Collecting African Tribal Art : Papers on Egungun

The following are several interesting papers on Egungun.

The first paper [Wolff] shows the variation in the crests, ranging from a tableau setting (with several figures), to other typical representations related to the hunter lineage (a stylized male head with a distinctive hairstyle where the plaits terminate in a bun to the left side of the head to mimic the larger than ordinary caps typically worn by hunters) or the Egungun erin (typified by the ere, or wooden crest mask, in the shape of a head with a human face and huge upstanding ears that allow it to tower high above the heads of the crowd).

Egungun Costuming in Abeokuta

Wolff, Norma H.

Excerpt:

“Egungun masqueraders do not appear only in the context of funerals. Dressed in enveloping costumes of cloth, members of the Egungun society represent the corporate spirit of the Yoruba dead and appear in a number of ritual and public contexts throughout the year. They appear individually at times of family and community rejoicing or crisis and as a group at annual festivals held in honor of community ancestors. Despite modernizing influences and religious change, Egungun masqueraders, as physical manifestations of “Yoruba power,” continue to appear in the teeming streets of modern Lagos, in the large indigenous centers of Ibadan, Oshogbo, Ono, Florin, Ife, Owo, and Abeokuta, as well as in the villages and small rural hamlets throughout Yorubaland.

Front View of typical ‘Erin’ head crest

Rear view of ‘Erin’ head crest with Chameleon.

In any particular locality, Egungun masqueraders come in many forms or generic types, which are emically labeled. Generic type differences are displayed in the formal attributes of carved crest mask (if present), the cut of the costume, the kind, color, and condition of the cloth used, iconographic details in additive elements such as embroidery and appliqué and in the accessories attached to or carried by the masquerader and his attendants.

An analytical inquiry into the origin of the Ogbomoso Lomolehin masquerade and its essence.

ADEYEMO, PETER ADEWOLE, PH.D. AND OBADOFIN, SAMUEL BAMIDELE

Introduction:

In the Yoruba’s philosophy about death, it is believed that when a person dies, such becomes a divinity to be worshipped on bent knees. This idea then becomes a significant premise on which the Yoruba’s belief in ancestral worship is anchored. Beier in Adegbola (1998), further affirms the Yoruba’s belief in ‘spiritism.’ Hence, the worship of the ancestors is based on a firm belief that the ‘spirit’ of a human being never dies but continues to influence the life of the community from another sphere, after it has left the physical body. One of the unique ways through which the ancestors are believed to communicate with the living, therefore, is their manifestation on earth in the form of costumed figures, known as Egungun (masquerades) in the Yoruba language.

Colours of an African Performative Ritual

Adeyemi, Sola

Introduction:

The Yoruba people of South-West Nigeria believe in re-incarnation. In fact, the whole concept of transcendental existence is primal to Yoruba life. Human beings live and die repeatedly until they have attained a certain level of spiritual growth; they then graduate to either becoming a god or an ancestor, depending on their achievements while in the world. The ancestors, with the gods, function to aid people at transition points in life and after life, particularly in crossing the gulf which separates the living from the ancestors, the space Wole Soyinka calls the fourth stage (Soyinka 1976). These ancestors are however not worshipped like gods and other deities but revered and venerated. The most popular instance of this veneration is in the Egungun1 cult.