Unspoken Stories 4: Ngene

One of a series of 'archival monologues' in which storytellers give voice to the stories of people photographed during a series of early 20th century anthropological surveys led by Northcote Thomas. Unlike the other monologues in the series, this story is told from the perspective of an Ngene alusi - a carved Igbo shrine figure that has been acquired by the anthropologist, shipped to England and shut away in a museum store for over 100 years. See https://re-entanglements.net/unspoken... A film by Christopher Thomas Allen and Paul Basu Script by Usifu Jalloh and Paul Basu Ngene's story is performed by Usifu Jalloh Archive photographs and sound recordings gathered by Northcote W. Thomas in Nigeria and Sierra Leone, 1909-1915. Images reproduced courtesy of the Royal Anthropological Institute Sound recordings reproduced courtesy of The British Library It is I, Ngene, keeper of the land. I breathe again. For over one hundred years I have been shut away in a wooden crate. You may as well call it a coffin. I have been buried in the museum store. They think I am dead… wood – a lifeless object, a sculpture, a piece of ‘tribal art’. Little do they know. I am an alusi. A spirit. One of a family of spirits under our supreme god, Chukwu. In the Anambra Valley, in what you call Nigeria, a palace was my home. Each year, before the festival called in my honour, the women would paint the walls of my compound in red and yellow ochre, as they would paint their own bodies with uli. My brother and sister spirits - Ala, Agwu, Amadioha, Ikenga ¬- How I miss them. Where are they now? Have they succumbed to the termites? Or been burned by those zealots of new religions. (In their ignorance, they called us idols.) Or have they been taken, like me, naked, shipped off and sold into the exile of the art market and the anthropological museum? See upon my forehead the noble marks of ibu ichi. They are shared by gods and mortals – those mortals, at least, destined to take the Ozo title and who will one day transcend the earthly world to join the ancestors. I am Ngene. Keeper of the land. Approach me with respect. Bring me kola. Pour your libations. Make your sacrifices of fowl or goat. I will come to your aid, if it is my will. But do not make the mistake of addressing me directly. It is with the dibia alone that I commune. He who marks his eye with chalk, who divines my words and performs the igba afa. And you? What would you ask of this exiled god? What would you wish for me? Where now is my shrine?