Costume (Ekun Egungun), Nigeria, c.1950 (cotton, velvet, cowrie shells, glass beads, leather & dye)

Egungun, a word that means "powers concealed", refers to a festival held annually in each Yoruba town to celebrate ancestral leaders; masquerade costume is designed to suggest the hidden, mysterious power; wearer peeps out through the panel of loosely woven cloth or netting at the top centre; as he dances, the layers of cloth expand dramatically to convey the idea of great power being mysteriously generated from within; the layers of luxurious imported cloth express the idea that the wealth and power of outsiders has been appropriated by Yoruba kings; underneath, older layers of local cloth suggest great age and the power of tradition; the zigzag red edgings and the arrangment of angular patterns in the patchwork panels are coded messages of power and danger;