Anjenu (Idoma water-spirit figure)
The white-kaolin water-spirit shrine figure of the Idoma of central Nigeria — invoked for healing, fertility and spirit-possession therapy. What Anjenu means, how it was used, and catalogued figures with provenance.
Anjenu (Igala alijenu) are water- and bush-spirit figures carved in wood, typically female and white-kaolin-faced, associated with healing, fertility and spirit-possession therapy. Anjenu shrines were presided over by priests or priestesses, and the statues served as vessels for spirits that manifested through illness, infertility or recurring dreams.
The cult is acknowledged by the Idoma themselves to have arrived from the Igala around the time of colonial contact; the figures synthesise Igala alijenu, Hausa bori and coastal Mami Wata imagery, which explains their hybrid, sometimes cosmopolitan appearance. Anjenu is the object type most represented in Western museum collections of Idoma art and the most frequently misattributed; Sidney Kasfir's 1982 African Arts article remains the mandatory reference.