Egungun Masquerade Costume

Date

mid-20th century

Creator

Yoruba people of southwest Nigeria and Benin have been organizing Egungun masquerade festivals since at least the fifteenth century. Egungun, meaning "power concealed," allowed the living to pay homage to and interact with their ancestors. The costume covered the entire body of the masker to erase the human form. The masker was believed to be controlled by the ancestral spirit embodied by the mask during the performance. Accompanied by a moving entourage of drummers, singers, poets, and other masked participants, the masked Egungun figures would dance and spin, creating whirring sounds with their cloth strips. Bystanders who felt the breeze from the moving cloth received a great ancestral blessing.