Patient with tribal marks, Nigeria, 1934

Black and white photograph featuring a young Nigerian woman, a patient at the general hospital at Ituk Mbam in east Nigeria run by the Methodist Missionary Society. The woman is pictured near the gate to the hospital, and wears a patterned dress and a head-scarf. She shows raised marks on her arms that symbolise her tribal background. This scarification was common in Nigeria, involving cuts to the skin, the healing of which is controlled to form patterns that make meaning to symbolise cultural identity, bravery or to symbolise life stages. This photograph was pasted into one of a series of exercise book albums created by Emily Godfrey, Matron of the Ama Achara Methodist Hospital, also run by the Methodist Missionary Society.