OKWA NRI (food bowls)
Jones notes: ‘In addition to kola, a visitor should be offered food. This is reduced to a token meal in which the visitor is presented with a small piece of preserved meat (usually a piece of boiled hide). on this type of dish. He is expected to cut off a small piece of this on the cutting block, to add a protion of the sauce from the central hollow to it by dipping it in or by using an iron spoon and then to eat it.’
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Okwa (unknown provenence)
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Okwa The figure in the entre forms the lid of a circular hollow which should hold the sauce into which the piece of meat is dipped.
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Okwa Ezza Igbo
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Okwa Ezza Igbo — note small iron spoon
OKWA NZU (chalk bowls)
Jones notes: ‘If you wish to show that a stranger visiting your village is your guest and under your protection, you present him with a piece of chalk (local gypsum) which he takes and draws two white lines on his wrist and then returns. Big men have a special bowl (okwa) for this chalk (nzu).’
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Okwa Nzu Item Igbo
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Okwa Nzu Abiriba Igbo
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Okwa Nzu Abiriba Held by the owner’s wife (note body painting).
Other Igbo Cultural Artifacts
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Wari board (game)
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Child with modern carvings A woman, leopard and policeman Nri-Awka
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Bottles carved out of wood In the shape of local clay pots. They are hollow and will hold liquids. The technique is to cut a piece out of the side to enable one to hollow the interior and then replace it.
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Wood carver Making a lidded bowl
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Another type of stool Amobia village, Nri-Awka
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Carving a stool Later stages of the same carving process, Amobia village, Nri-Awka
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Carving a stool Early stages of carving a stool similiar to the one shown above, Amobia village, Nri-Awka
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“Awka” stool Showing decoration of the pedestal, Amobia village, Nri-Awka
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Woman with baby (The baby is covered with chalk for medicinal purposes.)
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Train juju, detail Hausa man on a horse, local man in front. Nike, Enugu
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Train juju Nike, Enugu
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rain juju Interior of the house of the train juju (alusi) showing the engine. Made by the people of Nike in honor of the railway that runs through their land. (Enugu)
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House with carved panels Nri-Awka
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Interior of house with plates inset in walls South Ikwerri
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House with inset plates South Ikwerri
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House under construction (southern Igbo)
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House under construction Roof is made from raffia palm branches (locally known as bamboo poles) prior to the attachment to them of tile like mats made out of raffia palm leaves (southern Igbo)
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A small boy with his doll Son of the court clerk of Eza Court. The string of beads around his waist is unusual from males and is probably worn for ‘medicinal’ or ‘magical’ reasons.
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House in Owerri Figure of a motor transport magnate and symbols of his (horse) power
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Calabash containers with basketry coverings