Calabash mask ·  Nigeria, Yoruba, Ekiti · ID: 3035850

Description

pumpkin, modelled with reduced facial features, entirely covered with with dark red cloth, markings in black pigment, coiffure of cord material, spread with black substance, inserted wooden splinters forming the teeth, chin and knob-shaped projection underneath, sacrificial traces (feathers on the forehead), slightly dam., missing part at the lower rim;
this mask type remains uninvestigated. It is usually known as “egigun”, evidently a garbling of the Oyo term “egungun”. “Egungun” masks served to commemorate the ancestors.

The object Calabash mask with the object ID 3035850 was last part of the auction 75th tribal art auction at November 30, 2013 on Zemanek-Münster Auction house. The object with the lot number 183 achieved a sales price of EUR 800.

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Comparing literature

Reginald Groux, Masques Ekiti - Visages de l'au-delà, Montreuil, 2010 Dagan, Esther A., The African Calabash, New York 1988, p. 172 ff