Three-Headed Male Figure with Six Arms | Yale University Art Gallery

mid-20th century

By the early twentieth century, people from the British colony of India had settled on the Nigerian coast and were engaging in local businesses. They imported books, chromolithographs, pamphlets, and films with Indian Hindu imagery. The colorful and varied pantheon of Hindu gods and goddesses fascinated worshippers of Mami Wata–a water spirit known throughout Africa and African diaspora–and inspired local artists, who incorporated the imagery into their visual vocabulary. This three-headed figure is modeled after the Hindu deity Dattatreya, who became associated with the Papi Wata spirit called Densu, the husband or consort of Mami Wata.

Medium: Wood and pigment
Dimensions: 14 11/16 × 13 3/4 × 6 1/2 in. (37.25 × 35 × 16.5 cm)
Credit Line: Charles B. Benenson, B.A. 1933, Collection
Accession Number: 2006.51.443
Geography: Guinea Coast, Nigeria
Culture: Ibibio, Hindu
Period: 20th century
Classification: Sculpture
Disclaimer: Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance

Charles B. Benenson Collection, Greenwich, Conn; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.

Bibliography

Frederick John Lamp, Amanda Maples, and Laura M. Smalligan, Accumulating Histories: African Art from the Charles B. Benenson Collection at the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2012), 262, ill

Henry John Drewal, "Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diaspora," African Arts 41 (2008), 58, fig. 42

"Acquisitions, July 1, 2005–June 30, 2006," in "Photography at Yale," special issue, Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (2006), 222

Object copyright

Additional information

Object/Work type

figures (representations)

Subject

men

Technical metadata and APIs

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