Object Name: Headdress

Artist: Unknown

Culture: Efut peoples

Place of Origin: Calabar, Nigeria

Date/Era: Late 19th to early 20th century

Medium/Materials: Wood, metal, bone, leather

Dimensions: H: 67.0 cm, W: 36.0 cm, D: 50.0 cm

Credit Line: Fowler Museum at UCLA. Gift of the Wellcome Trust.

Accession Number: X65.9043

In the Cross River region of Nigeria and Cameroon, spectacular headdresses covered in antelope skin were used in a play known as Ikem, meaning “all of one heart and one mind,” to venerate ancestors. This headdress would be worn on top of the head during performances, and the dramatic coiffure represented on it is typical of a type favored by young women at the end of initiation.

Source: Gallery text, Intersections: World Arts, Local Lives, 2006.

See also: Marla C. Berns, World Arts, Local Lives: The Collections of the Fowler Museum at UCLA. Fowler Museum, Los Angeles, 2014.