Ará Òrun Kìn-ìn Kin-in: Òyó-Yòrùbá Egúngún Masquerade in Communion and Maintenance of Ontological Balance †

The belief that there is life after death and that the spirits of the deceased are directly involved in the daily affairs of the living are strong among the Òyó-Yorùbá people of south-western Nigeria. These beliefs are evident in their egúngún culture, a decidedly Yorùbá masking culture in which the spirits of long-dead ancestors are believed to manifest in bodily form as egúngún, in re-visitations to the people they once knew and community they once lived in. The present study explores the connexion processes through which egúngún Mowuru and Jeńjù have engaged in establishing and maintaining contact between the living and the dead in the Òyó community. In this ethnographic study, two egúngún personages (eléégún) who have been directly involved in actual masking of egúngún were interrogated about their first-hand experiences. Fifteen other worshipers and stakeholders of egúngún were also interviewed. It was observed that the art and performances that institute contact by human with the spirits of the egúngún share basic worship principles as found in other religions. Such principles include regular worship, invocations, sacrificing of materials and spilling of blood to the spirit of Jeńjù and Mowuru to ensure communication and provoke ontological balance between the two worlds.