Egungun (ancestral masquerade spirits)

The sources do not provide a mythic founding narrative. Ethnographic and museum records frame egungun as an established ritual category in Yoruba praxis: a lexical item that names both masked, costumed figures and the ancestors collectively. Within ritual life egungun are enacted when a living performer dons a multilayered costume arranged according to Yoruba design sense (ojú-ọnà); the costume is conceived as creating a ‘dwelling place’ for ancestral spirits, allowing the ancestors to 'periodically revisit' the community during scheduled communal festivities to give remembrance and blessings.

Egungun are realized through large, enveloping layered costumes made from many fabric panels. Museum descriptions record the use of hundreds of African, Asian, and European fabrics (including imported damasks, velvets, faux furs, embroideries, and local indigo-dyed cottons) alongside materials such as cotton, velvet, flannel, leather, cowrie shells, metal, and wood elements. Costumes are voluminous—examples in collections measure on the order of ~152–168 cm in height with broad, layered widths—and often include a face covering of striped netting that allows the wearer to see while concealing identity. The layered panels are explicitly described as creating a dwelling place for ancestral spirits.

Sources describe egungun primarily in social-ritual terms rather than as a catalogue of supernatural powers. They are a visible manifestation of departed ancestors, appearing in masquerade to 'periodically revisit' the human community for remembrance, celebration, and blessings. In performance egungun function as an interface or bridge between the living community and the otherworld; the costume and embodied performance host or embody ancestor presence. Museum and archive texts emphasize communal blessing and mediated ancestral presence rather than discrete combative or magical abilities.