The visible and the invisible.

The term “Egun” comes from Kaaro (Yoruba) and means “bone, skeleton”, that is to say, “one who has died and returns”. “Egungun” is therefore the reduplication of “Egun”. Egungun is, first and foremost, an institution within certain families of the Adja-Tado area, where, upon the passing of an individual who has led a good life, family members decide to immortalise them. This is a form of beatification which both follows and establishes the process of becoming an ancestor — as is generally the custom among Gbe families — and the worship of ancestors. Essentially, the Egungun cult and the worship of ancestors constitute a single religious reality in the Adja-Tado area, a practice that continues to teach us that humanity’s first religion is unquestionably the worship of ancestors, which is not without echoes of the scene of the weighing of the heart in the Egyptian conception of the immortality of the dead.

However, there is a difference not only in substance but, above all, in form between the Egungun cult and the cult of the ancestors within the Gbe dialect continuum. For whilst both forms of worship depict the spiritual return of the dead amongst the living, Egungun is not merely a physical return — that is to say, a materialisation of the spirit of the deceased, which is why it is masked — but, above all, this mask gives rise to both veneration and spectacle.

The word “Guelede” derives from the Yoruba “gele” = “headdress, adornment” and “de” = “to arrive”. It can therefore be translated as “the adorned headdress arrives”.

Although proclaimed in 2001, it was not until 2008 that Guelede was inscribed by UNESCO on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Two essential characteristics are associated with Guelede: “the playful nature of the performance and its therapeutic effects, underpinned by the power of Iya”. The Guelede mask established the Kaaro society as a Guelede society. The Guelede mask itself, although single-structure versions do exist, is often composed of a mask depicting a Yoruba woman’s head, identifiable by her authentic ethnic features. This primary mask is generally surmounted by a superstructure representing a specific performance.

A festival guest, Zaouli refers to a popular dance and music practised by the Gouro communities in the departments of Bouaflé and Zuénoula, in Côte d’Ivoire. A tribute to feminine beauty, it draws on two masks, the Blou and the Djela, and comes in seven facial masks, each expressing a specific legend. Its other name, “Djela lou Zaouli”, means “Zaouli, daughter of Djela”.

Zaouli brings together, in a single performance, sculpture, costume weaving, music and dance. A bearer of the cultural identity of its keepers, it also plays a role in integration and social cohesion within the community.