Jagana or iagana (carved figure)

The energy inherent in this figural abstraction suggests torque or a force that rotates around an axis. Works carved in this refined style likely performed a diverse range of ritual functions, including serving as oracles. Major segments of the form were blocked out with an adze, while the wrists, hands, face, and double-crested warrior’s helmet were rendered with precision tools. Completed last, its legs are abbreviated in a compressed zigzag, as if poised to spring into action.


This work and a small cluster of related ones, including a more monumental version of this example now in the Beyeler Foundation, Basel, Switzerland, have been attributed to a single sculptor possibly active in the Mumuye center of Pantisawa. First documented by scholars in the 1960s, his compositions have been recognized by art historian Arnold Rubin and others for their bold scale, their dynamic use of negative space, and the delicacy of their wrists and other details. Mumuye carvers of that generation would typically have been itinerant, completing most of their work within the courtyard of the family who commissioned them, rather than in a fixed studio or workshop.