JenMasks, figures & African art

1. overview

The ethnographic, linguistic and art-historical localisation of the Jen requires an extremely precise and differentiated examination within the highly complex settlement and cultural landscape of the middle and upper Benue Valley in today's Federal Republic of Nigeria. Geographically, the historical and current core settlement area of this people is centred on the northern bank regions of the Benue River. The demographic and administrative centres are primarily located in the present-day Nigerian states of Taraba - specifically in the local government areas of Karim Lamido, Jalingo and Ibi - as well as in the immediately adjacent and ecologically comparable parts of the state of Adamawa, especially in the districts of Numan and Lamurde (Othaniel 2020: 16). The topography of this region is characterised by the extensive alluvial plains of the Benue, which are heavily flooded during the seasons, and by the foothills of the Muri Mountains, which historically served as natural fortresses and retreats during armed conflicts.

The demographic recording of the population is subject to considerable uncertainty due to the fluid ethnic boundaries, recent urbanisation trends and the methodological weaknesses of the national census data in Nigeria. The source situation here is ambiguous: while older ethnographic surveys assumed significantly smaller populations, recent demographic projections estimate the total population of Dza speakers and those who identify ethnically with this group at around 100,000 to 135,000 individuals. However, it is essential to distinguish between ethnic identification and actual linguistic competence. Progressive linguistic assimilation, primarily through the regional lingua franca Hausa and the Fulfulde of the pastoral Fulbe groups, is leading to a steady decline in active Dza speakers, particularly in the younger, urbanised generations.

The nomenclature of the people is historically deeply characterised by the dichotomy between indigenous self-designation (autonym) and foreign designation (exonym) brought in from outside. The autonym of the people is "Dza" (or "Idza"), while the individual is referred to as "Yɨdzə". This term is etymologically derived from the legendary place of origin "Za", which is anchored in oral traditions. In contrast, the exonym "Jenjo" or "Janjo", which is widely used in colonial literature, early ethnography and to some extent also in the contemporary art market, is a linguistic construct of the neighbouring Hausa and Fulbe. Here, the suffix "-jo" forms a personifying and localising extension from the Fulfulde language, which was attached to the place name "Jen" (Othaniel 2020: 21). In Western museum literature and inventory catalogues, largely influenced by the extensive research and exhibitions of the Fowler Museum at UCLA, the more neutral term "Jen" has become widely established and is also preferred in the art-historical classification of sculptures from this region (Berns 2011: 24).

Linguistically, Jen (Dza) is assigned to the Bikwin-Jen subgroup, which forms a branch within the widely ramified Adamawa-Ubangi language phylum of the Niger-Congo language family. This classification is by no means uncontroversial in linguistic and ethnological research. Controversies regarding the classification are explicitly highlighted: While earlier linguists such as Kiyoshi Shimizu in the 1970s postulated a strong typological and historical homogeneity of the Jukunoid and Adamawa groups and assumed a continuous dialect continuum, the linguist Ulrich Kleinewillinghöfer argues in more recent publications for a much more isolated and independent linguistic position of the Bikwin-Jen cluster (Kleinewillinghöfer 2015). This linguistic independence has direct implications for art historical interpretation, as it suggests that aesthetic and ritual similarities with the neighbouring Mumuye or Jukun are not necessarily due to a common genetic ancestry, but rather to centuries of cultural exchange, diffusion and ritual alliances.

The traditional social structure of the Dza is characterised by a segmentary, largely acephalous organisation, which differs significantly from the highly centralised, sacred kingdoms of the neighbouring Jukun to the south (the historical Kwararafa empire). Nevertheless, this basic acephalous structure has increasingly adopted hierarchical features over the centuries as a result of external political and military influences. The Dza are primarily organised into patrilineal descent groups and highly localised clan units, with the settlement structure historically divided into distinct regions such as Nwabang, Dzakǝ and Ye. Each of these territorial units was subject to the ritual and administrative authority of councils of elders and specific priestly castes. Recent political titles such as 'Kachala' or 'Kaigama', which exist within the community today, indicate later political overlays and administrative adaptations that were assimilated through contact with neighbouring Islamic emirates, particularly the Muri Emirate (Othaniel 2020: 16).

The kinship system is strictly patrilineal and virilocal. In sociological practice, this means that ritual authority, land ownership, the political leadership elite and, above all, the passing on of sacred and ritual objects are inherited almost exclusively through the male bloodline. After marriage, the woman moves into the household or homestead (compound) of her husband's family (virilocality). Despite these obviously patriarchal rules of residence and descent, women retain specific ritual and economic rights of access within their families of origin even after marriage. In the event of economic shortages in the marital household, women have the securitised right to draw on the resources and granaries of their birth family, an aspect that functions as a social safety net and is of enormous importance for the distribution of wealth within the segmentary society (Othaniel 2020: 18).

The subsistence strategy of the Dza is traditionally based on a highly diversified, dual economy consisting of intensive agriculture and seasonal fishing. This strategy is greatly favoured by the fertile alluvial soils and the hydrographic dynamics of the Benue Valley. The cultivation of sorghum (Guinea corn), maize, millet, beans and sesame forms the agricultural basis. Particularly important are the seasonal islands that form in the Benue riverbed after the annual floods recede; their extremely nutrient-rich soils are used intensively for the cultivation of melons, sweet potatoes and special short-cycle maize varieties. Historically, individual and collective wealth in Dza society was not measured in terms of abstract currency, but manifested itself concretely in the quantity of sorghum sheaves stored in the family granaries. These granaries (family barns) are not only economically functional buildings, but highly sacralised spaces that symbolise the physical survival, fertility and metaphysical continuity of the lineage (Othaniel 2020: 19).

The relationship with the neighbouring peoples - especially the Mumuye, Jukun, Bachama and the pastoral Fulbe - is characterised by an enormous historical complexity and oscillates between warlike conflict, territorial competition and strategic political-material alliance. A remarkable historical specificity of the Dza is that in the 19th century they were one of the few indigenous groups in central Benue to enter into a comparatively early and peaceful alliance with the expanding Fulbe jihadists. While other groups were decimated by slave hunts and military conflicts or driven into the inaccessible mountains, the co-operation of the Dza with the Fulbe led to intensive marriage relationships and a pronounced cultural syncretism. This early openness contrasts strongly with the isolation of other Benue groups, such as parts of the Mumuye, and explains some of the administrative and linguistic assimilations that took place in the 19th and 20th centuries (Capro 1992: 248). Even in the early inventories of Western institutions, such as the files of the British Museum in London, the strategically advantageous position of the Jen on the course of the river is emphasised as a catalyst for trade in agricultural and later also ritual goods.

2. cultural context

The religious and cosmological system of the Dza operates within a highly developed syncretic and animistic framework which, despite the formal decentralisation of society, is dominated by a strong, almost monotheistic worship of a central creator deity. This supreme metaphysical entity is referred to in indigenous terminology as Mə (often transcribed as Ma', Fi or Fir in older ethnographic literature). In the cosmology of the Dza, Mə is considered the ultimate source of all physical existence, the origin of moral justice and the foundation of aesthetic beauty. The solar association of this deity is striking and of enormous comparative significance: the Dza equate Mə with the physical sun in both metaphorical and direct ritual terms. This cosmological structural feature shows striking parallels to the sun god Chido (or Chi-dô) of the neighbouring Jukun, which points to profound theological exchange processes in the Benue valley (Meek 1931: 189).

Within ethnological research, however, there is a sharp and fundamental controversy regarding the exact nature of this deity and his willingness to intervene. In his early, formative studies, Charles K. Meek (1931) classified Fi as a classical, unapproachable Deus otiosus - an inactive creator god of the Sudan zone who, after the act of creating the world, withdrew into the sky and no longer intervened directly in the everyday concerns of people. In this older explanatory model, people communicate with the divine exclusively via lower spirits or ancestors. Modern field research, however, vehemently contradicts this thesis of a passive God. The linguist and cultural scientist N.K. Othaniel (2020: 12) proves that Mə has a highly active, present power in the everyday ritual life of the Dza. This deity manifests itself through direct spirit possession via selected individuals of the priestly bloodlines and intervenes massively in the community through the granting of seeric gifts (discernment). This permanent, dynamic interaction between the supreme creator and humans significantly differentiates the Dza religious system structurally from that of many neighbouring peoples, where ancestor spirits serve almost exclusively as intermediaries and the creator deity remains abstract.

Below the solar creator deity, there is a multi-faceted pantheon of natural and spiritual beings that regulate the immediate realities of life, ecological cycles and social conflicts. Of central ritual and strategic importance is the female spirit being Mwɔ, who resides in the flowing waters of the Benue and its tributaries. Mwɔ represents a fascinating paradox of Dza cosmology: she is both a fluid water spirit and the supreme martial authority of the people. She is invoked before dangerous territorial expeditions and in times of military conflict to blind enemy invaders through spiritual confusion and ward off ominous spirits. Her physical manifestation on the altars is often not anthropomorphic, but takes the form of highly sacralised, decorated spears that serve as lightning conductors for her energy (Othaniel 2020: 13).

Another fundamental spirit being that guarantees socio-political cohesion is Ndzəgbwi (or Ngbwi), the god of jurisprudence. In the cosmology of the Dza, Ndzəgbwi is described as a fearsome, fire-breathing beast from the deep forests, whose animal presence metaphorically symbolises the indomitable harshness of the law. This creature was mythologically brought to the villages to serve as an incorruptible judicial authority. The decrees and judgements that emerge from the shrine of Ndzəgbwi through the priests have absolute authority. In their socio-political binding force, they often surpass the decisions of the secular clan chiefs, as a violation of the shrine would not only result in social but also immediate metaphysical sanctions.

Ritual authority is vested in specific priestly castes, cult leaders and divinators, whose legitimisation within society is not through democratic election or purely economic success, but primarily through inheritance within sacred bloodlines and confirmation through spirit possession. Temples and complex shrines are traditionally named after historical, named individuals who achieved an exceptionally high degree of ritual purity (sanctity) during their lifetime. Such sacred lineages and temple organisations include the castes of the awɛ-, iwɛ-, iyi-, igbe- or dampaigə order. An extremely strict religious taboo, which fuses ethnic identity with ritual practice, demands that only the Dza language may be spoken in these sacred zones. Any offence, even the unconscious use of Hausa loanwords, requires costly atonement sacrifices to erase the ritual pollution of the altar.

The role of women in the cult is characterised by a deep duality that is often misunderstood in Western literature. While women are traditionally excluded from direct interaction with certain male martial initiation and secret society shrines (especially the masked societies), they dominate another, equally essential ritual sphere: the production, activation and ritual care of sacred ceramic vessels (kuchan). These potters are by no means just craftswomen, but high-ranking ritual specialists. As they mould the physical containers in which spiritual presences and disease spirits are bound, they are in control of fundamental healing rituals. This aspect of female cult dominance in the field of ceramics was intensively researched and documented by the Fowler Museum at UCLA as part of the exhibition Central Nigeria Unmasked (Berns 1993: 131). Central initiation and transition rituals of the Dza include agrarian harvest cycles, burial rites, and the transition of boys into the age classes, in which the community renews the cosmological order, ensures the protection of the lineage, and balances the complex equilibrium between the fluid water spirits and the solar powers through the use of ancestral figures, masks, and libated altars.

3. aesthetic features

The visual and sculptural repertoire of the Dza can be divided into a strict canonical object typology, which in its materiality and socio-cultural anchoring shows a sharp dichotomy between the masculine domain of woodcarving and the feminine domain of sacred ceramics. The most famous segment of this repertoire internationally and the most sought-after on the art market are the abstract wooden standing figures. These sculptures, which are often counted among the icons of African abstraction in the collections of Western institutions such as the Musée du quai Branly in Paris or the Museum Rietberg in Zurich, function as intermediaries between the physical and metaphysical worlds.

These wooden sculptures are characterised by a radical, unmistakable canon of proportions: An extremely stylised head, often shaped like a helmet, comb or mushroom, rests on a greatly elongated, cylindrical and massive torso. The legs are usually short in relation to the upper body, extremely angled and often bent in a zigzag pattern, giving the figure a dynamic, compressed and almost springy energy that is intended to evoke a ritual dance posture. The most iconographically striking sub-characteristic of the Jen sculptures - and almost unique in African art as a whole - is the treatment of the arms. These are worked as flowing, ribbon-like arcs or asymmetrical spirals that flank the torso, embrace it or stand out from the body in abstract sweeps. This technique creates generous negative spaces (openings) between the massive torso and the extremities, which lend the massive wooden sculpture an unexpected lightness and transparency (Fardon 2011: 384). The size spectrum of these anthropomorphic entities is enormous and ranges from intimate amulet sizes (approx. 20 cm) worn on the body by divinators to monumental guardian and shrine figures over 1.60 metres high, which form the centrepiece of village altar complexes (Bovin 2011: 417).

The classification of these wooden figures is the subject of one of the most prominent iconographic controversies in African art history. After the sudden mass appearance of these sculptures on the Western art market at the end of the 1960s, they were almost without exception subsumed as works by the Mumuye, as their artistic style dominated the Western understanding of the region. The art historian Marla C. Berns, however, argued vehemently for a differentiated "Jen style independence" on the basis of detailed morphological analyses and coined the term Jen-Wurkum cluster. Berns (1989: 34) postulates that the Jen and Wurkum developed distinct workshop idioms that clearly distinguish themselves from the mainstream Mumuye in specific geometric anatomical solutions (such as the more extreme reduction of facial features and the specific treatment of the shoulder area). Anthropologist Richard Fardon, on the other hand, views the middle Benue Valley as an open stylistic continuum in which strict ethnic labelling is historically obsolete in view of the fluid ritual alliances, the mobility of master carvers and the interethnic workshop networks, and is more likely to be artefacts of Western collector thinking (Fardon 2011: 19). The source situation remains partially ambiguous, but modern inventory catalogues (such as those of the Fowler Museum) increasingly tend to make double attributions (e.g. "Mumuye / Jen-Wurkum cluster") in order to do justice to this complexity.

The second canonical type of Dza art is the kuchan - highly anthropomorphised sacred ceramic vessels made exclusively by women. These vessels often have detailed faces, with the spout functionally and symbolically forming the mouth of the entity and applied handles imitating the arms. The surfaces of the ceramics are often decorated with complex incised patterns that correspond exactly to the scarification marks (body scars) of the Dza women and thus identify the vessel as a representative of the human community (Berns 2011: 16).

The choice of material for the wooden sculptures necessarily focusses on heavy, weather- and insect-resistant hardwoods (heartwood), which are given their characteristic, deep dark, shiny or often encrusted surface through continuous ritual patination. Ethnographically, a strict distinction must be made between the profane, freshly carved object and the "activated" ritual object. A freshly carved piece of wood has no inherent sacred value. A figure only acquires its spiritual agency through the application of external fuels. Activated objects have thick remnants of sacrificial matter in their cavities - coagulated blood, fermented millet beer, chewed kola nut - and are often hung with fittings such as iron chains, copper rings, leather straps or cowrie snails, which serve as physical conductors and anchors for the invoked spiritual energy (Adelberger 2011: 437).

As the highly abstracted woodwork from the region fetches immense prices on the international art market, the problem of forgery is highly relevant to the market. Authenticity criteria for private collectors include not only the oxidation patina that has penetrated deep into the wood and the authentic termite damage (which is often amateurishly imitated by forgers using acid or mechanical tools), but above all the deep, natural cracks in the heartwood. These cracks are inevitably caused by the decades-long storage of the objects in the strongly fluctuating climatic conditions of the village granaries, where extreme heat and humidity alternate. If these drying cracks are completely absent from an allegedly old figurine, it is highly probable that it is a post-1970 market forgery produced specifically for export. Documented master hands in the Western sense do not exist for the older Jen objects, as the carvers worked anonymously in the service of the religious castes; it is only through the classification work of Western curators that "manuscripts" of certain workshops (such as the "Master of the Ribbon-like Arms") are sometimes constructed posthumously.

4. ritual practice

The ritual operationalisation of sacred wooden and ceramic objects among the Dza is a highly complex, performative process that transforms the sculptures from mere artefacts into active, protective or punitive vectors of cosmological forces. The spatial location of this practice is of central importance: the altars and shrines in which these rituals take place are rarely isolated, public monuments in the centre of the village, but are rather located deep within the intimate, familial space - usually hidden within or in the immediate vicinity of the large granaries (family barns). In Dza society, the granary itself functions as a profound architectural metaphor for the preservation of the patrilineal lineage, for agricultural prosperity and physical sustenance. Through this semantic charge, the granary becomes the ideal and safest storage place for those objects that are supposed to guarantee the metaphysical and spiritual protection of the family (Othaniel 2020: 19).

The activation of a newly carved wooden figure or a freshly fired kuchan vessel marks the essential beginning of the object's ritual life cycle. As explained in the aesthetic context, an unblessed object is purely profane. Only through the targeted ritual intervention of a divinator (healer) or a priest of the Mə caste is the object charged with spiritual agency. In the case of the wooden figures, which often represent ancestors, helper spirits or unbound bush spirits, this charging is done by attaching specific physical fuels: tying heavy iron chains around the figure's neck, wrapping it tightly with fibre ropes or applying horn amulets filled with medicine irrevocably binds the invoked protective spirits to the wood. Once activated, these anthropomorphic standing figures serve as direct intermediaries. During a consultation, the owner, the head of the family or the divinator often physically holds the figure in their hands, conducts a vocal, murmuring dialogue with it and uses it as a channel to the metaphysical world. The figures are used to diagnose insidious illnesses, to identify witchcraft, to find the truth in cases of serious theft or to secure rain in periods of drought (Fardon 2011: 393).

Offerings (libations) are essential in this system to bind the spiritual entity to the object and 'feed' it, as it is believed that the power of the spirit wanes without nourishment. On specific occasions - such as the beginning of the agricultural cycle, after successful births or to ward off impending epidemics - ritual substances are poured or spat over the figures. These include thick porridge made from guinea corn, red palm oil, chewed kola or the blood of sacrificial animals (usually chickens or goats). Over generations, these repeated acts of libation lead to the multi-layered and crusty sacrificial patina so valued by the art market, which seals the wood and documents the historical depth of the ritual use.

The ritual practice surrounding the kuchan ceramics with their feminine connotations, on the other hand, is strongly focussed on the medical and therapeutic aspect. These anthropomorphic vessels operate metaphysically as specialised 'traps' or 'containers' for disease spirits. When a member of the Dza community falls ill with a specific pathology (for example, chronic back pain or an epidemic fever), the potter, in consultation with the healer, models a vessel whose morphological structure visually imitates the disease - for example, through spiky, spine-like applications for back pain. In a complex performance, the healer ritually transfers the spirit of the illness from the patient's body into the prepared vessel. The vessel is then sealed and permanently deposited on the altar to imprison the pathological entity and protect the patient from a relapse (Berns 2011: 16).

The deactivation and disposal process of objects that have reached the end of their ritual life cycle is characterised by deep respect for the remaining material energy. A wooden figure that has structurally failed and decayed due to decades of use or massive termite damage is not carelessly thrown away. In the cosmology of the region, the consumption of wood by insects is interpreted as a natural, sacred withdrawal of spiritual power into the earth - the ultimate domain of the ancestors. In the case of ceramic vessels, the practice is even more conservative: if a kuchan breaks, the spiritual charge does not necessarily escape, according to local belief. The shards, especially the sculpted, anthropomorphic mouths and heads, are still considered highly sacred. They are preserved accumulatively on the shrines, where they continue to be incorporated into reduced sacrificial acts and serve as physical, genealogical archives of family histories of illness, survival and healing (Berns 1993: 131). Such deeply embedded material practices are essential in recent provenance research by Western institutions, such as the laboratories of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met), where the micro-analytical examination of soil deposits and sacrificial layers in the deep pores of the wood provides information about the authenticity, region and actual period of use of the artefacts.

5. historical context

The historical reconstruction of the Jen (Dza) is characterised by a complex field of tension between oral legends of origin, the often incomplete colonial documentation and the recent, partly speculative history of the art market. The migration history of the Jen speakers is the subject of much debate in historical and linguistic research and is riddled with dating controversies. Oral traditions of the Dza locate the genesis of the people in the Far East - often mythologically equated with Yemen or the abstract "Za region" - from where they were forced to flee to the African Sudan corridor as a result of Islamic revolutions. However, ethnohistorians and linguists regard this "Yemen myth" as a typical, post-Islamic topos (similar to the well-known Kisra legends of many West African peoples), which was adapted in later centuries in order to valorise one's own origins through an association with the Middle East. More realistic and supported by linguistic drift analyses is the thesis of a gradual westward migration within the vast Benue plain, caused by ecological pressure and the conflict with the historically rapidly expanding Bata Empire, which led to the final settlement on today's middle reaches of the Benue (Othaniel 2020: 21).

A formative, profound moment in pre-colonial history was the encounter with the Fulbe jihadists in the late 18th and especially in the 19th century. In drastic contrast to many neighbouring peoples (such as parts of the Mumuye or Chamba), who retreated into the inaccessible mountains or were decimated by massive slave hunts, the Dza formed strategic political and economic alliances with the Fulbe early on (especially with the emerging Muri Emirate under Emir Muhammad Nya). This led to extensive interethnic marriage ties and an asymmetrical cultural syncretism that transformed local society and art production through the influences of Islamic administrative titulatures and new trade networks, but without destroying the core of indigenous Mə religion (Capro 1992: 248).

The first documented contact with European explorers that was reflected in written sources took place during the German expeditions to Cameroon, when the German geographer and explorer Siegfried Passarge travelled to the so-called "Adamaua" region in 1893/1894 and made his first, albeit rudimentary, ethnographic notes on the peoples of the Benue (Passarge 1895). Later, renowned explorers and British colonial officials such as Leo Frobenius on his great expedition (1912) and C.K. Meek in his fundamental Tribal Studies in Northern Nigeria (1931) documented the cultures of the region. However, the colonial encounter with the British administration, which controlled the region after the First World War, was by no means free of conflict: in 1914, the Dza (Jen) massively refused to pay the tax and grain tributes demanded by the British to supply the troops in Yola, which led to violent administrative reprisals and patrols that briefly destabilised the social fabric of the region.

The reception of Dza and Mumuye art in the West exhibits a remarkable and highly uneven chronology, which still characterises collecting behaviour today. Before the late 1960s, the extremely abstract pillar figures of the central Benue Valley were almost completely unknown in Western museum collections (such as the British Museum in London or the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren / RMCA). The few existing pieces were often wrongly catalogued as "Chamba" due to a lack of precise field research. The dramatic breakthrough of these artworks on the international art market only occurred as a result of the catastrophic turmoil of the Nigerian Civil War (Biafra War, 1967-1970). The movement of troops through the so-called Middle Belt and the collapse of local authorities led to the systematic looting and mass export of sacred shrines from the Benue region. When these previously unknown figures appeared in Parisian galleries in the late 1960s - prominently pushed and stylised by influential dealers such as Jacques Kerchache - they caused a sensation due to their radical, almost cubist abstraction, which deeply fascinated Western collectors of classical modernism (Fardon 2011: 384).

Today, this late, war-related "moment of discovery" leads to massive methodological problems in dating and authenticating the pieces. Since almost no Jen or Mumuye figurines have a documented, complete provenance before 1900 (in contrast to works from the Congo or the historic Gold Coast), precise historical dating is highly problematic; moreover, a C14 analysis (radiocarbon method) is practically worthless for 19th and 20th century wooden artefacts due to the enormous methodological uncertainty curve. The immense commercial success and rapid price development of these "Benue abstractions" in Western auction houses inevitably led to a wave of professional forgeries in the 1970s and 1980s, which were produced exclusively for the Western market in local, highly skilled workshops (often in neighbouring Cameroon, e.g. in Foumban). Today, leading institutions such as the Fowler Museum at UCLA rely on the forensic criteria and unpublished field notes of anthropologist Arnold Rubin, who documented the original contexts on site in the late 1960s, immediately before the sell-off, for authentication. Genuine figurines must have deep, longitudinal heartwood cracks that provide evidence of slow drying, as well as complex, forensically detectable microscopic layers of ritual libations that are easily distinguishable from the one-dimensionally applied shoe polish or bitumen patinas of the fakes (Berns 2011: 37).