Gelede (Gẹlẹdẹ)

Gelede is not presented in the sources as a single mythic origin figure but as an institutionalized masquerade form within Yoruba ritual life. It developed as a community public spectacle devoted to honoring and addressing the powers of senior women — termed the 'Mothers' (Iyami/Aje/Iya Nla) — and is treated in scholarship and museum literature as one of the principal Yoruba masquerade types alongside Egungun and Epa. The institutionalization is evident in annual Gelede festivals and organized performances combining carved headdresses, masks, dance and music to engage, instruct, and regulate social behavior with respect to female spiritual authority.

Gelede is expressed through carved wooden masks and elaborate painted headdresses often worn in layered costumes during public performance. Museum and catalogue descriptions record headdresses depicting multiple figures or motifs (for example groupings of birds, mother-and-child themes, stacked figures), and masks and headdresses are brightly colored and sculptural. The visual ensemble is part of a multi-sensorial spectacle combining costume, dance and music.

As described in the sources, Gelede functions ritually to honor, placate and instruct regarding the creative and potentially dangerous powers associated with senior women and female ancestors. The spectacle is believed culturally to support community benefits such as fertility and social order and operates through performance to amuse, educate and inspire correct social behavior. It is a social-ritual mechanism rather than an individual supernatural agent; its 'powers' are the communal effects achieved by publicly addressing the Mothers through masquerade.