Anna Craven has generously shared her knowledge of Afo/Eloyi1 art and history based in her 1969–1970 collecting activities and documentation for the National Museum at Jos, opened by Bernard Fagg in 1952. The style her contribution takes is in the form of an ethnographic report, rather than the typical African Arts article which offers description and commentary on a particular artist or group of artists and their practice. The advantage of the author's approach is that it is “data-heavy” but the disadvantage is that it is, intentionally, “interpretation-light.” Thus these remarks are meant to raise some of the issues which a more interpretive reading would reveal.
ON MIGRATION. We are now fairly certain that, origin legends to the contrary, most Nigerian migrations were usually over very short distances. The hard-core evidence comes from research in two kinds of sources, language and genetic markers (i.e., the prevalence of particular...