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This is a photo-journalist series of when I visited the city of Ibaadan, in Oyo State Nigeria.
I witnessed my first Egungun masquarade.
This masquerade brought the nostalgia of the Caribbean parades and New Orleans Mardi Gras. The connection to West African culture is heavily omnipresent in Black Culture, which leads us to the depts of the connection to our ancestors.
In Yoruba, “Egungun” means “masquerade.” Egungun is an annual masquerade festival that publicly honours ancestral spirits. These rich and colourful festivals involve a series of elaborate masked dances and are celebrated throughout Yoruba culture during the dry season — December through March. The Egungun festival varies from town to town depending on the ancestral history of the place. For example, if a town has a strong military history, the Egungun honoured may be warrior spirits. The dancing and drumming might be very aggressive and chaotic, reflecting the war-like nature of the local ancestors. Each Egungun costume covers the entire body of the masquerader because the ancestral spirit, which is believed to be concealed inside the cloth, is too sacred to be touched. Cloth is important in all Yoruba rituals. During Egungun, people “sacrifice” cloth to ancestors by placing them on shrines as a gift.
Egungun Festival - honouring our ancestors
This is a photo-journalist series of when I visited the city of Ibaadan, in Oyo State Nigeria.
I witnessed my first Egungun masquarade.
This masquerade brought the nostalgia of the Caribbean parades and New Orleans Mardi Gras. The connection to West African culture is heavily omnipresent in Black Culture, which leads us to the depts of the connection to our ancestors.
In Yoruba, “Egungun” means “masquerade.” Egungun is an annual masquerade festival that publicly honours ancestral spirits. These rich and colourful festivals involve a series of elaborate masked dances and are celebrated throughout Yoruba culture during the dry season — December through March. The Egungun festival varies from town to town depending on the ancestral history of the place. For example, if a town has a strong military history, the Egungun honoured may be warrior spirits. The dancing and drumming might be very aggressive and chaotic, reflecting the war-like nature of the local ancestors. Each Egungun costume covers the entire body of the masquerader because the ancestral spirit, which is believed to be concealed inside the cloth, is too sacred to be touched. Cloth is important in all Yoruba rituals. During Egungun, people “sacrifice” cloth to ancestors by placing them on shrines as a gift.