M.0099 | Statement of Significance

 

 Object M.0099 is a medicinal amulet (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Object M.0099 is a medicinal amulet, thought to have been collected in the 1930s from the Ibini Ukpabi by a British colonial official. It was later donated to the University College London (UCL) Ethnographic Collection (Source: author’s own). 

It was reportedly collected by a British colonial official during the 1930s from the Ibini Ukpabi (Figures 2, 3) - once the most significant shrine of the Aros (an Igbo subgroup) and now a tentative UNESCO world heritage site. It was later given to the UCL Ethnographic Collection.

Figure 2 Map of Africa showing modern-day Nigeria and Abia State. Abia State is where the Ibini Ukpabi is located, which is where this object was collected from. (Source: author's own, made using Mapchart)

Figure 3 The mouth into the Ibini Ukpabu shrine, also known as the historic Long Juju of Arochukwu. The complex is made up of an altar, a gully, and a waterfall. The Ibini Ukpabi was akin to a supreme court, and was consulted to settle disputes of murder, witchcraft, and other serious crimes in the community. Today it is a tentative UNESCO World Heritage Site (Source: Ogbonnaya, 2021).

Shrines, amulets, and medicine are tools in culture-specific healing traditions that seek to cure illness, bring fortune, or protect against harm. Amulets evidently piqued the interest of the British ethnographers, anthropologists, and colonial officials who collected them (both for governance and scientific purposes (Basu 2015)) as there are many in museums today. Is the fact that amulets were collected so extensively (or sometimes confiscated (Phillips and White 2010)) because they so much represented Otherness to British collectors? Although M.0099 has a less explicitly violent or contested story than some objects acquired during colonial times, it (and collectively thousands of others like it) is nevertheless part of a story of imbalanced colonial power dynamics.

 

This amulet lacks the embellishment commonly seen on other amulets (Figures 4 & 5). The manufacture is unusually basic (Figure 6). Perhaps this an unusually simple example, or maybe collectors simply preferred the more aesthetically pleasing amulets. 

 

Left: Figure 4 Amulet of the god Eshu, made 1880 - 1900 in Nigeria by the Yoruba people, now held in the Science Museum. (Source: the Science Museum, n/d).

Right: Figure 5 An Ikenga from Nigeria, reported to bring financial prosperity and protection from evil forces,  made by the Igbo people and acceded into the Pitt Rivers Museum collection in 1916. (Source: Phillips and White 2010).

Figure 6 No amulets like M.0099 have been found during this research, although this amulet of a horse has comparable charms consisting of very simple wound metal around its neck. It comes from Benue Wukari, Nigeria, and was acceded into the Pitt Rivers Collection in 1932. It may be the case that the simpler examples (while being no-less-common than ornate amulets) were simply less collected, or are less frequently displayed. Another suggestion is that, given the simple manufacture of this object, this sort of amulet was never intended to last long. Others of similar composition may have deteriorated. (Source: Phillips and White 2010).

The significance of the materials of this unassuming object should not be totally discounted, however. Substances used in traditional healing often have broader associations than their immediate medicinal properties. Copper has been historically used on ceremonial objects (Herbert 1984), while anthill perhaps has significance for its rich mineral properties (van Huis 2017).

There are still critical gaps to understanding this object: it remains unknown what this object was ever intended to do, or whether it still has potency. Consulting with Aro stakeholders would no-doubt help us understand more and mitigate some of this dissociation.

 

References:

Basu, P. 2015. N.W. Thomas and colonial anthropology in British West Africa: reappraising a cautionary tale. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 22, 84-107.

Herbert, E. W. (1984). Red Gold of Africa. Copper in Precolonial History and Culture. United States of America, University of Wisconsin Press, Ltd.

Ogbonnaya, O. 2021. Encounter with Ibini Ukpabi – A Tourist Diary. Aronewsonline. [Online]. https://www.aronewsonline.com/encounter-with-ibini-ukpabi-a-tourist-diary/?p=5029. [Accessed 23 March 2022].

Phillips, L. & White, K. 2010. Amulets and Charms. Discover…. 2^nd ed.: Pitt Rivers Museum.

Science Museum. n/d. Amulet of the god Eshu [Online]. The Science Museum. Available: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co104493/amulet-of-the-god-eshu-amulets [Accessed 23 March 2022].

Van Huis, A. 2017. Cultural significance of termites in sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 13, 8.

Wellcome Collection. n/d. Amulet necklace, West Africa, 1880-1920 [Online]. The Wellcome Collection. Available: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/wng7gzmt [Accessed 23 March 2022 2022].