Bwari Images

Abstract Funerary pottery serving as grave markers or items entombed with the deceased constitutes a common archaeological and ethnographic phenomenon across African societies. Among the indigenous Gbágyì communities of Bwari in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Nigeria, these specialized clay vessels long featured in the funerary rituals of Muslim families—seamlessly blending indigenous cosmic traditions with Islamic eschatology, until 2024 when Bwari families last demanded such pots from their suppliers, the Ushafa potters. The use of these special pots is now replaced with concrete slabs. This shift in the funeral culture of the people opens up critical inquiries into localized cultural homogenization under the weight of rapid urbanization. Adopting an interpretive phenomenological anthropology framework underpinned by historicized ethnographic grounding, this study utilizes a mixed-method approach comprising an extensive literature review, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews with primary stakeholders consisting of six respondents made up of community elders and potters. The paper examines the production processes, formal attributes, and functional mechanics of Bwari funerary split-pots. It further analyzes how these minimalist clay wares serve as symbolic anchors of spiritual equality and social cohesion, while interrogating the socio-economic drivers—namely, aggressive urbanization, neoliberal transformations, and Islamic standardization through Izala Salafism—catalyzing their decline. The findings demonstrate how global forces tend to flatten hyper-local rituals, diminishing traditional pottery while revealing its responsiveness and adaptive capacity to cultural change.