Akombo (Tiv ritual cults)
The Tiv system of named ritual cults — each governing a domain such as fertility, sickness or judicial oath — and the material emblems that embody and activate them.
Akombo is the Tiv system of named ritual cults, each governing a domain of social and cosmological concern — fertility, sickness, agricultural abundance, judicial oath — and the material objects that embody and activate those cults: carved wooden figures, iron staffs, ceramic vessels and plant bundles.
These are not primarily aesthetic objects; they are efficacious assemblages, and figurative elements within an akombo set vary widely in quality and are often schematic. Virtually all surviving figurative Tiv carving was made within the akombo framework, so understanding akombo is the precondition for any informed reading of Tiv three-dimensional objects — and it distinguishes Tiv ritual material from the better-known Yoruba and Igbo shrine traditions with which it is sometimes conflated.