This large, decorative Yoruba Epa helmet mask, Nigeria, 20th centuryy, has large bulging eyes and is surmounted by a maternity sculpture holding a cock in one hand and a ritual vessel in the other, at the back a child, the domed coiffure striated, the whole figure is fragmentary with signs of old insect damages( the animals aren´t alive anymore), hard, heavy wood, attachment holes at the rim

Epa helmet masks are used to promote health and wellbeing within a community by celebrating and honouring ancestors, cultural heroes and important individuals (including mothers, priests, farmers, kings and hunters) within a village. Originating in Ekiti and spreading to much of North-Eastern Yoruba towns (including Owo, Efon Alaye, Igbomina and Ijesa), the bi-annual, week-long Epa festival acknowledges the roles these individuals have played in building a successful community.

Epa masqueraders perform slow, steady and controlled movements due to the huge and heavy masks they carry on their heads during performances. The masqueraders dance around the village and must jump on a raised mound to demonstrate their ability to maintain balance. It is believed to be a bad omen for the town (sometimes leading to misfortune) if the mask should fall of the performer’s head during the jump. When not in use, the masks are kept in shrines where villagers can pray to and provide offerings to ancestors.

The olomoyeye (also called eyelashe, iyaolomo, olomoyoyo, omoniyi, olomopupo or omobomi; meaning 'owner of many children') mask depicts a mother with many children representing the important role women play in baring children and extending the lineage of men in the community.

In north-west Yorubaland the Epa masks are kept by the head of a lineage or a town chief on behalf of the lineage or community. When in use they are choreographed as emerging from the bush, where they return once the festival is completed. Offerings may be made to a mask before it is used or during the ceremony. According to Robert Thompson, 'the Epa cult stresses the transformation of young men into stalwart specimens able to bear pain and shoulder heavy weight'.[6] King Arowolo of lloro distinguished between the type of energy belonging to the cult of Elefon, concerned with ancestral spirits, and the cult of Epa, connected with the dignified, slow and patient masquerades of ancient men and culture heroes.[7] While the Ekiti Yoruba share their principal deities with Yoruba from elsewhere, they also have many deities and masquerades peculiar to themselves, leading other fieldworkers to note that the distinction is less clear than Thompson suggested.[5] In north-eastern Yorubaland, Epa and other masks are used in annual ceremonies, held in February or March in some places or as late as September in others to promote the fertility and well-being of the community.[5] They also appear in Elefon festivals performed to celebrate the return of the warriors, to honor Ogun, the god of war and iron and to mark the growth of new crops. Elsewhere such masks were used in post-burial rites relating to titled men. In one fairly consistent episode in the festival the masquerader, supporting a mask which can often weigh 50 lbs or more, attempts to jump off a mound to augur the quality of the new year. A fall or loss of balance is read as a bad omen which may herald coming misfortune.[4] Source Wikipedia

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Height: 112 cm
Weight: 8,0 kg