Esie: If the stones could speak

At about the year 1775, 1,700 soapstone images were discovered at Esie in  what later became  Kwara state. These images were quite striking when they were first discovered just  beneath a large tree. They still are. According to Stephen E.Ibecheozor, the Curator of Esie Museum, ‘the soapstone images were discovered in the year 1775 by […]

At about the year 1775, 1,700 soapstone images were discovered at Esie in  what later became  Kwara state. These images were quite striking when they were first discovered just  beneath a large tree. They still are. According to Stephen E.Ibecheozor, the Curator of Esie Museum, ‘the soapstone images were discovered in the year 1775 by Baragbon, a hunter. While    in the forest, he accidentally stumbled upon the soapstone images arranged in a semi circular form beneath a large tree, with a chief at the centre, surrounded by palace guards and other domestic servants.’ Much later, these images were gathered and became the principal exhibition at the Esie museum, which was Nigeria’s first opened in 1945.This has since become the largest collection of soapstone carvings   in black Africa. But there is a bit of a mystery here. The mystery   lies in the fact that the material used to mould the soapstone images cannot be found in the Esie area, rather it is to be    found much further off.  A number of questions immediately arise: Who moulded  the images and how where they transported to the location were they were found, if  the basic  material for moulding   cannot be found around Esie? Were they moulded by craftsmen ‘the unknown carver’  as some  critics hold, or are the  images  human beings who were turned to stone, as  the Ifa  oracle once authoritatively declared? The Ifa oracle is silent on  the reasons why the people were turned to stones, who or what turned them to stone, and the year  when this  great  metamorphosis  happened.Or maybe Ifa  does not concern itself with   details such as dates and reasons for this or that. It is silent on what could be done to animate the stones, so that those who once  strode  among the living could  breath  again.  For what purpose were the images carved? The Curator comments again ‘The Ifa Oracle declared that the images were human beings who had been turned to stones. Out of fear, the people of Esie  began to worship and adore the stones. Thus success in agriculture, fertility, business and war were attributed to the worship of the stones’. Another related question now occurs: If human beings had capacity to turn others into stone, what has happened to that capacity or ability? Why can’t people turn fellow human beings into stones today? Philip Stevens, writing in The Stone Images of Esie comments on the mystery thus: ‘The puzzle of the origins of the Esie stone images represents what could surely be classified among Africa’s great mysteries.That they were produced elsewhere, carried and deposited at their present site, there can be no doubt. But  who made them? Where, why and when? Why were they brought to Esie and by whom and what happened to the people who brought them? Most of these and the innumerable other questions that the Esie collection generates, may never be satisfactorily answered’. Another very reliable source adds that the stone images may be recollections of refugees from Oyo who arrived in droves during the great upheavals experienced within old Oyo. This tradition states that these Oyo refugees were  led to the Esie area by Baragbon, a famous hunter. During this movement, it is held that the group first settled at Oko-Odo.

Archaeologists have also examined the Esie stones and made their conclusions known to the world. According to the Curator, ‘the interpretation provided by archaeologists holds that the images were carved by the unknown carver. They have also classified the images into four broad groups which are political, agricultural, religious and social. In explaining the agricultural group, the Curator says that some of the images show persons holding agricultural implements, kolanuts, knives and hoes which are all clear signs of an agricultural interest. The political grouping is seen in the fact that there is a king at the very centre of the group of images with palace chiefs all around him, some wearing anklets. Some of the images are depicted in a kneeling position, as though communing with the gods. This helps to confirm the religious classification of the images. The Curator shows that a few of the images are holding what looks like guitars, they have remarkable hair styles and scarifications. These show that the carver(s) of these remarkable images were socially inclined and aimed at chronicling, through art, the  day to day life and activities of people in the area  who lived in the distant past.

Some light has however been shed on the Esie images by writers such as K.C. Murray who holds ‘that the area of the old Oyo kingdom  holds the greatest promise  for a resolution of the mystery of the images’.Another  interesting point about the Esie images is the fact that they have what a few critics have called a ‘ northern element’. Philip  Stevens writes on this.  ‘Although many of the figures show distinctly ‘negroid’ features, most striking have been the ‘northern ‘elements. Caps  on many  have been likened  to the fez; facial  scarification, particularly the three parallel marks behind the eye,have been attributed to Nupe  or other origins; decoration  and style  of weaponry, objects held,and  items of dress, suggest northern influences. Some of the physical features are long and gracile…; Clarke was struck by  ‘the northern type of face with swelling forehead, straight nose and pointed beard’. Again  another school of thought has encouraged some to seek the origins of the Esie stones outside Nigeria. This  is on account of the ‘militaristic element’ embodied  in the famous  soapstone images. For instance ,there is an abundance of female warriors among the soapstone images.  Philip Stevens writes, ‘the origin of the Esie images  might lie not only outsideYorubaland,but beyond the modern political boundaries of Nigeria:can the women with swords be related to the Amazons of Dahomey?’He goes further to ask, ‘Could these women have been the models for the armed females of Esie? Or,  further, could the Esie collection be of Dahomean origin? Several scholars, most recently Akinjogbin…have reconstructed the long history of a close, albeit not always friendly relationship between Dahomey and the Yoruba kingdom of Oyo. Oyo invaded Dahomey a number of times in the early 18th century and perhaps earlier’.

The soapstone images are three times less than the normal human size and most are in the sitting position.A careful look at the lot of them shows that most of the ethnic groups in modern Nigeria are reflected in the images.This  indicates  that there is something quite nationalistic or unifying about this simple collection, found by a hunter over two centuries ago and still raising vital  questions today. A new large gallery has been built within the museum grounds at Esie. It will soon house the famous collection of soapstones as the principal exhibit of the museum. According to the Curator of the Esie museum, the process of dating the collection is  currently ongoing at a German university. He also speaks of another activity connected with the images. This is the fact that most of the images  are broken, with a hand or a foot having fallen  off with the passage of time. So there is an effort to match the various parts with each image.This is a continuous painstaking  process,he says. Uniting a hand,  foot, or  head with the original body as moulded by the carver ,  may shed some light on the misty   background to  these remarkable and continuously  intriguing images.