Ijele: Art eJournal of the African World (2000) ISSN: 1525-447X GÈLÈDÉ: METAPHYSICS AND GENDER IN AN AFRICAN RITUAL PLAY

Dele Layiwola

Introduction:

There have been myriad studies on the art of Gèlèdé dance drama of the Yoruba among which are: Ulli Beier (1958); Harper (1970); Olabimtan (1972); Drewal and Drewal (1983); Layiwola (1987); Ibitokun (1993); Lawal (1996). All of these studies together have been able to document the content, style, tradition and folklore of a compelling masking tradition. This essay, therefore, does not intend a repetition of those things which have been done with creative as well as scholarly ability. Instead, it will dwell on certain metaphysical conceptualizations arising from material study and documentation. Since it is an attempt to capture those rather ethereal aspects, a lot of critical as well as speculative statements are likely to hold sway. In all, the import will be to provoke thought and inquiry as well as to stimulate curiosity and attention.

Whilst in the field in 1991, I got into some discussion with field assistants on whether the carnival of wood carvings and the sculptural and kinetic celebrations of Gèlèdé or Epa masquerades could not be interpreted to amount to religious worship. Naturally it reverts to the familiar argument of whether the Gèlèdé or Epa masquerades constitute divinities both in their material, plastic manifestation or in the hopes and prayers often evinced by them. One should also note that the feudatory relationship between the spirits of the cult and their devotees call for a greater inquiry into the impact of these artistic forms on their supposed connoisseurs and neophytes. In Ijio where I first started the field work, the views of Gèlèdé artists and devotees' reactions were in varying degrees, viz.: that Gèlèdé is both a festival as well as an aspect of religion. It is interesting to note here that Gèlèdé festival in Ijio has come to be associated with the eve of Christmas because all the youths and indigenes of the town would normally visit the town during that festive season. Hence Gèlèdé in Ijio had become an end- of-year festival.

In other parts of southwestern Yoruba land around Ketu, Imeko, Egbado and Dahomey where Gèlèdé is also predominant, the celebrations come between June and September. But if we look at Ibitokun's study (1993) which would seem to be a reaction to earlier studies, he de-emphasizes entertainment and would rather prefer the religious import of a female armament:

At this juncture, one can dismiss as inaccurate Olabimtan's contention that a Gelede mask is not a god.

Playing down the ritual and the dramatic interestingly reflects Olabimtan's ethnic predilections or preoccupations. Olabimtan hails from Ilaro and the Ilaro-Oyo-Egbado Gelede from which he draws his material stresses the theatrical [1993: 42].

There is no doubting the fact that Ibitokun's salvo is a bit at a tangent since most aspects of drama and ritual inevitably reminds the critic of the religious origins of drama. But the point goes a little further. Does a particular performative approach to ritual add or takes away from its nature depending on certain indices or factors? I have to borrow an explanation from one whom had trodden these paths before; the dual aspect of rituals as performances. I quote from S.J. Tambiah:

On the one hand there is a general sense in which it can be said that a public ritual reproduces in its repeated enactments certain seemingly invariant and stereotyped sequences such as formulas chanted, rules of etiquette followed, and so on. On the other hand, every field anthropologist knows that no one performance of a rite, however rigidly prescribed, is exactly the same as another performance because it is affected by processes peculiar to the oral specialist's mode of recitation, and by certain variable features.... [1979: 115].

The duality, even duplicity, of ritual cannot often be tackled all at once but we can at least transcend Ibitokun's remonstrations with Olabimtan by agreeing that both the religious and theatrical aspect of ritual can be classified into one paradigmatic set. This would appear as two sides of the same coin much as ritual and play can be opposing sides of the same phenomenon pandering to the variation of rules and stereotypy.

The import of focus on Ibitokun's comments on Olabimtan's 1972 paper is to highlight the mercuric nature of performance on the cultural subsoil. In this case, one point is made through another that is only partially visible. If, for instance, we take the symbology of the masks as presented in the shrines (Ashe) of Gèlèdé, it is true that there is always a council of masks in the inner recesses of the Ashe. The mother mask, which Lawal rightly terms Abo igi, is always on a higher pedestal in relation to the other masks. My observation of the Gèlèdé mask; in particular, the mother mask is its unequalled serenity and inner peace in spite of its latent kinesthetic potentials (1987, op.cit). This is the tendency which both the masker and his mask are supposed to impart at the end of the performance. Symbolically, a mask must be domesticated before this mother mask prior to a performance, as Ibitokun testifies:

The ritual aspects of Gelede start from the shrine in which the mask dancer would have deposited his mask a few days before the performance proper. Like all shrines, the Gelede shrine receives sacrifices: kola-nuts, palm-oil, hot drinks (gin), pigeons, hens, goats and sheep. (p. 41)

At Ijio the chief priest (or Babalashe) uses goats for his annual sacrifices to the council of masks. The mother mask is rarely moved and often deeply revered. It comes out only in deep darkness and its gleaming presence is often felt by all at the festival. In some other instances they descend like a hush on the arena of play in the guise of birds to grant protection to all connected with the masks, in particular, the dancers. Ulli Beier presents it thus:

The "mothers from the left and from the right, from the front and from the back" will now be asked to descend and join the group. Usually their answer can be heard coming from the trees in the form of birds' cries (1958: 10).

These 'mothers' symbolized by the mother mask bestows healing and blessing but, if abused, can withdraw the flow of life in humans and in nature; and cause a lot of hardships.

The Medium or the Mask?

In establishing connection across categories of being or performative states, a certain state of consciousness, a medium, must be at play. David Napier (1988) has problematised the phenomenon thus:

With respect to mask wearers, then, the first question to be asked is: can we even hope to gain access to inner states? And second, if access is possible, can the ontological status of the mask wearer be translated into a vernacular that is readily understood? [p. 232]

On the African continent, the medium of the mask or the comprehensive costume of a masquerader is the invention of a spectral medium. A man, hitherto a young fledgling in the community, attains the status of a god or an ancestor under the mask. Women and children and households, including the peers of his mothers kneel before him for benediction and prayers - general or particular. He becomes a persona, a numinous invocation with a transient personality. He lasts only for the duration of the enactment. At that instance, the unknown is domesticated and brought within the realm of the living.

Undoubtedly, there is a profound level of ambiguity, even ambivalence in the personality of the mask, even more so in the context of Gèlèdé performances. Both Beier and Ibitokun affirm, and rightly so, that the mothers who are appeased by the maskers are 'witches' who can bring grievous harm, including death, to their detractors, especially the daring male chauvinist. At the same time, these powers stabilize the world when they are appeased and are happy. But the more intriguing aspect is that these masks are among the most peaceful and the most serene of the array of carvings publicly available in West Africa. Perhaps even more intriguing is the notion of amorality. These are benevolent masks, but their attitude can be as unpredictable as to be erratic, not devoid of violence. In fact, there is no omniscient concern for the basic, fundamental principles of justice as a system or as an institution in society. Their benevolence or vengeance appears to be so random as to be unpredictable. They can bypass a sufferer under oppression unless he agrees to pay a ransom of a hen or goat, yet an overbearing witch or sorcerer can go unpunished. But these profound ambiguities aside, there are much to be said for the purgatorial nature of the performance in the lives of the individual each year.

The institution of the mask idiom in traditional or 'primitive' cultures subtends both the notion of homeopathic and contagious magic [Frazer, 1922]; but at the same time it transposes the personality of the actor/dancer (ajogi) or if it is a night dancer (ajoru) [Lawal, 1996] into that of a ritual vessel. The personality of the actor gives the mask its kinetic quality but that personality takes on an added metaphysical dimension. He dares in his role by playing the god, the deity or the daemon. The only unfortunate aspect is that in losing his/her own personality, the masked dancer surrenders his will and destiny to some other external force. Where that force is benevolent, it may bestow peace on the community, on a suppliant and on its host vessel. This is why, it seems to me, for every true performer, after a long night of dance and activity, the actor (as I witnessed in Ijio) though exhausted, radiates an inner peace, a serenity that is non-pareil.

In extreme cases of possession, as in the dances of Sango votaries and devotees, even the self-flagellation and dismemberment, which takes place on the arena of dance, inflicts no consequential wound on the actor, subsequent to his performance. The same is visible, for instance in Beier (1959). Tetede, the bearer of the prologue in Gèlèdé dance dramas entertains the audience but the real participation and communal play does not come until Tetede, a younger mask, has summoned the greater mask, Efe to the arena through a charmed archway, enu ase. From that moment forth, the emboldened and possessed performer seizes the show and dictates the steps and direction of the community. Not minding the weight of his mask and headdress, he dances relentlessly through the night declaiming tales of poetic significance and recounting the history of the community and the memory of the recently deceased.

The spirited dance we witness every year in Gèlèdé performance is informed by its sense of both contagious contact as well as homeopathy in the train of imitation of the agile and disembodied aura suffusing the persona of the mask. If we agree that the medium of the mask is that liminal boundary traversing the world of the living and of the dead, then we understand why the masker can bring blessing and welfare to the human realm. It is also discernible why he can bring untold calamity or imprecations from the elements. But even more significant is that he qualifies, through the medium of poetic chants and rendition, to catalogue the gains as well as the various human losses of that season and the lessons the living can learn from them. In some instances the masker not only sees the spirit of the dead, he recounts messages across the gulf of transition and evokes sympathy and remorse from the land of the living. Here are two stereotypical renditions from Ibitokun:

It is because Omulege has died that I'm called upon
to dance at Obada.
When I was going on in the heart of Lagos 
Omulege and I ran into one another at the 
motor park (2ce)
Abeni Olupeekan, let's go back home. 
Mama replied that she would not return (2ce)
Olupekan, Mother, you'll have to follow me home. 
She said she couldn't go....
Replying that it's strictly forbidden for a departed soul to return 
to the 
earth.
And then she asked me 
'How are Modupe and Gbadebo
Hope Mosunmola is feeling fine?'
And then she asked about her children....[p.135]

In the above chant, the mask is the link between the world of the present and world that is to come as well as that which has only just passed. The dead uses the mask to reach the living. Where the principals of the Gèlèdé society have become archetypal custodians. Here is another example:

I'm parting ways with you, 
Yawoogbe's daughter 
Today, the people of Isaba/Iyan-in part ways with you. 
Child-of-Agba in Ilegbe compound 
He who has died, we now understand, cannot return. 
Tetede thinks she'll come back 
Nourishing the same hope, do I, as parent, 
Call her with my songs 
Well, I say adieu, my dear Abeni Aro, child of 
Agba in Ilegbe compound. 
We're parting ways with you, Yawoogbe's 
daughter 
Well, Adieu!...
Abeni Aro, Omulege
Come and receive the viaticum for your journey. [p. 145]

The mask, the modular transforming power, helps the actor to get into an inner state that ensures dialogue and correspondences with the dead and the intangible. This is why, according to Cazeneuve, (1978: 84), Lévy-Bruhl chose the word "represent" for the phenomenon of masked transformations:

To make present again, or make reappear what has disappeared...To wear a mask, therefore, is something very different from a game. It is among the most serious and weighty acts in the world: a direct and immediate contact, and even an intimate participation, with the beings of the invisible world, from whom one expects vital favours. The individuality of the actor gives place momentarily to that of the "spirit" which he represents, or rather they are fused together.

It is well to note at this point that there is room for critical differentiation in that skeptics may affirm that the whole process of impersonation is a facade. It may be at best, a notional departure, a false consciousness by which the advocacy of Gèlèdé believes itself to have seized spiritual power in lieu of political power [Layiwola, 1987]. But this is a legitimate accusation, and a matter of opinion. It actually depends on what side of the performance fence one is on.

Conclusion:

The notion of gender in the context of metaphysics invariably unearths other paradigms of performance which is influential in conceptualising society. We may ask ourselves to what extent Gèlèdé conceptualization will purify society in as much as it empowers the weaker gender with certain genuine or pseudo- institutions in society. For instance, do the custodians of Gèlèdé, in empowering women and making men to serve them in performance, envisage a balance of justice by this contemporary reversal of roles? If that is the case, will the concept of gender or womanism itself humanize the polity and change our orientation for equity and justice in society? But can we really represent affective states in masking as a surrogate of the life we expect to find in everyday circumstances? There, certainly, is a whole area of metaphysical interpretation for which we may have to invent a new methodology if we are to cope with its analysis. It is clear, for instance that much of the activities of the Gèlèdé society and its functionaries are of occult or mystical provenance. That leaves us with very little in terms of the empirical outlay of latter-day societies in terms of human relations as overseen by the mundane logics of law and humanity and good neighbourliness. The vast powers often conferred on the unseen mothers and their masks outstrip those of political and legal institutions in society. At what point, therefore, does one institution encroach on the jurisdiction of the other? Even more pertinent is the point I broached earlier on the fact that the logic and the modus operandi of the powers wielded by Gèlèdé subscribe to esoteric, inscrutable `constitutions', if we may call it that. The question is germane if we reckon that Gèlèdé society emerged as a functionary of justice, equity and gender-conscious initiative. The survival potential and initiative of Gèlèdé performances and institution, in the long term, will depend on whether it can systematically articulate the enormous powers at its disposal, which are ostensibly deployed on account of the well being of every citizen in society. Its new methodology, therefore, will seek to broaden the confines of gender responsibility and create a newfangled network for power relations, power initiative, and general accountability in society at large.

References

Beier, Ulli (1958). "Gelede Masks" Odu: A Journal of Yoruba and Related Studies 6 (June) 4-23.

_________(1959). A year of Sacred Festivals in one Yoruba Town. Lagos: Nigeria Magazine.

Cazeneuve, J. (1972). Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. Trans. Peter Riviere. Oxford.

Drewal H. J. and M. T. Drewal (1983). Gelede: Art and Female Power Among the Yoruba. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Frazer, George (1922). The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Macmillan.

Harper, Peggy (1970). "The Role of Dance in the Gelede Ceremonies of the Village of Ijio". Odu: A Journal of West African Studies n.s. (4): 67-94.

Ibitokun, Benedict M. (1993). Dance as Ritual Drama and Entertainment in the Gelede of the Ketu-Yoruba sub-group in West Africa. Ile-Ife: Obafemi Awolowo University Press.

Lawal, Babatunde (1996). The Gèlèdé Spectacle: Art, Gender, and Social Harmony in an African Culture. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Layiwola, Dele (1987). "Womanism in Nigerian Folklore and Drama." African Notes (XI) 1: 27-33.

Napier, David A. (1988). " Masks and Metaphysics: An Empirical Dilemma" in Sidney Kasfir (ed) West African Masks and Cultural Systems. Tervuren: Musee Roy De L'Afrique Centrale. Vol. 126: 231 – 40

Olabimtan, Afolabi (1972). "Gelede" Olokun 10: 37-41

Tambiah, S.J. (1979). "A Peformative Approach to Ritual." The proceedings of the British Academy: 113-169.

© Copyright 2000 Africa Resource Center

Citation Format

Layiwola, Dele. (2000). GÈLÈDÉ: METAPHYSICS AND GENDER IN AN AFRICAN RITUAL PLAY. Ijele: Art eJournal of the African World: 1 , 1.