Mkpara Tee · Plate XXXIV · Clan of the Carvers · Pre-Order (Ships ASAP)

Mkpara is one of the eight Efut clans, of the carving craft. The plate shows the carver's blade and the worked wood.

Navy shirt carries ivory and sea-blue ink; white shirt carries navy. Full-front print.

History

Mkpara held the carver's bench of the Efut nation — the craft that turned forest timber into the working and sacred wealth of the estuary: canoes and paddles, stools and house-posts, drums and the masks of ceremony. Among the Efut and their Ejagham neighbours the carver stood close to the spirit world, since the same blade shaped both the fisherman's hull and the masquerade's face. One of the eight clans under the Muri Munene, Mkpara's inheritance is the worked surface itself: wood that remembers the hand.