Bafoum/Tiv Figure. Specifications: 17.5 x 7.5 x 7 cm Origin: Oku Plateau, Cameroon (see cultural and contextual notes below.) Medium: Ceramic, trade wire, human hair & clay. Comments: Has old label explaining context. Provenance: Ex: Azania Tribal Collection, Cape Town.
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African Origins sells hand-made tribal objects which have been used, in some cases, for many, many years. We ask that you carefully study the photographs relating to each object prior to committing to purchase. In the event that you are unhappy with your purchase for any reason, we accept returns within thirty days of purchase date.
About African Origins
African Origins has been trading online since 2007. We are constantly on the look-out for interesting objects to add to our collection. Our tribal collection is sourced from tribal dealers, auction houses private collections the world over and also collected in the field. Where possible, we will specify the provenance of important individual tribal objects.
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The Tiv
people live on both sides of the Benue River in Nigeria; they speak a
language of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo family.
The Tiv are subsistence farmers whose main crops are
yams, millet, and sorghum, all of which are eaten as porridge or are made more
palatable by their combination in sauces and stews. Although goats and chickens
are plentiful, few cattle are kept because of the tsetse fly. The polygynous
Tiv family occupies a cluster of round huts surrounding a reception hut;
brothers usually live next to one another.
Tiv social organization is based on patrilineages
that are closely associated with particular geographic features; in segmentary
lineage systems such as the Tiv’s, a given lineage may be associated, more or
less exactly, to a particular village, a group of lineages to a larger
district, and so on. Genealogies go back many generations to a single ancestor;
the descendants (through the male line) of each person in the genealogy thus
form a territorial kinship group. The force of patrilineal descent, while
dominant in Tiv institutions, is balanced by institutions such as age grades
(groups of men of about the same age who provide mutual assistance and allies
against lineage pressure), cooperative groups, and institutionalized
friendships. Although traditionally the Tiv had no chiefs (political decisions
were made by lineage elders), the British administration established a
paramount chief in 1948. The Tiv’s complex system of exchange marriage was
outlawed in 1927 and was replaced by marriage with bridewealth.
Some Tiv have converted to Christianity, and a
lesser number have adopted Islam; but their traditional religion, based on the
manipulation of forces (akombo) entrusted to humans by a creator god, remains
strong. The akombo are manifested in certain symbols or emblems and in diseases
that they create. An organization of elders who have the ability to manipulate
these forces meets at night to repair those manifestations of akombo (e.g.,
epidemics) that affect the group; these phenomena require human sacrifice or
its metaphorical equivalent. The Tiv numbered about 2,500,000 in the late 20th
century.