This mask depicts a woman afflicted with goitre, a neck swelling often caused by overactive thyroid glands, that can be cured with medicine or sometimes surgery. In Idoma land, such an affliction, especially on a woman, is likely treated by alejinu, the cult of healing and fertility.

The majority of figure carvings by Idoma carvers — except those used as toys or as protection from evil — are the direct influence of anlejinu, the benevolent spirit invoked to cure afflictions, bring about good luck and guarantee fertility. [1] Typically presided over by male priests, alejinu cults — on account of its focus on healing and fertility — are populated by adult women, who are traditionally exempted from regulatory societies and ancestral cults in Idoma country.

Alejinu is a derivative of al jannah, the Arabic word for “heaven” or “paradise” which has likely been absorbed into Idoma beliefs, via migration and settlement from northern Nigeria. Idoma peoples occupy the “transition zone” between the Niger-Benue Confluence and the Lower Niger-Benue Valley in what today is Nigeria’s middle belt region. [2] This transitory region is further influenced by two major factors: ethno-religiosity and ecology. The former is due to the dominance of Hausa-Fulani in the predominantly Muslim north, and the Yorubas and Igbos nations in the predominantly Christian south. The latter is defined by the dry savanna and tropical forests, two of the major ecoregions of West Africa.

These rich combinations of different forms of belief and practice “characterised the diversity of Idoma art as a whole.” [3] Examples of such cultural transference/diversity include the belief in mammy wata (water mother) that is common to coastal West Africa, the absorption of Bori cult from the Hausas, and the cult of nature spirits called alejinu. [4] While Idoma masks made in the late 19th century are conditioned with oil, the majority of those made in the 20th century are treated with white kaolin [5] or grounshells [6] or cheap, commercial paint.

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