Gelede is a popular community festival of masquerade, dance, and song, held several times a year by the Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria and the Republic of Benin, echoes of which can also be seen in Mardi Gras and Carnival. Lawal bases his book on more than two decades of field research as well as on both published and unpublished scholarly sources. He casts significant new light on many previously obscure aspects of Gelede, and he demonstrates a useful methodological approach to the study of non-Western art.
The Gelede Spectacle is illustrated with field and museum photographs, including a rare sequence on the dressing of a masquerader. It offers, in addition, more than 60 Gelede song texts, proverbs, and divination verses, each in the original Yoruba as well as in translation.

The Gelede Spectacle: Art, Gender, and Social Harmony in African Culture

Arts & Photography

Lawal, Babatunde

History & Criticism

Univ of Washington Pr

This remarkable study explores the use of the visual and performing arts to promote nonviolence and social harmony in sub-Saharan Africa. It focuses on Gelede, a popular community festival of masquerade, dance, and song, held several times a year by the Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria and the Republic of Benin. Babatunde Lawal, an art historian and African scholar who has taught in Nigeria, Brazil, and the United States, is himself a Yoruba and has taken an active part in Gelede. He writes from the perspective of an informed participant/observer of his own culture. Lawal bases his book on extensive field research―observations and interviews―conducted over more than two decades as well as on numerous published and unpublished scholarly sources. He casts significant new light on many previously obscure aspects of Gelede, and he demonstrates a useful methodological approach to the study of non-Western art. The book systematically covers the major aspects of the Gelede spectacle, presenting its cultural background and historical origins as preface to a vivid and detailed description of an actual performance. This is followed by a discussion of the iconography and aesthetics of costume, and an examination of the sculpted images on the masks. The book concludes with a discussion of the moral and aesthetic philosophy of Gelede and its responsiveness to technological and social change. The Gelede Spectacle is illustrated in color and black-and-white with over 100 field and museum photographs, including a rare sequence on the dressing of a masquerader. It offers, in addition, more than 60 Gelede song texts, proverbs, and divination verses, each in the original Yoruba as well as in translation. Lawal’s interpretations of these pieces indicate the rich complexities of metaphor and analogy inherent in the Yoruba language and art.

The Gelede Spectacle: Art, Gender, and Social Harmony in an African Culture

University of Washington Press

•An in-depth exploration of the significance of art in Yoruba culture, focusing on form, function and meaning, as well as the interplay of verbal and visual imagery Numbering more than 25 million people living in Nigeria and parts of adjacent Benin and Togo, the Yoruba are sub-divided into different kingdoms. Study of the archaeological evidence and historical sources indicates that by the beginning of the second millennium, many Yoruba kingdoms had become major urban centers with highly developed economic, cultural, political and religious institutions. The exceptional quality of Yoruba art from ancient times to the present - with forms ranging from the naturalistic to the schematic - is an expression of the complexity of Yoruba culture, history and religion. Significant regional variations within the culture are reflected in the regional and individual characteristics of the Yoruba style. Art features prominently in Yoruba culture. It is used not only to enrich life and project taste and status, but also to signify, venerate and influence deities who administer the cosmos on behalf of the Supreme Being. Based on field observations, contextual analyses and a variety of oral sources and published materials, this volume offers rare insights into the poetics and dynamics of art, its ontological significance, and the Yoruba belief that the 'beautiful' or the 'well-made' generates a special power that commands attention.

Yoruba: Visions of Africa Series

Petridis, Constantine

5Continents

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