Cleveland Museum of Art

Headdress

Date

early 1900s

Medium

Wood, rawhide, cane, paint, bone or ivory, natural fiber, and metal

Culture

Africa, West Africa, Nigeria, Ejagham-style maker

Department

African Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Headdresses or crest masks made of antelope skin stretched over a carved head are a distinctive art form of the Cross River region in southeastern Nigeria and western Cameroon. This female evocation of ideal feminine beauty was most probably worn by an Ejagham woman in the context of a female society called Ekpa, which was responsible for the education of girls in preparation for marriage. The headdress represents a girl that evokes ideal female beauty and is ready for marriage. The depicted hairstyle was worn during the coming-out ceremony following the girls’ seclusion.

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