Headdress "gelede" · Nigeria, Yoruba · ID: 3048692
Arnold Bamert, Solothurn, Switzerland
Zemanek-Münster, Würzburg, 25 February 2006, Lot 173
Werner Zintl, Worms, Germany
Description
wood, pigments, places of repair
Gelede" masquerade are meant to honour the special spiritual powers of women (specifically elderly women “awon iya wa” and the great mother Yemoja, “iya nla”). The whole community should benefit from their life-giving forces, peace and harmony should be promoted.
“Gelede” festivals take place every year between march and may at the beginning of the new planting season. They have been described as real spectacles. The mask dancers wear headdresses of enormous variety of shapes and colourful costumes to celebrate the different roles of the villagers in society (market traders, blacksmiths, hunters, mothers, priestesses, etc…).
The object Headdress “gelede” with the object ID 3048692 was last part of the auction 98th Auction at March 26, 2022 on Zemanek-Münster Auction house and had the lot number 64.
Here you will find more objects and interesting facts about African art.
Comparing literature
Lawal, Babatunde, The Gèlèdé Spectacle, Seattle, London 1996, p. 196, ill. 7.2
Publications
Bamert, Arnold, Afrika, Stammeskunst in Urwald und Savanne, Olten 1980, S. 136, Abb. 94