Yelmo Epa mask

These masks represent the principal Orishas, incarnation of the attributes of Olorum, the supreme and distant God of men. Since Olorum cannot be represented, the Orishas are represented, the lesser gods close to men.

They participate in the cult of Oduduwa, the ancestor who identifies with a goddess, Yamaya, goddess of coquettery and femininity. They are dances of an essentially feminine character, protecting women against sorcery and asking for fertility for them, with motherhood being the most important thing for African women, thus honouring women as mothers.

The masks used in dances are very varied although most have common features such as the head that serves as the base of the mask, with thick cheeks and large glistening eyes. Some of these masks are topped by a character or figure just like the masks eppa or question. The wearer of the mask wears on his ankles during the dance some bells or bells calledIkuwho protect him against the spells of the envious Aye. In the masquerades of Egyptian society, the dancers represent celestial creatures called ara orun, able to discover and punish the guilty and to grant fertility to the fields. The dancers wear colorful dresses that mark and identify their personality.

This mask of the Epa society is surrounded by a robust python snake that crowns the head from which the horns of the antelope, hypothraged by its shape, which are gripped by an upright leopard, with anthropomorphic features, in the front and a young woman, with generous breasts, in the back. The woman, center of the dances Epa and Gelede, cannot miss in this type of masks. And the serpent is the messenger of the deceased, immortal for his longevity and beginning of movement and life. The hypothragus is the antelope horse or antelope sable, the most represented in African iconography.

The gelede masks are characterized by having a face or head in a lower plane and a varied representation in the upper plane on which different scenes are developed.