An unexpected outcome of the [Re:]Entanglements project was the making of a 70-minute documentary film exploring one community’s re-engagement with Northcote Thomas’s photographs of men with facial scarification marks called ‘ichi’. We initially visited the town of Neni, in Anambra State, Nigeria, in December 2018 to attend the Nka Dioka Cultural Festival. The festival is organised by the Umudioka community of Neni to celebrate their remarkable cultural heritage as the traditional custodians of the art of ichi cutting.
The highly-skilled practice of making ichi scarification marks was the exclusive work of Umudioka. They constituted an itinerant ‘clan’ of surgeon-artists, who travelled throughout Igboland making the marks. The scarification was costly and often performed on boys, commissioned by their fathers. It was an ordeal, surrounded with ritual and song, that marked an important rite of passage and was a necessary step in order for the boys to go on to take various titles as they progressed through life, culminating in the most senior ozo title. Each title involved a transformation in status in the aspiration to live an ‘exemplary life’ and eventually become igbu ndiche – a great ancestor. As the ichi-cutters travelled, they would also settle in different locations, hence there are many Umudioka communities in different towns throughout Igboland, including Umudioka Neni.
Following the Nka Dioka Cultural Festival in 2018, we visited Neni on several occasions and got to know members of the community, including Chief Onyukwu Raphael Udeze (known also by his ozo title name Nze Eyisi Ebulue II) and Chief Odidika Chidolue. Northcote Thomas had photographed Chief Udeze’s grandfather when he visited Neni in 1911, and indeed it was from this grandfather – Eyisi Ebulue – that he acquired his title name. Chief Chidolue – now sadly late – was the last man in Neni to bear ichi marks. They and other members of the Umudioka community in Neni were especially interested in seeing the many photographs that Thomas made of men with ichi marks, and from this interest arose the idea of a collaboration with the [Re:]Entanglements project.
After considering various ideas, it was agreed that the collaboration would take the form of making a film together to tell the story of ichi and the Umudioka community. A significant motivation was the importance of recording the stories of the last few elderly men who had experienced the ordeal of having the scarification marks cut when they were children in the 1930s, when the practice died out due to missionary pressure. As well as Chief Chidolue in Neni, we were able to trace six other men in neighbouring towns who bore the marks. Alas, since January 2020, when we filmed interviews with them, most, if not all, have passed on to become ancestors.
The film was part-funded by a charitable educational organisation, the Eyisi Ebulue Foundation, run by Chief Udeze and his family, together with the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. Udeze’s son, Chiedozie Udeze, acted as Executive Producer, while many members of community assisted in different ways, particularly with logistical matters as well as appearing in front of the camera. As with other films and video installations made as part of the [Re:]Entanglements project, such as Faces|Voices and Unspoken Stories, the film was made in partnership with The Light Surgeons and co-directed and co-edited by Paul Basu and Christopher Thomas Allen, in close association with community participants in Neni.