Kneeling figure "onile" ·  Nigéria, Yoruba · ID: 3036558

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Description

brass, dark patina, holding a flat bowl with snake, delicate scarification marks, crowned by a bearded head with prominent eyes, min. dam., traces of corrosion, small missing parts;
“onile” figures may appear in pairs. They are called “owner of the house” resp. “father and mother, owner of the house”. “House” means the building in which the members of the “ogboni” society stay and were these figures are kept.

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Littérature comparée

Dobbelmann, Th.A.H.M., Der Ogboni-Geheimbund, Berg en Dal 1976, ill. 97

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Publications

Witte, Hans, Earth and the Ancestors: Ogboni Iconography, Amsterdam 1988, p. 74 f.

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