. The statue may have added elements: beads, belts, bracelets, chains, leather laces, ropes of braided vegetable matter, brass wires, or cowrie shells.

Connections can be made between the art of body decoration and the statuary: braided hair, headdresses of crests or helmets, ears pierced or elongated as with the practice among women who wore large disks attached to the earlobes. The gender is rarely indicated. The asymmetry of certain statues gives them more dynamism.

The statues' principal characteristic, unique in African art, is the systematic openwork between the body and the arms, which forms a scroll or a spiral around the slender, cylindrical bust. The sculptor slices the block, detaching a band that will be the arms' extremity, then he hollows out the space between the torso and the very elongated arms, creating planes and curves. The legs, on the other hand, are short and often notched; they serve more as a support for the piece, and their size is proportionate to that of the head, which is relatively small in relation to the body. This system of repetition of planes and volumes implies two series of clear-cut surfaces that oppose one another: ascending/ descending or convex/concave. The male statuary is more compact and sturdy than the female, which makes more effective use of space. Forms vary from one village to the next.

In earlier times, masked ceremonies closed the initiation period. Each age class formed a military group, capable of defending the village in case of attack. Together they worked the land and hunted. The first manifestation of this spirit of solidarity is the pooling of resources to have a mask produced to symbolize their collective identity. These masks, which represented animals (buffalo, monkey, elephant, leopard, and so on), were called va or vabou and initiates called themselves "sons of Va." A particularly well-off age class might finance a second mask, this time a female one, called "grandmother" or "old woman," whose role would be secondary. The masks would dance at the time of sowing, harvesting, funerals, or other important events. Priests, whose duties were hereditary, kept the masks in the sanctuary.

The sculptor, the rati or molobaiene, does not have special status like the blacksmith and does not transfer his profession to his son. He also makes axe handles, seats, spoons, and drums, and often practices another profession, such as that of weaver or healer.

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