Emefre & A History of Fan Aesthetics

Emefre (Oil on Canvas, 60 x 72 Inches, 2008) is one of my newer works. In the pattern of many of my other works, it follows a monochromatic and linear scheme that betrays my allegiance to drawn forms, rather than painted ones. But the story behind the image is just as intriguing. The painting depicts a strangely amorphous form that finds definition at its extremities, where two faces emerge in addition to a hand that holds a ceremonial fan.

Translated from Ibibio to English, emefre means “you have forgotten.” Part of my interest in creating such a painting with this cryptic title comes from my research on the Ibibio women’s institution known as mbopo, which is characterized chiefly by the seclusion and ritual fattening of girls and young women for wellness and marriage. The title Emefre refers to the lost history of the coded script on the fan and on the strange, two-headed figure that holds the fan. The script, known as nsibidi, would have graced the surface of similar fans such as this one - fans that would have been used in special men’s ceremonies, especially those of the ngbe and ekpe leopard societies. The fan is important to my painting because the tradition that made it part of the ceremonial regalia of southeast Nigerian dignitaries extended into the women’s ceremonies, including mbopo. Historically, in the mbopo ceremony it is usually attendant to the fattened girl who holds the ceremonial fan. Usually, the attendant is of a younger or equal age to the fattened bride, although this is not always the case. I have found a number of sources that reveal that very young girls who were involved in a specific form of ritual fattening known as nwo nwo, also adorned fans and other items that would typically be part of an mbopo’s wardrobe.

As mentioned by the Efik scholar Joseph Ekarika, one of the objects that little girls could have adorned during confinement is the fan. The ceremonial fan has a tradition in Cross River culture of displaying power, authority, and beauty among both men and women. In mbopo ritual, in addition to beads, feathers, special cloths, and other items, the fan completes the ceremonial regalia of the fattened bride. However, I have observed, though the study of photographs and in my own experience at the Annang village of Ebiene Atai, that the ones who tend to bear the ritual fans are the attendants of the mbopo. As a result of enforced physical restrictions to ensure her resultant corpulence, an initiate of mbopo is always looked after by attendants who are in her “age-grade,” younger, or both. While older women of the village typically monitored the development of the girl and taught her the traditions of the ritual of femininity, younger village girls kept the bride company so that she would not feel lonely during seclusion.

The attendant, called a “chamber-maid” by one author, was “assigned to attend to the needs of, and run errands for, the [secluded] girl,”[1] especially since the mbopo was typically not permitted to leave the premises of ekuk mbopo, or the “fattening house.” Playful engagements such as body decorating, the designing of objects, and the singing of songs helped the confined girl maintain high spirits and a positive outlook about her situation. The photographs that we have of attendants usually show them near the mbopo celebrant with decorative objects like fans which served to complete the ceremonial appearance of the dancing troupe (the mbopo and her attendants) in addition to signaling the authoritative presence of the newly released mbopo from seclusion. The nwo nwo are themselves not attendants to mbopo or nkuho initiates. However, they are of the same ages as most young attendants of the fattened brides would be. Girls of this age-grade of nka iferi, the age of nakedness, gain experience in seclusion by associating themselves with confined brides at their tender ages. The anthropologist Percy A.Talbot has gained some noteriety among scholars of southern Nigerian history on account of the research that he conducted in the Cross River during the early 1900s.  In his book Life in Southern Nigeria: The Magic, Beliefs, and Customs of the Ibibio, Talbot discusses ceremonial “effrigi fans” in Calabar as symbols used by the prestigious Nkanda grade of the ekpe secret society. He describes them as wooden fans on which nsibidi signs are inscribed.[2] The simple line-drawing that accompanies his writing shows a round fan that is covered with a host of nsibidi signs. The handle of the fan bears no writing until the very end, where a svastika-like symbol emerges. Talbot’s drawing is quite similar in appearance to an effrigi fan collected by the Nigerian Museum in Lagos in 1950. As with Talbot’s drawing, the surface of the fan is overwhelmed with nsibidi writing, which marks it as an object that is used in traditional villages in contexts involving initiation.[3] Such fans have residence and great symbolic importance in the camps of male secret societies, especially in signaling to a crowd the identity of the celebrant.

Yet, in a photograph presented in Talbot’s text, we encounter a female “attendant” in ornate ceremonial garb, holding a decorative fan in her right hand. Although Talbot’s caption identifies her as an “attendant,” it is not clear to whom this young girl tends, though she does appear in another photograph among other “attendants” who are all in ceremonial regalia - the girl is the only one who appears to be holding a fan. Most of her body is covered with cloth, beads, or ornament. Her coarse hair stands up high on her head in a conical shape and is embedded with a beautifully crafted pin from the side and plumes of feathers from the very top. Her developing breasts, which bear curvilinear patterns in addition to the armor-like sections of ornate garment that lay across her chest, stretching from one shoulder to the next, suggest that she is perhaps a little older than an nwo nwo would be, but not by much. The high-grade ornaments which cover the expanse of her body are a further indication of her maturity beyond the nka iferi class of girls (generally ages 8 - 12). However, this photograph is helpful in placing the ceremonial fan, which is normally the public symbol for male power and authority in the local governing fraternities, in the hands of a very young female. The fan that she holds is highly ornate: the core design of which is as an inverted heart, unlike the circular design that we see in Talbot’s drawing and in the sample from the Nigerian Museum in Lagos. Fringes, possibly made of raffia, line the border of the fan. The designs on the fan’s core comprise a kaleidoscope of linear motifs and three-dimensional patterns.

A photograph in Ekarika’s book shows a “maid of honour” to an initiate of nkuho who also holds a ceremonial fan. Like the “attendant” in Talbot’s book, this young girl is dressed for a ceremonial event: in this case the outing ceremony of the local nkuho. However, much more of her body is visible: she does not wear the ornate garment pieces that the previously discussed attendant. Her small breasts and lean body place her within the “naked” nka iferi class of girls, some of whom were indubitably in nwo nwo seclusion at some point. As with the girl in Talbot’s book, she holds the fan in her right hand. Though the photograph’s poor quality makes deciphering the patterns on the fan near impossible, what is evident is the excessive expanse of the designs on the fan. Ekarika tells us that “the beautiful maids of honour” to the nkuho are to be nduri and uyire, that is to say “charming” and “alluring.” Their job is to wait on the nkuho “as orderlies who attend on the queen.” They are to “mob her face, fan her when she sweats, and make sure she is constantly in good posture and carriage by correcting anything going wrong with her bearing and adornments.”[4] The notion of a young girl fanning the queen-like celebrant of mbopo or nkuho would explain why though the fan is considered to be a part of mbopo’s ceremonial regalia, it is her attendants who would bear this signature of authority, which in proper use, will call attention to the central figure of importance during the outing ceremony - not the bearer of the fan, but the person who is serviced by the instrument, namely the mbopo.

In December 2006, during an mbopo ceremony in the village Ebiene Atai, I noticed two fan-bearing females who were in close proximity to the mbopo. The line of people who accompanied the mbopo on her special day included these females who, in part of the fans in their hands, can be identified as her attendants to some measure. In the procession, they flanked the mbopo, the woman attendant dancing and walking in front of her and the young girl following behind. In support of Ekarika’s comments about the purpose of “attendants” or “maids of honour” these two decorated females were in positions to always assist the mbopo. Throughout the event they never left her side and, when in ceremonial procession, they positioned themselves, perhaps symbolically, near the person of the mbopo, always dancing skillfully and gracefully, further adding to the grandeur of the fattened bride.

However, with respect to the present topic of nwo nwo, I would like to describe the little girl attendant that I encountered. Like the two girls that I have previously addressed, she holds a ceremonial fan in her right hand, which she waved quite liberally while she danced to honor the mbopo. Her attire, like that of the young girl in Ekarika’s book, is sparse, consisting only of one band of beads around her neck and another around her waist. These will increase dramatically in size and number when it is her turn to undergo seclusion as mbopo and experience an outing ceremony in her honor. Her waist and thighs are covered by simple purple cloth with basic designs in gold. We know that she is in the nka iferi class because she is presented to the public almost completely naked, with her chest uncovered. Unlike the “maid of honour” that we see in Ekarika’s book and the “attendant” in Talbot’s, the body of this little girl bears no adornment by way of painted designs. Her hair, however, is very neatly twisted into ropes of design that cover the entire expanse of her head. The fan that she holds is a vibrant blue and white. This particular fan I remember observing the day prior to the outing ceremony. It was presented on a mat on the ground among other ceremonial items of the mbopo’s attire for outing. The fan did not seem to bear any nsibidi designs like those in Talbot’s text or from the Nigeria Museum. But, like the fan held by the “attendant” in Talbot’s book, the core of this fan bears fringes that give the fan a larger, more textured appearance. However, the fringes (and the entire fan) appear to be made of a synthetic material, not with wood and raffia or feathers as other similar fans in the past would have been crafted. These examples that I have discussed of three girls with fans span three different generations of ceremony, and reveal a consistency in the Cross River culture to expose very young girls to concepts of beauty and power, especially before engaging them in rituals like mbopo and nkuho. While none of these girls represents nwo nwo in the context that I have discussed them, they do embody the characteristics of young girls within the type of culture that fosters mbopo ritual and their roles as “attendants” or “maids of honour” would have been taught and rehearsed during nwo nwo seclusion. Nwo nwo in this sense is the cultural of grooming of little girls for their future roles as mbopo. This is why a young girl’s appearance, though not as electrifying and robust as that of the mbopo, is expected to be graceful, vibrant, and “charming.”

[2] Talbot, 43

[3] Thompson, 1983: 246

[4] Ekarika, 131