Egungun Festival

The tradition & historical record

Egungun (Yoruba language: Egúngún, also known as Ará Ọ̀run; "the collective dead") in the broadest sense is any Yoruba masquerade or masked, costumed figure. More specifically, it is a Yoruba masquerade for ancestor reverence, or the ancestors themselves as a collective force. Eégún is the reduced form (abbreviation through syllable elision) of the word egúngún and has the same meaning. Egungun is a visible manifestation of the spirits of departed ancestors who periodically revisit the human community for remembrance, celebration, and blessings. ¹

The classification of Egun or Egungun types, might appear to be a fairly straightforward task, but in fact it is extremely complex deciphering the comprehension of indigenous taxonomies. The difficulties include: the problem of distinguishing between personal Egun names and generic terms for types; the problem of determining "sets" where one masquerade may be regarded as several type of categories simultaneously; the practice of "layering," in which a masquerade wears one costume type over another and changes these during performance; and the variety of criteria used to classify Egungun as well as the range of variations within type of categories. Such factors demonstrate the complexity of the analysis of indigenous taxonomies and the classification of masquerade types. These same difficulties arise in the definition and use of the term Egungun itself. However, based on cultural affinities in the southwestern Nigerian portion of Yorubaland, the following egungun names can be identified: Danafojura and Awodagbese in Ogbomoso, Alapansanpa in Ibadan, and Feleru in Ilobu, Osun State. ¹

In the Yoruba religion, the annual ceremonies in honor of the dead serve as a means of assuring their ancestors a place among the living. They believe the ancestors have the responsibility to compel the living to uphold the ethical standards of the past generations of their clan, town or family. The Egungun are celebrated in festivals, known as Odun Egungun, and in family ritual through the masquerade custom.