Our Ancestors Lived Free

Belonging to the land. This unusual Ogoni mask, which appears to blend human and animal features, may in fact be a statement about the rootedness of Ogoni peoples to the land itself. Ogoni peoples are perhaps the oldest settlers of the Eastern Niger Delta, living south of Igbo settlements, west of Ibibio communities, and just inland from Obolo and Ijaw villages near the Atlantic coast. Forms of Ogoni face masks range from human with a movable jaw to a horned antelope to this, the rarest kind of all—a blend of human and horned creature. Men and boys dance in these masks and add vigorous acrobatic movements. Historically, masks were worn in ritual performances for funerals and when yams were planted and harvested. More recently they appear at Christmas and New Year celebrations and to welcome important visitors.

His was a voice—for environmental justice and the Ogoni peoples—that could not be stopped.

• Alternately a writer, television producer, professor, and civil servant, Saro-Wiwa turned to activism as global oil companies’ environmental damage to Ogoniland grew.
• Saro-Wiwa helped found the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) to bring global attention to the destruction of the Niger Delta—still one of the earth’s most polluted places.
• Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders were summarily arrested and executed in 1995 by the military dictator ruling Nigeria.
• As a martyr, Saro-Wiwa’s voice grew exponentially. Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations until the return of democracy.

The writer cannot be a mere storyteller; he cannot be a mere teacher; he cannot merely X-ray society’s weaknesses, its ills, its perils. He or she must be actively involved shaping its present and its future.”

—Ken Saro-Wiwa, source, date

I am more dangerous dead.

—Ken Saro-Wiwa, source, date

This type of mask is worn during the Ododua ceremony, which protects the oba (king) and commemorates the founding of the Benin kingdom. The cone shape references a special fiber cap worn by certain priests, chiefs, and the oba. The deadly snakes and crocodiles refer to dangerous spiritual forces that are controlled by ritual specialists and the king. Unique to this mask are the small fish seen in relief under the lips and on the sides of the mask. They represent fish used as sacrificial offerings to the “gods of the Benin nation” at a palace shrine. Named for the creator deity the Benin kingdom shares with Yoruba religion, this mask danced an origin story about the Benin kingdom’s founding—and about the centrality of the royal house to that history.

Humbled by his people, Oba Ewuakpe I learned to place limits on his rule.

• Ewuakpe I came to the throne after a period of crises around the issue of royal succession. Initially quite unpopular, he was driven out of the palace by the people of Benin.
• Only through the self-sacrifice of his devoted wife, Iden, did Ewuakpe I regain spiritual authority. He reclaimed political authority by ending a law that transferred Edo chiefs’ properties to the king upon their deaths.
• Ewuakpe I instituted a system whereby the title of oba (king) passed to the first-born son, smoothing periods of dynastic conflict and ensuring the continuity of the monarchy.

Song lyrics
Iyase̩ lend me twenty cowries
Esọgban lend me twenty cowries
Esọn lend me twenty cowries
To buy a basket and a bag
For marketing in the Agbado market.
—Song Ewuakpe I played on his harp during his exile, showing his dependence on the other titled members of the Royal Executive Council

They came. They saw. They organized. Before he was globally celebrated for his works in found metal, El Anatsui first pursued sculptural forms in ceramics and found wood. He notes, “I look at textures of my work in process and I think about the texture and grain of Africa’s history; I look at the authentic colors of the different types of wood and they remind me of the real colors of history.” The Ancestors Converged Again is a relatively rare example of figurative art in wood from this Ghanaian master. Using the expressive forms of the wood he gathered, Anatsui transforms scraps into embodiments of once-distant, now-present spiritual and historical figures through minimal sculptural interventions and the process of ordering and re-ordering his sculptures. Eyes wide, taking in the troubled current moment in which they have been called together, these ancestors confer—and plan their response.

Ebenezer Ako-Adjei (1916-2002), Edward Akufo-Addo (1906-1979), J.B. Danquah (1895-1965), Emmaneul Obetsebi-Lamptey (1902-1963), William Ofori Atta (1910-1988) Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972)
They organized Ghana’s first political party, channeling constructive impatience into a campaign for independence.

• The ‘Big Six’ were the leaders of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), a political party founded by J.B. Danquah in 1947 to push for self-government.
• On Feb. 28, 1948, a peaceful demonstration in Accra for pay owed by veterans who fought for Britain in World War II was met with gunfire, killing three people. Horrified by the incident, the ‘Big Six’ called for full and immediate self-rule. They were all arrested.
• In prison, the group earned their collective nickname, and became a symbol for the country’s self-determination. One—Kwame Nkrumah—would use the added notoriety to build a new political party, which would eventually carry him to power.

“...Unless Colonial Government is changed and a new Government of the people and their Chiefs installed at the centre immediately, the conduct of masses now completely out of control with strikes…will continue…Working Committee United Gold Coast Convention declare they are prepared and ready to take over interim Government. We ask in name of oppressed, inarticulate, misruled and misgoverned people and their Chiefs that Special Commissioner be sent out immediately to hand over Government to interim Government of Chief and People and to witness immediate calling of Constituent Assembly.”

—Telegram from United Gold Convention leaders (Accra) to Secretary of State (London), Feb. 28, 1948

Hail, the conquering hero!
This masterpiece has an unusually emotional expression that may be associated with the personal style of Bvu Kwam, an early 19th-century master sculptor working in the Grassfields region. According to one field informant, the figure is of King Bay Akiy, the fourth ruler of the Isu kingdom, who reigned in the late 18th century. Depicted returning from victory over the Nshe, a neighboring group, he is seated on a dangerous animal, probably a leopard, and holds a weapon and a head. This pose relates to a regional tradition of representing personal achievement, though the identity of the head itself is uncertain—it could be a defeated enemy, or the revered skull of a local ancestor.

He was a warrior—with words.

• The 17th fon (king) of Bamum; Njoya’s rule (1877—1923) overlapped with German colonial occupation.
• A skilled diplomat, Njoya shrewdly negotiated autonomy for his kingdom from the Germans—including through the gift of art works to the Kaiser in Berlin.
• Njoya created an innovative new script for the Bamum language, and was a leader in efforts to preserve Bamum culture.
• Despite the German colonial presence, Njoya used deft diplomacy and canny cultural policies to build a legacy that outlasted the occupiers.

She can push farther, bound higher, see deeper than us. Indeed, this female figure may represent an Urhobo edjo, or spirit—one manifestation of singular and collective forces that exist throughout the world. A Urhobo community may have several different kinds of edjos, although one may be recognized as the town’s primary spirit. Wood sculptures are the physical manifestations of these spirits. A single shrine building (oguan redjo) may contain a dozen carved edjo figures presided over by an elaborate hierarchy of titled priests and priestesses.

Blink, and you’ll miss her.

• Born to an Urhobo family, Okagbare is a track-and-field athlete specializing in sprints and the long jump. She won a bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics when she was 19.
• She has medaled consistently in World Championships, Commonwealth Games, and the African Games in the past decade.
• Okagbare holds the Commonwealth Games women’s record—10.85 seconds—in the 100m dash and is the African record holder—22.04 seconds—in the 200m.

I’m determined to compete on the big stage and prove myself.

—Blessing Okagbare

In the human realm, it started with him. This figure probably represented an Igbo community’s founding ancestor and was one of a large number of monumental figures kept in the men’s meetinghouse to guard private areas from intrusion. It likely was part of a group that included the founding ancestor’s wife and other members of the village, such as warriors and hunters. Besides its monumental size, its most striking feature is the broad, bold use of color that reinforces the strength of the carving. Typically, such figures are sculpted by Igbo men and painted by women. This figure could be said to embody and honor the generative, creative capacity of a revered predecessor.

He invited readers to empathize with places once outside the reach of English literature.

• Africa’s most widely read and celebrated novelist, Achebe cemented his reputation with Things Fall Apart (1958), which sold more than 10 million copies and has been translated into more than 50 languages.
• Writing from an unabashedly specific, African point of view, Achebe’s novels critiqued both colonial arrogance and the failures of postcolonial governments.
• In his lifetime, Achebe was granted more than 30 honorary degrees from universities in the United States, Europe, and Africa and awarded the Man Booker International Prize as well as honorary membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Nigerian National Order of Merit.

If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.

—Chinua Achebe, interview in The Paris Review, 1994

Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the right-to freedom of the human spirit—in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever.

—Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah

Great accomplishments merit monuments that outlast us. This terracotta head commemorated a member of a royal family who lived in what is now south-central Ghana. Such sculptures did not adorn graves, but were kept in a grove known as the asensie, or “the place of the pots,” located outside of town. Although regarded as portraits, the clay heads are a stylized resemblance of the departed, incorporating some specific trait(s) such as hairstyle, beard, or pierced ears. In this case, the raised ornamentation on the face depicts scarification, while the protruding knobs further back on the head suggest a traditional coiffure of the late 19th century. This was likely the work of an accomplished female Akan artist.

When the men would not rise, she led the women (and men) into war.

• The queen mother of Ejisu, Yaa Asantewaa, became regent of Ejisu, a chiefdom of the Asante Empire, when the British exiled her son, its ruler, and the asantehene (king), Prempeh I, in 1896.
• In a foolish act of hubris in 1900, the British governor demanded the Golden Stool—the spiritual and symbolic heart of the Asante nation—which had been hidden since the exile. With the backing of the remaining Asante leaders, Yaa Asantewaa became the leader of the Asante fighting force.
• The Yaa Asantewaa War forced a small party of British invaders in the Asante capital of Kumasi into a six-month siege as Asante warriors held them at bay.
• Captured and exiled, Yaa Asantewaa passed away three years before Prempeh I returned to Kumasi in 1924. The British never touched the Golden Stool.

Now I have seen that some of you fear to go forward to fight for our king . . . Is it true that the bravery of the Asante is no more? I cannot believe it. It cannot be! I must say this—if you, the men of Asante, will not go forward, then we will. We, the women, will. I shall call upon my fellow women. We will fight the white men. We will fight until the last of us fall in the battlefields.

—Yaa Asantewaa, March 1900

Those eyes see all—through generations past, present, and future. The byeri religious practice of the Fang served to honor a family’s ancestors and ask for their help. Memorialized ancestors’ names and deeds were recited in byeri practice, and physical relics were stored in a bark wood box guarded by an attached, carved wooden head or figure. This head—with its prominent forehead, open relentless gaze, small mouth, and older style hairdo or wig—was not an individual portrait but an idealized representation. The characteristic shine results from frequent rubbing with tree oil. This guardian stood for the continued presence of ancestral memories among a people forced to migrate throughout the 19th century.

Aubame had to keep eyes focused on allies and enemies, in both Gabon and France.

• During World War II, Aubame sided with Charles de Gaulle’s Free French and worked to rally fellow Fang peoples to the antifascist cause. He later represented Gabon in the French National Assembly.
• A political rival to the first president of Gabon, Léon Mba, Aubame nevertheless resolved to compromise with Mba in the interest of building the postcolonial state. Aubame was Gabon’s first foreign minister.
• A 1964 military coup against Mba’s increasingly imperious, French-backed rule briefly installed Aubame as president. The French, however, soon intervened and sentenced Aubame to 10 years of hard labor and 10 years exile. In prison, he became a symbol of opposition.

The children of Gabon will never forget that, for shameful reasons, a handful of French have destroyed in a day a friendship woven in 125 years, preferring the friendship of a man to that of a people . . . This intervention is an intolerable interference in the internal affairs of Gabon, an assault . . .

—Jean-Hilaire Aubame, denouncing French intervention in the restoration of President Léon Mba, August 1964