Superb wooden and kaolin mask, typical of the Ogoni ethnic group of Nigeria

Height: 38 cm, right arm glued locally

The Ogoni people

Relatively spared by the slave trade, because of their relative isolation, the Ogoni resisted English colonization from 1901 until 1914; they live in southern Nigeria, east of the Niger Delta, in the Port Harcourt region, and have recently become known internationally for their fight against the Shell oil company.

Numbering about five hundred thousand, they have a political structure managed by chiefs.

Ogoni art

Ogoni artists produced large dolls and horizontal crests, but they are best known for their small masks whose main characteristic is an articulated jaw that usually reveals wooden teeth

These masks appear mainly on the occasion of Christmas celebrations and funerals, but their main role seems to be to protect the wearer, particularly against sorcerers and spellcasters; but they can also become altar objects and receive offerings...

The Ogoni mask presented here has all these characteristics.

Variants of the name Ogoni

The name Ogoni can be declined, depending on the sources and the context, in different ways: Ogboni, Eleme, Gokana, Kana, Kanas, Khana