Headdress (Ago Egungun)

YorubaWW-1850-584614

1850·Wood and pigment·33.1 × 23.2 × 23.5 cm (13 × 9 1/8 × 9 1/4 in.)

Egungun, a widespread Yoruba masquerade, is staged to honor the ancestors and the newly deceased, who continue to influence the lives of their kin. Organized at funerals, on family occasions, and during annual or biennial festivals, the different types of egungun are each associated with a distinctive cloth costume, some of which include a wooden mask or headdress. The tufted hairstyle of this example mimics the flap of a hunter’s cap that hides protective medicines.

Catalogue

Year: 1850
Medium: Wood and pigment
Dimensions: 33.1 × 23.2 × 23.5 cm (13 × 9 1/8 × 9 1/4 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Yoruba

Artist

Yoruba

Textile

Yoruba is an Atlantic–Congo language that is spoken in West Africa, primarily in South West Nigeria, Benin, and parts of Togo. It is spoken by the Yoruba people. Yoruba speakers number roughly 50 million, including around 2 million second-language or L2 speakers. As a pluricentric language, it is primarily spoken in a dialectal area spanning Nigeria, Benin, and Togo with smaller migrated communities in Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone and Gambia.

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