Yoruba Peoples, Ketu Region, Republic of Benin

Yoruba peoples apply human characteristics to all aspects of existence through metaphors of the face, for the face has the power to embody mysteries. A finely delineated female head surmounted by a scene of a blacksmith’s workshop is the subject of this powerful mask, once used in performances by members of the Yoruba Gèlèdé Society. The Gèlèdé spectacle is a public display of colorful masks danced by men to propitiate elderly, ancestral, or deified women, called “our mothers”, who are thought to possess heightened spiritual knowledge.

All Gèlèdé masks consist of a regal human face, “the face of equanimity,” surmounted by a tray that serves as a stage for projecting ideals of the Gèlèdé society. In this case, the scene within the house depicts a blacksmith at work with his assistants. Metalworking is a highly charged metaphor for concepts of birth and generation, with blacksmiths’ skill at changing raw metal into useful weapons and tools symbolically related to the act of creation itself.

 

Wood, paint, early to mid-20th century
Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1970.52