Nigerian Ancestral Screen

Late 19th century Kalabari Ijo wooden ancestor screen, nduein fobara. It is made from individually carved pieces of wood fastened together and would have been placed with other prestige objects in Kalabari Ijo men’s trading houses. In this screen the central figure shows the deceased head of a trading house, flanked by his two sons or attendants. They are adorned with symbols of leadership: knives, tusks and elaborate headdresses they would have worn at festivals representing the public side of the trading houses.

The Kalabari Ijo people originally lived on islands in the mangrove swamps of the Niger delta, where they began by fishing and trading. Travelling in large canoes up the New Calabar and Imo rivers, they traded local produce for inland food and goods. However, the Kalabari Ijo, like most Nigerian coastal peoples, became wealthy primarily as a result of their interactions with Europeans. During the late 18th and 19th centuries, many Kalabari Ijo took an active part in Trans-Atlantic trade. This undoubtedly contributed to their appropriation and reinvention of many cultural elements associated with their European trade partners, as symbols of prestige, including the adoption of slaves into Kalabari Ijo society. When changes in British trade policy overturned the political structure in the Niger delta, it gave liberated slaves in the area an opportunity to establish themselves as merchants in their own right. Some became powerful enough to become heads of the trading houses known as ‘canoe houses’, named for the river canoes they used in commerce. Trading houses were made up of extended families bound by both kinship and commerce. The men who ran these canoe houses were called amanyana-pu which means ‘owners of the land’. During the 19th century the Kalabari Ijo started to make ancestral screens or nduein fobara as a way to honour, memorialise and communicate with the deceased leaders of canoe houses. 

Nduein fobara means 'forehead of the dead' from the traditional Kalabari Ijo belief that the fate that governs a person’s fortunes dwells in the forehead. At that time, nduein fobara had a political as well as a religious purpose and were displayed as part of a shrine in the central meeting place of the owner’s trading house. Food and drink were offered to spirits at shrines, to encourage success for their descendants. Nduein fobara are still being produced by Kalabari Ijo artisans, and people continue to make offerings to them.

Object type: Ancestor screen

Title: Nduein fobara

Culture/School: Kalabari Ijo

Place Associated: Africa, West Africa, Nigeria, Rivers State, Elem Kalabari (place collected)

Date: Late 19th century

Materials: Wood, raffia, paint, textile

ID Number: 1900.141.a

Location: St Mungo Museum Gallery of Religious Art