Egungun, the Return of the Ancestor in Masquerade Form among the Yorubas.

Egungun is a presentational spiritual art which imagines the collective spirits of the ancestors and builds them out of overlapping or stitched segments of cloth. At times of commemoration of the dead–yearly festivals and successive funeral rites-these remarkable assemblages “come out” to dance, to astound the viewer, correct if need be, and offer blessings from the spiritual world they normally inhabit. Although Egungun have individual names, often those of individuals prominent in the past, the energy they embody is corporate and diachronic: that of the lineage recycling itself through time.

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