An Igbo figurine adorned with Uli art.
An Igbo figurine adorned with Uli art.
But there is something deeply painful about this figure. It now lies quietly in a museum, far from the people, place, and stories that gave it meaning. It is traced to the Igbo, yet no one actually knows its name. We do not know who carved it, who worshipped it, what its symbols meant, or the stories that once lived within it.
And what is most painful is that this sacred figure has been displaced, separated from its spiritual home, and even placed up for sale.
Since I began studying Uli art, I am yet to come across a detailed narrative documenting Uli inscriptions on deities, except for what remains on the walls of shrines. Think about that – the symbols survived, but so many of the stories did not.
There is so much we still do not know.
Hopefully, one day, we will recover what was lost to look beyond the object itself and search for the name, meanings, stories, and voices that belong to it.
But the question is: how?
How do we retrieve the stories of sacred objects that have been displaced and put up for sale, so that we can recover their meanings, restore their histories, and reconnect them to the people and culture they came from?
