Recollections of Time Past: The Use of Art Objects As Mnemonics in Benin Oral Traditions

By K. A. Agbontaen-Eghafona and Edoja Okpokunu

Introduction

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of deeds , the book of their words and the book of their art – {John Ruskin 1995:37).

In most parts of Africa, oral tradition has been a major method of passing down from generation to generation various forms of information on their histories, customs and traditions, values and norms, even methods of processing some technological innovations (Andah and Okpoko 1979). Oral tradition has served as one of the important methods of reviewing and reconstructing the past. It has been rightly described as the bedrock of all historical traditions in Africa (Alagoa 1985). In very early societies in parts of the world that knew no forms of writing, it actually served as an integral part of the process of transmitting information. Most importantly, many historical sources, including the most ancient ones were based on this single source (Vansina 1965:11).

Oral tradition can be defined in various ways, but due to the extremely varied forms of oral traditions, Ryder (1970:32) claimed that it is difficult to offer a satisfactory definition embracing them all. However, Vansina (1960:4) defines it as “testimonies, which are deliberately transmitted from mouth to mouth, and are concerned about past events”. Its necessary characteristics are “the oral nature and transmission from the original eyewitness through a series of witnesses by hearsay to the present day witness” (Vansina 1960:4). Therefore, much of the recalling of traditions over time comes from the memory of those we can call historical witnesses. However, a major factor, which affects human memory, is time. Time seems to work against human memory (Brown 1977:79).

To counter the effects of time on memory, it is believed that men had always employed various objects as mnemonics, which are devices or techniques used to help organize memories (Kiebel 1990:91). Kiebel further defines mnemonics as “specific devices used by people to help them store and retrieve events adequately.”

 It is believed that the earliest use of mnemonics was by the Greeks, when Simonides (cir. 500 B.C) a Greek poet, utilized it to fully recall an event (Brown 1977:80). However, there is cause to believe that devices such as mnemonics might be inborn characteristics of man. Even as early as the period of hunter-gatherer and cave-dwelling man, rocks and boulders might have been used for remembering directions (Kiebel 1990:91). As time went by, information is believed to have been stored by marks on clay or wax tablets prior to written texts on various forms of paper. Counted also as mnemonics are tape recorders, videotapes and discs, and microchips with computers, all of which indicate man’s need to store and remember information (Kiebel 1990:91).

Visual memory is easier to remember than abstract concepts as the former produces a fairly clear image of the information to be conveyed (Brown 1977:43). Information can, therefore, be derived from art objects as we often see in paintings and pictures. A deliberate use of art objects as mnemonics has been found among the people of the erstwhile kingdom of Benin particularly during pre-colonial times. As Egharevba (1946) tells us,

In ancient days, when the knowledge of books and literature were unknown in Africa, brass casting or pictorial writing were the only methods for the preservation of the recovering of events in Benin, as a result of her civilization on the bank of the Niger.

This fact was further reiterated by the Oba of Benin (1982: 5):

What we refer to as works of art were not intended to be works of art in the modern sense… they were made specifically for recording important events in the absence of present day writing or photography.

In this respect, we may see Benin art objects as containing historical information to aid recollection of the past. This paper, therefore, examines Benin art objects in this perspective, exposing the apparent neglect of the objects intended to be mnemonics by the original maker or user. Furthermore, it advocates the need to use these objects in their present form to simulate past events.

The Use of Art Objects as Mnemonics in Benin History

Benin traditions are popularly transmitted in the form of commemorative festivals, stories, plays, songs, poems, riddles, proverbs and other forms of oral literature. Anthropologists, historians and various researchers working in the area of Benin studies have documented much of these. Art objects which can be passed for mnemonics (in recalling traditions) include clay figurines and mud sculptures, architectural edifices, objects of iron, wood, ivory, tusks with carved designs, bronze objects including wall plaques and various forms of objects made out of the above listed materials. Also included are woven or leather items with special designs.

The earliest use of art objects as mnemonics can be traced back to the time when the Benin people commenced a settled mode of life. They are believed to have lived in small communities with their family heads as leaders of each small unit assisted by other elders (Omoregie pers. Comm. 1992). It is further believed that this period preceded the advent of a monarchical political culture in Benin as from A.D. 900 (Onwuejeogwu 1980:23). Each family in the communities kept and maintained a place of worship, more or less in the form of a raised platform, an altar or a shrine. These places of worship were speculated to have housed mud or wooden sculptures or figurines representing ancestors, and pieces of carved items such as spears associated with particular ancestors and which, for that very reason, were placed next to the figurines, to help recall what the personality was known for in life (Omoregie 1992). The head of the family was usually in charge of the altars. As part of the tradition, family members had to study the items on the altars and become conversant with the objects and what or whom the objects represented in the family. In that way traditions and stories concerning ancestors were preserved and passed on by means of the various items placed in the altars.

From the family structure to the larger village set - up, the headman and the council of elders in the village were in charge of communal shrines and were responsible for presiding over the worship of their common ancestors, which were similar to the family worship.

The system of using art objects on family altars believed to have been established by the early settlers in Benin was carried on into the establishment of the 1^st dynasty known as the Ogiso era, c. A.D. 900. To facilitate the worship of past ancestors as well as rulers, a royal council of hereditary titled men called Ughoron was formed during this period. Ughoron means “keepers of the keys to the heavenly gates” or “worshippers of the ancestors”. This group of elders was solely responsible for the maintenance of objects belonging to ancestors in the royal altars, and is believed to have passed on the oral history of the Benin from generation to generation, with the aid of the mud figurines and other objects. It is also believed that in order to differentiate individual rulers from others, their sculptures were executed in special ways with specific identifying marks, which the Ughoron chiefs could identify in their narrations. Members of the Ughoron were regarded as the closest group to the Oba; they were also regarded as seers because they could link the past (rulers) with the present in their historical narratives.

During the reign of the third monarch in the Ogiso era, it is believed that the guild system was set up to facilitate the production of art works. Artists and craftsmen in the kingdom were drafted under a compulsory scheme of the guild system to produce objects representing events and human efforts (Agbontaen 1990:5). These objects were then preserved in the royal altars. Even in contemporary times families still maintain ancestral altars, but the duty and responsibility of preserving artifacts related to the achievements as well as items of commemorative significance associated with the deeds and lives of past rulers were left in the royal altars under the care of the Ughoron (Omoruyi pers.comm 1992, 1994).

With the founding of the present ruling dynasty, c. A.D. 1200, a royal society known as Ihogbe headed by Chiefs Ihama and Isekhure replaced the Ughoron. They took over the responsibility of maintaining the royal altars and handing down of traditions to the next generation. The Ihogbe chiefs thus preserved the royal altars, Ugha erha’Oba, that incorporate the bulk of the royal history.

From the preceding discussion, it may be argued that many works of art belonging to the Benin past were not deliberately created with the aim of merely pleasing the human senses as several generations of scholars have tended to make us believe. Rather, as Andah (1988:222) reminded us, “through the ages, African art was hardly ever solely aesthetic in conception and purpose – but rather variously combined ritual, magico-religious, commemorative and utilitarian functions”. This is undoubtedly the case with what has come to be conventionally known as Benin art, a European concept smuggled into our contemporary cultural life through our Western education and the many obsessions it created in our consciousness. What the ethnography of Benin reveals is that many of the so-called art objects were not art at all but manufactured with the express purpose of fulfilling specific commemorative functions in a deliberate effort to preserve the past.

One important factor, which aided the proliferation of art works for posterity, was the guild system in pre-colonial Benin. Under this system, various professionals and craftsmen were organized under strict royal patronage to produce their works on a regular basis. With the establishment of the guilds that were in charge of specific arts and crafts the work of the professionals and craftsmen was regulated and designed at most times to meet the needs of the Oba and the people. The Oba required the services of the guild of craftsmen to produce objects of worship of various kinds. These included objects to preserve the memory of the past Obas. Of utmost importance also was the work of those designated as ‘recorders of events’ in pre-colonial Benin. As Egharevba accurately testifies (1946:6) the custodians of the lore of the land needed to create mnemonic devises to help them recollect the past. This accounts for the numerous pieces of art works found in Benin during the British expedition of 1897. For instance, when a king died, his successor commissioned a bust to be cast in bronze for the purpose of decorating an altar erected by him (the successor Oba) in memory of his predecessor, (Dark, 1973:4) There is little doubt, therefore, that Benin art was produced for the more overriding purpose of recording historical events, a serious enough political engagement that necessitated that artists and craftsmen be employed to record local events in the kingdom. It was not surprising, therefore, that when the Europeans first visited Benin, their appearances, dresses, weapons, utensils and details about their persons were faithfully and widely recorded on wood, ivory and brass work. It was partly as a result of this practice that brass works and carvings both in wood and ivory depicting Portuguese soldiers and their arms have been preserved for us in the museums in Benin and elsewhere in Nigeria as well as outside the country. Ben-Amos (1980:28) has also observed the existence of over 900 known plaques, which provided a testimony to court life at the time of Oba Esigie, though the plaques themselves were considered to be “a sort of pictorial record of events in Benin history, an aid to memorizing oral traditions”.

Table I:   Media of Art and End Products

Conclusion

Knowing the past is a basic need of all mankind. Apart from the psychological fulfillment it can give, the past lives in the present and defines the present, and we are either its beneficiaries or its victims. Moreover, it is part and parcel a people’s cultural patrimony. At different stages of development and in different cultures, man’s concern with his historical antecedents has constantly created in him a certain restlessness of the intellect that led to a variety of devices for recording or probing into the past. Thus, history was already part of the human story long before the advent of writing. A conceit of Western scholarship, however, once defined history restrictively in terms of written narratives. This certainly is untenable, for just as in Western societies slides, photographs, museum objects, films and so on provide alternative ways of maintaining contact with the past, so in oral civilizations are there several ways of recording history. Besides the use of commemorative festivals, different forms of oral literature such as folktales, poems, plays, songs, riddles and proverbs, mnemonics constitutes perhaps the most precise method in what  may be called the ethno-historiography of many peoples and cultures of the world. African communities who have always sought to keep their collective memories alive without the benefit of a writing tradition have worked the mnemonic technique to a high level of sophistication. One good example is the profession of the griot in the Sahelian sub-region of Africa. The similar example among the Benin consists in a most ingenious marriage of mnemonics and the arts and crafts industry to produce a complex of incredibly accurate markers of time and events in that kingdom. We do not argue that this way of keeping and remembering the past is necessarily perfect or the best. But that is only because no one human way of doing things is ever perfect. Not even written history. 

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