Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-8mjnm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-18T18:07:47.071Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Nomoli

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Extract

A contribution to the understanding of one of the many puzzling features of West African art history, this article deals with the stone sculptures found in an area centred in southern Sierra Leone. These ‘nomoli’, as they are usually called, were made and used in the area where they are found, rather than having been imported. The authors believe that these figurines were made by the groups of peoples called ‘Sapes’ by the early explorers of the region. This is partially confirmed by the fact that features of these people at the time of the first contacts seem to correlate with features found on nomoli.

Originally intended as ancestor figures, these stone statuettes are used by some of the modern inhabitants of Sierra Leone as ‘swearing’ devices and to help increase agricultural yields. This latter use, at least, would go along with the authors' contention that the nomoli, after they ceased being regarded as ancestral figures—due to being lost, stolen or forgotten—were regarded as material representations of spirits known as krifi. The similarities between the supposed appearance of some of the krifi and the features of the nomoli would support this hypothesis. The ‘monstrous’ appearance of many of the nomoli might be due to their being carved as representations of krifi or of heads of secret societies.

As to their dating, stylistic relationships between some of the nomoli and some of the ancestral figures in the Sudan, along with an apparent influence from that area dated about the seventh or eight century A.D., might mean that they were first manufactured at that time. Evidence exists that they were still being made in some places in the present century, but this might represent a revival of the art rather than a continuance, since the sale of these figures is quite profitable.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 We are using ‘nomoli’ here in a general sense for all stone figurines found in certain parts of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia (see below); stylistic and areal differentiations will be discussed later.

2 In most cases they are isolated, but there occur pieces with bodies or heads (Janus head) doubled. There is a group sculpture of a large central figure with several small figures around it in the collection of the Sierra Leone Museum (no. 622278 of the Museum Record). Artistically this is a masterpiece, and stylistically very uncommon.

3 For example, lizards with human heads (see Kunz, Dittmer, ‘Bedeutung, Datierung und kulturhistorische Zusammenhônge der “prôhistorischen” Steinfiguren aus Sierra Leone und Guinée’, Baessler Archiv, xv, no. I (1967), 190;Google Scholar see also Rütimeyer, L., ‘über westafrikanische Steinidole’, Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, xiv (1901), 199200).Google Scholar

4 Rütimeyer, , ‘über westafrikanische Steinidole’, 199200;Google ScholarRütimeyer, L., ‘Weitere Mitteilungen über westafrikanische Steinidole’, Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, xviii (1908), 169.Google Scholar

5 See Rütimeyer, , ‘über westafrikanische Steinidole’, 199200;Google ScholarJoyce, T. A., ‘Steatite figures from West Africa in the British Museum’, Man, v, no. 57 (1905), 100;Google ScholarRütimeyer, , ‘Weitere Mitteilungen’, 169;Google ScholarStanley, Brown, ‘The Nomoli of Mende Country’, Africa, xviii, no 1 (01 1948), 1819.Google Scholar

6 See below.

7 Rütimeyer, , ‘über westafrikanische Steinidole’, 100.Google Scholar

8 Alldridge, T. J., The Sherbro and Its Hinterland (London, 1901), 163.Google Scholar

9 Le Cesne, in Rütimeyer, , ‘über westafrikanische Steinidole’, 198;Google Scholar see also Jérémine, E., ‘étude des statuettes kissiennes au point de vue mineralogique et pétrographique’, J. Société des Africanistes, xv (1945), 11.Google Scholar

10 Rütimeyer, , ‘über westafrikanische Steinidole’, 100; ‘Weitere Mitteilungen’, 168.Google Scholar

11 Crone, G. R. (trans. and ed.), The Voyages of Cadamosto and Other Documents on Western Africa in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century (London, 1937), 87–8. The ‘groves of trees’ to which Malfante makes reference here are undoubtedly the ‘bushes’ of the secret societies so common in this part of West Africa.Google Scholar

12 Th., Monod, Teixeira da Mota, A. and Mauny, R. (trans. and eds.), Description de la Côte Occidentale d'Afrique (Sénégal au Cap de Monte, Archipels) par Valentim Fernandes (1506–1510). Centro de Estudos da Guiné Portuguesa, Memórias, no. II (Bissau, 1951), 75.Google Scholar

13 George, Thompson, Thompson in Africa, An Account of the Missionary Labours, etc., of George Thompson in Western Africa at the Mendi Mission (New York, 1852), 276 (emphasis Thompson's).Google Scholar

15 Alldridge, , The Sherbro, 163–4.Google Scholar

16 Rütimeyer, ‘über westafrikanische Steinidole’.

17 Person, Y., ‘Les Kissi et leurs statuettes de pierre dans le cadre de l'histoire ouestafricaine’, Bull. IFAN, XXIII, sér. B, nos. 1–2 (Janvier–Avril 1961);Google ScholarDittmer, , ‘Bedeutung, Datierung und kulturhistorische…’; Phillip Allison, African Stone Sculpture (New York, 1968), 3641.Google Scholar

18 See Rütimeyer, , ‘über westafrika Steinidole’, 199200;Google ScholarNéel, , ‘Statuettes en pierre et en argile de l'Afrique Occidentale’, L'Anthropologie, XXIV (1913), 441–2.Google Scholar

19 Rütimeyer, , ‘Weitere Mitteilungen’, 175.Google Scholar

20 See Eva, L. R. Meyerowitz, ‘The stone figures of Esie in Nigeria’, The Burlington Magazine, LXXXII (02 1943), 35;Google ScholarKunz, Dittmer, ‘Zur Herkunft und Bedeutung der altyorobischen Kronen und des ôthiopischen kalatcha’, Festschrift für Ad. E. Jensen (München, 1964), 88;Google ScholarDittmer, , ‘Bedeutung, Datierung und kulturhistorische.…’, 213.Google Scholar

21 Dittmer found similarities with Indian art in strange collars combined with neck- rings of pearls. This occurs in some nomoli in quite elaborated forms; in simpler manner it is represented, according to Dittmer, by metallic rings (Dittmer, , ‘Bedeutung, Datierung und kulturhistorische’, 204–6),Google Scholarmahei yafei (see below). But the combined collars are also very conspicuous in some Ife sculptures (Dittmer, Ibid.. 204–6; Frank, Willett, Ife in the History of West African Sculpture (London, 1967), 49, 65, 119,Google Scholar plates 40, 74) and Benin pieces (Willett, , Ife, 116–17).Google Scholar Another strange feature in some nomoli are crossed legs which, according to Dittmer, are typical of Indian art. Further, hair curls in the form of a disk, various plaited work and S-knots appear in nomoli and also in Benin and Yoruba art (Dittmer, Ibid.. 204–6). It may be interesting to note in this context that some other authors also considered the hypothetical connection in quite different forms from those of Dittmer:thus Hornell found striking similarities in African and Indian string games (see Hornell, J., ‘The string games and tricks of Sierra Leone’, Sierra Leone Studies, XIII (1928), 7;Google ScholarHornell, J., ‘String figures from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Zanzibar’, J. Royal Anthropological Institute, LX (1930), 14), while Homburger considered linguistic similarities between Dravidian and African languages.Google Scholar

22 In the plaited work (see note 21 above) and in some motives in a unique ivory cup from Benin (see Dittmer, , ‘Bedeutung, Datierung und kulturhistorische…’, 204–6).Google Scholar

23 See Dittmer, ibid. 213.

25 Rütimeyer, , ‘Weitere Mitteilungen’, 175–6.Google Scholar

26 Néel, , ‘Statuettes’, 441–2.Google Scholar

27 Joyce, T. A., ‘Steatite figures from Sierra Leone’, Man, ix, no. 40 (1909), 67. ‘Nomori’ is a variation of the word ‘nomoli’.Google Scholar

28 The records of the Sierra Leone Museum tell us that on one occasion as many as fifty-one nomoli were found in one place.

29 See also Joyce, , ‘Steatite figures from West Africa’, 99, who quoted an informant ‘that knew “a hill” where “plenty” had been found, but declined to locate it’.Google Scholar

30 Rütimeyer, , ‘über westafrikanische Steinidole’, 197; ‘Weitere Metteilungen’, 167–8.Google Scholar

31 D'Arcy Anderson, B., in Alldridge, T. J., A Transformed Colony (London, 1910), 118.Google Scholar

32 Joyce, ‘Steatite figures from Sierra Leone’.

34 George, Schwab, Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland (Cambridge, Mass., 1947), 21, footnote 5.Google Scholar

35 Northcote, W. Thomas, Anthropological Report on Sierra Leone, 2 vols. (1916), 11, 3940.Google Scholar

36 ‘I was informed by Mendi and Timni alike that they were of supernatural origin (‘God made them’) and that no one in their country could make anything like them,’ Joyce, , ‘Steatite figures from West Africa’, 99. ‘The traditional view that God made these things is easily accepted and all affirm they are Ngewo gbate hani, i.e. “of God's creation” …He is believed to work through the media of spirits (ngafeisia)’Google Scholar (Brown, , ‘The Nomoli’, 19).Google Scholar See also Rütimeyer, , ‘über westafrikanische Steinidole’, 197;Google ScholarAlldridge, , The Sherbro, 163–4;Google ScholarRütimeyer, , ‘Weitere Mitteilungen’, 168;Google ScholarAlldridge, , A Transformed Colony, 289.Google Scholar

37 ‘The Ndogbojusui.…. lives on the top of a mountain by day, and roams the bush and bush paths by night. He appears as a man with a white skin and a long white beard to lonely travellers…. is also associated with the bush in an agricultural sense. The steatite nomoli which the farmer turns up when he is hoeing in old bush are looked upon as the genii's handiwork’ (Little, K. L., Tile Mende of Sierra Leone (London, 1951), 223).Google Scholar

38 Allison, , African Stone Sculpture, 39.Google Scholar

39 See Walter, Rodney, ‘A Reconsideration of the Mane Invasions of Sierra Leone,’ J. Afr. Hist. VIII, no. 1 (1967).Google Scholar

40 Frederick, William Hugh Migeod, A View of Sierra Leone (London, 1926), 204.Google Scholar

43 Migeod, , A View, 174.Google Scholar

44 See below.

45 Migeod, , A View, 180.Google Scholar

46 Quoted in Beatty, K. J., Human Leopards, (London, 1915), 96.Google Scholar

47 See William, Fagg, The Art of Western Africa (Milano, 1967), 6.Google Scholar

48 See, for example, Rüutimeyer, , ‘über westafrikanische Steinidole’, 199200; ‘Weitere Mitteilungen’, 169, 175–6;Google ScholarDittmer, , ‘Bedeutung, Datierung und kulturhistorische’, 200–1;Google ScholarFrank, Willett, Ife, 113–14.Google Scholar

49 See Kup, A. P., A History of Sierra Leone 1400–1787 (Cambridge, 1962), 141.Google Scholar

50 For example 1920. 10–21. 1 and 1920. 10–21.2 in the British Museum.

51 See Jean-Paul, Lebeuf and Masson Detourbet, A., La Civilisation du Tchad (Paris, 1950), figs. 3739Google Scholar it is interesting to note that a few ‘pomdo’-type nomoli have apparently been found in the Dogon area of Mali, 600 miles away! (Allison, , African Stone Sculpture, 38.)Google Scholar

52 Clay figurines have been made and still are being made in the area. See John, Barbot, A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea…. (London, 1746), 104;Google ScholarTh., Monod, et al. , Description de la Côte, 85;Google ScholarPierre-Dominique, Gaisseau, Forét Sacrée: Magie et rites secrets des Toma (Paris, 1953), 21. Also of interest in this connexion is the stone figure found near Freetown, Sierra Leone (now in the Cuttington College Museum in Liberia) which was covered with clay when found (Bill Siegmann, personal communication).Google Scholar

53 This is supported by the view of William, Fagg and Margaret, Plass (African Sculpture (London, 1966), 22) that ‘the nomoli forms lack stylistic qualities specially appropriate to stonecarving.’Google Scholar

54 John, H. Atherton, The Later Stone Age of Sierra Leone, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oregon (Eugene, 1969).Google Scholar

55 Lebeuf, et Detourbet, La Civilisation, figs. 19, 23, 17;Google ScholarJean-Paul, Lebeuf, Archéologie tchadienne, (Paris, 1962), planches v-x;Google ScholarAtherton, , The Later Stone Age, 125–38.Google Scholar

56 Atherton, , The Later Stone Age, 40. The dates are composite samples of two 1 metre square, 10 cm. deep excavation units.Google Scholar

57 Marcel, Griaule and Lebeuf, J.-P., ‘Fouilles dans la région du Tchad’, Journal de la Société des Africanistes, XVIII (1948), 30–5. This fragment, along with others, was found exactly on the border between levels 3 and 4 in a single excavation unit at Kamabai Rock Shelter in which we have dates for both levels. Averaging the dates for the two levels, both composite samples, we get an approximate date of A.D. 1050 for these ‘croissants’.Google Scholar

58 Lebeuf, , Archéologie tchadienne, 99100.Google Scholar

59 Ibid. planche IX, no. 720; planche x, no. 864.

60 Atherton, , The Later Stone Age, 109.Google Scholar These nests seem to have some supernatural importance also (see Thomas, , Anthropological Report, 32;Google ScholarMonod, et atl, Description, 75).Google Scholar

61 Atherton, , The Later Stone Age, 109–10.Google Scholar

62 Dietrich, Drost, Töpferei in Afrika (Berlin, 1967), 19, 21.Google Scholar

63 Joyce, , ‘Steatite figures from Sierra Leone’, 67.Google Scholar

64 Brown, , ‘The Nomoli’, 1920.Google Scholar

65 ‘Sansevieria Liberica…. Bow-string Hemp. Mende Nomoli; Sherbro Wokole; Gola Nomoni; Vai kPotore, Koeboya; Kisi Nomoliyo’ (Deighton, F. C., Vernacular Botanical Vocabulary for Sierra Leone (London, 1957), 73).Google Scholar

66 Brown, , ‘The Nomoli’, 39–20.Google Scholar

67 ‘The other practice for securing a good harvest is by growing a plant which bears the magical name NOMOLI in the farms. It is believed that this plant has the power of stealing crops from other farms into the farm in which it is planted… Nomoli is transferable from farm to farm in accordance with shifting culture year after year’ (Frank, G. Musa, ‘Farming and superstition in Sierra Leone’, Sierra Leone Studies, no. 21, (01 1939), 104).Google Scholar

68 Joyce, , ‘Steatite figures from Sierra Leone’, 6667.Google Scholar

69 See collections of the Sierra Leone Museum. See also Rütimeyer, , ‘Weitere Mitteilungen’, 170.Google Scholar

70 Brown, , ‘The Nomoli’, 19.Google Scholar See also Rütimeyer, , ‘Weitere Mitteilungen’, 171.Google Scholar

71 ‘Metallic rings that…. are discovered….with these farm devils…. are never separated or rather kept apart once they are found….The metal rings are sometimes six, seven, and eight inches in diameter, and the nomoli is placed in the middle, but the one I secured was only about 2 inches, and fitted so close to the nomoli that it served to prop it up in an upright position.’ Joyce, , ‘Steatite figures from Sierra Leone’, 66–7.Google Scholar See also Addison, W., ‘Steatite figures from Moyamba district, Central Province, Sierra Leone, West Africa’, Man, XXIII, no. 109 (1923), 177.Google Scholar

72 Rütimeyer, , ‘Weitere Mitteilungen’, 171;Google ScholarJoyce, , ‘Steatite figures from Sierra Leone’, 66–7.Google Scholar

73 ‘One of these rings…. was very black with exposure of the weather…. On scratching it with a knife, it appeared…. to be either brass or bronze’ (Joyce, , ‘Steatite figures from Sierra Leone’, 66–7). ‘With the heads, the Paramount Chief gave me two bracelets. One appears to be made of iron and the other of a metal which might be brass’Google Scholar (Ibid. 177). See also Rütimeyer, , ‘Weitere Mitteilungen’, 170.Google Scholar

74 Rütimeyer, , ‘Weitere Mitteilungen’, 170.Google Scholar

76 Joyce, , ‘Steatite figures from Sierra Leone’, 66–7.Google Scholar

77 Greensmith in Rütimeyer, ; ‘Weitere Mitteilungen’, 171.Google Scholar

78 Joyce, , ‘Steatite figures from Sierra Leone’ 66–7.Google Scholar

79 Addison, , ‘Steatite figures’, 177.Google Scholar

80 Rütimeyer, , ‘Weitere Mitteilungen’, 171.Google Scholar

81 Denise, Paulme, Les Gens du Riz (Paris, 1954), 144.Google Scholar

82 Néel, H., ‘Statuettes’, 436–40.Google Scholar

83 Kup, , A History, 141.Google Scholar

84 See Person, ‘Les Kissi’.

85 Paulme, , Les Gens, 145.Google Scholar

86 Barbot, , A Description, 104;Google ScholarRütimeyer, , ‘Weitere Mitteilungen’, 173.Google Scholar

87 See footnote 43 above; see also Butt-Thompson, F. W., West African Secret Societies, (London, 1929), 112;Google ScholarPaulme, , Les Gens, 145.Google Scholar

88 Leo Frobenius, ‘Tagebuch—Ethnographie IV—Zweite Reise’(MS from the Leo Frobenius Institute, Frankfurt, S. 66–7); see also Paulme, , Les Gens, 149: ‘A la mort de son gardien, le pomdo passe aux mains du frère cadet ou du fils; á défaut d'héritier direct, la statuette sera deposée dans la tombe.’Google Scholar

89 Ibid.; see also Néel, ‘Statuettes’, 435.

90 Thomas, Winterbottom, An Account of the Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone…, 2 vols. (London, 1803), 1, 241.Google Scholar See also Schlenker, C. F., A Collection of Temne Traditions, Fables and Proverbs, x (London, 1861);Google ScholarThomas, , Anthropological Report, 41;Google ScholarMigeod, , A View, 37.Google Scholar

91 Among the Eastern Temne, if a man dies some distance from his home he will be buried there and a pebble will be brought back and buried in his home village. The pebble represents the spirit and makes it possible to offer sacrifice to that deceased without having to travel. (Vernon R. Dorjahn, personal communication.)

92 Beatty, , Human Leopards, 83–4.Google Scholar

93 Dittmer, , ‘Bedeutung, Datierung und kulturhistorische’, 185.Google Scholar

94 Harris, W. T. and Harry, Sawyerr, The Springs of Mende Belief and Conduct (Freetown, 1968), 71.Google Scholar

95 ‘They are consulted upon questions of war, the getting of wealth, the procuring of good crops, and the success of proposed journeys. It is believed that if one of these images is secreted…. in a rice field, its presence will secure a crop double in quantity to the ordinary yield. Each of these steatite devils is thought to be attended by many satellites who circle around him and carry out his command’ (Alldridge, , The Sherbro, 163–4;Google Scholar see also Brown, , ‘The Nomoli’, 19).Google Scholar

96 See Alldridge, , The Sherbro, 163–4;Google ScholarBrown, , ‘The Nomoli’, 19;Google ScholarCarl, Kjersmeier, Afrikanske Negerskulpturer, African Negro Sculptures (Copenhagen, 1947), 32.Google Scholar

97 See Addison, , ‘Steatite figures’, 176–7;Google ScholarBrown, , ‘The Nomoli’, 19.Google Scholar

98 ‘Because they maybe sleeping’ (Little, K. L., ‘The Mende Upland Rice Farming’, (Typescript, Fourah Bay College Library), 50).Google Scholar

99 ‘The food is usually cooked rice, with a lot of palm oil mixed with dried meat and fish. Scaled fish are scarcely permissible’ (Musa, , ‘Farming and superstition’, 103).Google Scholar See also Joyce, , ‘Steatite figures from West Africa’, 99;Google ScholarLittle, , The Mende, 50;Google ScholarHarris, and Sawyerr, , The Springs, 71.Google Scholar

100 D'Arcy Anderson, in Alldridge, , A Transformed Colony, 287.Google Scholar

101 Ibid.

102 Thomas, , Anthropological Report, 33.Google Scholar

103 Ibid., 31.

104 Ibid., 32. Among the eastern Temne, at least, the term krifi is not used for strictly ancestral spirits. (V. R. Dorjahn, personal communication.)

105 Thomas, , Anthropological Report, 34.Google Scholar

106 Dittmer, , ‘Bedeutung, Datierung und kulturhistorische’, 184–5; also of interest in this connexion are the strange reports circulated as to the nature of birth or to the physical peculiarities of the heads of secret societies. ‘Claims that they were supernaturally born are frequently made, and many assertions may be heard…. that suggest that among these men (and women) are more hermaphrodites and monstrosities than ever Pliny knew’Google Scholar (Butt-Thompson, , West African, 75).Google Scholar

107 Thomas, , Anthropological Report, 35.Google Scholar

108 Although the authors do not wish (at least at this time) to draw any conclusions from a relationship between features of the nomoli and those of stone figures in another part of the world, we feel that it is of some interest, at least, to make a few comments on some of the stonc carving found on Easter Island. The larger stone carvings, for which the island is famous, are carved in exactly the same way as were the nomoli, i.e. they were completely finished before being detached. But it is not these figures which interest us, but the more recently discovered small figures in the secret caves on the island. The resemblance between nomoli and some of these figurines seems to be closer than to any of the stone figures found in other parts of West Africa. These cave figures were hidden in secret family caves and handed down from one generation to the next. Not only is there an amazing stylistic (and apparently functional) resemblance between these figures and nomoli, but holes in the head are common among both groups of figures (see Thor, Heyerdahl, Aku-Aku (London, 1957)).Google Scholar

109 Beale, P. O., ‘The stone circles of the Gambia and the Senegal’, Tarikh, 11, no. 2 (1968), 11.Google Scholar

110 Dittmer, , ‘Bedeutung, Datierung und kulturhistorische’, 215.Google Scholar

111 Paulme, , Les Gens, 144.Google Scholar

112 Delafosse, M., ‘Au sujet des statuettes en pierre de Kissi’, Revue d'Ethnographie et de Sociologie (Paris, 1914), 143;Google ScholarMigeod, , A View, 179–80;Google ScholarButt-Thompson, , West African,194.Google Scholar