Egungun
Dance dress and mask that was used at the Egungun, among other ceremonies, 1950s, collection of the Children's Museum of Indianapolis
A Egungun (egungun) is Ahnenkult the Yoruba a medium which as a mask dancers in a ritual occurs in which it from ancestors possessed is. In this magical way the ancestor works on the bereaved family members. There are in particular burial rituals and rituals at graves and shrines . Egungun dancers perform this function for a family or for a collective .
The Egungun mask covers the dancer's whole body. It is said that anyone who touches an Egungun or observes it ingesting food must die so that no one can identify the occult figures as human beings.
Once a year the Yoruba celebrate a big festival in honor of their ancestors.
bibliography
- African Arts, XI, 3, 1978, special issue Egungun .
- Dierk Lange: The Egungun among the Yoruba and in Ugarit (Syria). A contribution from ethnology to ancient oriental studies (PDF; 242 kB), in: K. Geisenhainer and K. Lange (eds.): Movable horizons . Festschrift for Bernhard Streck, Leipzig, Universitätsverlag, 2005, pp. 265–282.
Web links
- Dr. Hans Gerald Hödl, lecture from 2003: African Religions II - Introduction to the religion of the Yorùbá ( Memento from March 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF, 1.9 MB)
Footnotes
- ↑ GEO 1/2020, p. 110, Beatrix Gerstberger: "Guardians from the realm of the dead"
- ↑ Brighton & Hove Museums Egungun Masquerade ( February 22, 2008 memento in the Internet Archive )