YORUBA, NIGERIA

‍

This pair of decorated figures were created as dance staffs for the cult of Eshu, trickster god of the Yoruba, an affiliation made clear by their high and bulbous coiffures. The female figure holds a calabash bottle, the male a large flute. Eyelids and cheeks are profusely scored, and the texture of both figures shows a worn smoothness that suggests long use.  

Around the waists of both figures are slung leather skirts from which descend braided strips hung heavy with ornamentation : hundreds of cowrie shells, symbolizing wealth, along with a mixture of wood and metal objects including spoons, combs, bells, and flasks. Additional carved figures are attached with the assemblage, hanging upside down.

Eshu (also called Elegba) is a complex deity who brings messages and wealth, protects ritual traditions, and presides over places of transition, such as crossroads and thresholds. He also embodies aspects of paradox. The female/male pairing of dance staffs represents his power to flow between genders, transform death into life through birth, and quell conflict between the sexes.

The carver of this pair of staffs has been identified as the “Master of the Owu Shango Shrine,” an epithet coined byDeborah Stokes Hammer and Jeffrey S. Hammer in 1986. Their attribution, which involved findings by R.F. Thompson, is based on a Shango staff in the Lagos National Museum, and was more recently substantiated by a number of other works which came to light, including other Shango staffs in the Diamondstein and U. Voorhuis Collections, as well as quite a few ibeji figures. Thus far, this is the only pair of Eshu staffs that has been connected with any certainty to this master artist.

‍