Igbo Tutelary Deity Male and Female Couple, Nigeria

the male wearing a necklace with a Leopard (Panthera pardus) tooth pendant.

Allan Stone, New York

According to Cole and Aniakor (1984: 89), "major community deities in the area roughly within a thirty-mile radius of Awka and Agukwu Nri are often given permanent compounds or single buildings on the edges of public commons. These shrines are the locus of weekly and annual rituals, for they are the publicly approachable 'homes' of the unseen gods associated with rivers, earth, the nearby market, or a remote founding ancestor. Such tutelary deities are portable wood carvings, conceived of and materialized on the human family model, with wives or husbands, children, ikenga, messengers, and other helpers." And they continue (loc. cit.: 90): "Wooden figural sculptures through much of the northcentral region are carved in an iconic convention from which there is very little deviation. Whether male or female, they are frontally conceived, symmetrical, standing with legs slightly apart, arms cut free at the sides, and hands extended forward with palms up."

The male and female deity couple from the Allan Stone Collection is distinguished by its refined style and exceptionally well preserved, deeply encrusted surface which attests to a long ritual life in situ. Accoridng to Cole and Aniakor (1984: 92), yellow is the color of peace and white symbolizes purity.