MUMUYE, NIGERIA

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The Mumuye comprise a number of farming groups based in eastern Nigeria, south of the Benue River, living alongside the neighboring Chamba, with whom they share cultural influences. Artistically, the Mumuye are best known for their figural tradition, which stands among the most recognizable in African sculpture.

Due to great diversity in social and creative ideas among the Mumuye and the Chamba, and in turn among the many Mumuye subgroups, the figures produced in this region show dramatic variety. Their composition follows a general formula – typically a narrow, vertical body with a cylindrical torso wrapped or shielded by bent arms, creating negative space between; a relatively small head; and bent legs that are often shorter than the torso. The rendering of the head and limbs can be highly divergent. Arms sometimes take a semi-abstract, wing-like shape, and legs can appear jagged and buckled as their masses are pushed further into the geometric. Figures are either male or female, their sexual attributes being expressed with differing degrees of clarity.

Profound variety marks the usage of Mumuye figures as much as their forms. By report, these sculptures were involved in an astonishing range of contexts: divination, healing, punishment of social deviants, defense against epidemics, peacemaking, funerals, fertility festivals, legal cases, play, and even combat. Figures were sometimes smeared with the sap of specific plants to cause them to ‘speak’ to their owner or handler. Given their wild diversity in both role and appearance, it is impossible to correlate specific formal characteristics in these sculptures to specific uses.

This example from the collection of Roy and Sophie Sieber shows the essential template of Mumuye sculpture, with a columnar body framed by wing-like arms that curve down from the chest in an oval fashion to shield the torso, spreading back at the elbows. Knees jut from the stout legs, which are simply rendered, and a prominent umbilicus protrudes at the belly. Sitting above a thick neck, the face and eyes are quite large, with a widely staring and open-mouthed expression bordered by linear incisions. The head is topped with a short crest. This figure’s confident balance of posture and form, combined with its transfixing gaze, lend it considerable sculptural power.

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