Alijenu (Igala water spirits)
Liminal water spirits of the Igala cosmological system, associated with rivers, healing and transformation; cognate source of the *anjenu* masquerade tradition later adopted by the Idoma.
In Igala cosmology, alijenu designates a class of spirit beings inhabiting rivers, confluences and other liminal aquatic zones. These entities are understood as both powerful and ambivalent: capable of bestowing healing, fertility and divinatory clarity on those who correctly propitiate them, but dangerous to those who transgress the boundaries of their domain. The term is linguistically and conceptually cognate with the anjenu water-spirit complex of the neighbouring Idoma, and scholarly consensus — reflected in the work of Sidney Kasfir and in the broader Central Nigeria Unmasked framework (Berns, Fardon & Kasfir, 2011) — holds that the cult was transmitted from Igala communities southward to the Idoma through the ritual and population exchanges characteristic of the Niger-Benue confluence zone over several centuries.
For collectors, the alijenu / anjenu transmission history has direct consequences for attribution. Water-spirit figures and masquerade equipment from the confluence region share formal and iconographic features across the Igala-Idoma boundary: the characteristic white-pigmented face and the attenuated, idealised facial modelling associated with aquatic spirit presence appear in both traditions. An object acquired without precise provenance geography and labelled generically as 'Idoma anjenu' may in fact originate within an Igala community or reflect a syncretic workshop tradition; attribution should be treated as provisional pending formal comparison with documented exemplars from both groups.