Agbegijo

Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has collected Nigerian antiquities for over six decades. This sculpture is part of the collection, and here he explains it's provenance:

"We just know that it is an Egungun mask. It could have come from any part of the Yoruba area. Everybody knows about the masquerade—the Egungun.

The side of the Egungun which is stressed very often is the solemn side. They are supposed to be representations of the ancestral world; but many people don’t know about the playful side of Egungun called the agbégijó, for instance, or the tombolo, which is a children’s masquerade, and in which all kinds of grotesqueries are depicted.

This is one of my favourites for one simple reason: it’s rude. I think it’s making a rude commentary. And so any time I feel disgusted with the country, I look at it and I do that to Nigeria. That’s my mask for the negative, annoying side of society.

This is the satirical aspect of the Egungun masks. And this one of the reasons I like it."