LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.- The exhibition Ways of the Rivers: Artifacts and Environment of the Niger Delta is currently on view at the UCLA Fowler Museum, through November 17. Countless rivers and tributaries snake across the Niger Delta’s swampy terrain, making travel within its 20,000 square miles of West African rain forest difficult. In 1906, a century after the British had outlawed the slave trade in what is now Nigeria and replaced it with the more lucrative business of palm oil exportation, Maj. A.G. Leonard wrote: "The country may be described as one in which Nature is at her worst. From the slime and ooze of the soil up to the devitalizing heat and humidity of the atmosphere, it leaves its mark on the people in an enervating and demoralizing influence."
An enthralling exhibition at UCLA’s Fowler Museum of Cultural History demonstrates that Leonard was half-right: Geography and climate have profoundly affected the people of the Niger Delta, but they hardly have sapped their vitality or dampened their creativity. Bringing together more than 125 statues, masks, headdresses, puppets and paddles, this show nearly goes overboard to make the opposite point: This rugged region is home to a thriving variety of cultures, each of which has produced a panoply of fascinating objects. Most of these objects were taken from river spirit shrines. But experts do not know their ultimate origins or exactly how old they are.