"... an exceptionally rich source for all those interested in symbolic, religious or social studies." —Tribus
"... an excellent book... fascinating to read." —Research in African Literatures
"... a volume that establishes the standards by which future works on the masked festivals of the Yoruba and other Sub-Saharan African peoples will be judged." —African Arts
"... the most sophisticated art historical analysis of a single African aesthetic tradition." —Tribal Arts Review

Gelede: Art and Female Power among the Yoruba (Traditional Arts of Africa)

Arts & Photography

Drewal, Henry John

Drewal, Margaret Thompson

History & Criticism

Indiana University Press

"... an exceptionally rich source for all those interested in symbolic, religious or social studies." â€”Tribus
"... an excellent book... fascinating to read." â€”Research in African Literatures
"... a volume that establishes the standards by which future works on the masked festivals of the Yoruba and other Sub-Saharan African peoples will be judged." â€”African Arts
"... the most sophisticated art historical analysis of a single African aesthetic tradition." â€”Tribal Arts Review

Gelede: Art and Female Power Among the Yoruba (Traditional Arts of Africa)

Indiana Univ. Pr

The sights and sounds of the Yoruba cosmos are made manifest through the pervasive use of beads. This spectacular book represents a collaboration between art historian Henry John Drewal and Yoruba priest John Mason. From the forests of Africa a thousand years ago to the bustling cities of New York, Havana, and Salvador, today, Yoruba religion has used beads to convey the artistic spirit and deep connection to the other world that its practitioners feel. This beautifully illustrated volume traces the history of the beads, their use, and Yoruba aesthetics and artistry. .

Beads, Body, and Soul: Art and Light in the Yoruba Universe

Mason, John

Univ of California Museum of

Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria

Dynasty and Divinity presents a major part of the extraordinary corpus of ancient Ife art in terra-cotta, stone, and metal, dating from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries. Artists at Ife, the ancient city-state of the Yoruba people of West Africa (located in present-day southwestern Nigeria), created sculpture that ranks among the most aesthetically striking and technically sophisticated in the world. Dynasty and Divinity reveals the extraordinarily creative range of Ife art through a diversity of objects that includes handsome idealized portrait heads, exquisite miniatures, expressive caricatures of old age, lively animals, and sculptures showing the impressive regalia worn by Ife’s kings and queens. Together, these illuminate one of the world’s greatest art centers and demonstrate the technological sophistication of Ife artists, as well as the rich aesthetic language they developed in order to convey ideas about worldly and divine power.The refined sculptures from Ife demonstrate the dignity and self-assurance associated with the idea of dynasty, as well as the results of misfortunes and violence that could befall human beings -- both fates shaped by divine as well as human interventions. Among the many masterpieces from Ife art in this book are a group of life-size copper portrait heads, carved stone animals, and the spectacular seated male figure found in the town of Tada, Nigeria, shown dressed in an elaborate textile. Essays explore the significance of Ife’s stone, terra-cotta, and metal sculptures in the context of Yoruba history and culture and consider the significance of this portrayal of an ancient African city. Today, the city of Ife is still a spiritual heartland for the 29 million Yoruba people living in Nigeria and countless descendants in the Americas and elsewhere in the world.Dynasty and Divinity accompanies an exhibition co-organized by the Museum for African Art, New York City, and the Fundacion Marcelino Botin, Santander, Spain, in collaboration with the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria. The exhibition will appear at the British Museum, London, as Kingdom of Ife: Sculptures of West Africa.

Schildkrout, Enid

Museum for African Art

This book traces the visual cultures and histories of Mami Wata and other African water divinities. Mami Wata, often portrayed with the head and torso of a woman and the tail of a fish, is at once beautiful, jealous, generous, seductive, and potentially deadly. A water spirit widely known across Africa and the African diaspora, her origins are said to lie "overseas," although she has been thoroughly incorporated into local beliefs and practics. She can bring good fortune in the form of money, and her power increased between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries, the era of growing international trade between Africa and the rest of the world. Her name, which may be translated as "Mother Water" or "Mistress Water," is pidgin English, a language developed to lubricate trade. Africans forcibly carried across the Atlantic as part of that "trade" brought with them their beliefs and practices honoring Mami Wata and other ancestral deities.

Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diasporas

Fowler Museum at UCLA