Egungun masquerade, Ede, Nigeria

"Throughout the Oyo Yoruba area annual or biennal festivals for the ancestors, called Odun Egungun, are held in every community. They consist of a series of rituals performed over several weeks within the compounds of the lineages that compose a town, as well as public rites at the ighale (the forest of the egungun), in the marketplace, and at the front of the palace. It is during Odun Egungun and on the occasion of commemorative funeral rites for the deceased that the living dead appear and are honored through the mediation of masquerades, or egungun, meaning 'powers concealed'." [Drewal H. J., Pemberton J., Rowland Abiodun, 1989: Yoruba. Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought, Harry N. Abrams Inc.]. This photograph was taken when Eliot Elisofon traveled to Africa from March 17, 1970 to July 17, 1970.