EUGENE–In Nigeria, a dancer begins to twirl. His costume, a patterned circle, billows out from his shoulders until it forms a giant wheel. He careens around a courtyard to the beat of the Yoruba pressure drum until he collapses in dizziness. He is an Egungun masquerader, seen by the Yoruba people of West Africa as a spirit being whose power and presence can be invoked by the living.

Visitors to the University of Oregon Museum of Natural History, 1680 E. 15th Ave., will see a video of this Egungun masquerader and others as part of a new exhibit, "Masks, Music and Motion: Community Healing Among the Yoruba of West Africa."

The exhibit opens Saturday, Jan. 16, and will be open to the public from noon to 5 p.m. on Wednesdays through Sundays through June 20, 1999.

The exhibit lives up to its name with carved masks, wands and figures from four of the many ritual societies of the Yoruba people, as well as contemporary and traditional Yoruba music, and actual costumes used by Egungun performers. Visitors on guided tours may play the Yoruba pressure drum–formerly called the "talking drum"–and experiment with its tonal qualities that mimic Yoruba speech.

The collection of 24 Yoruba objects in this exhibit, loaned by Mary L. Johnston of Florence from her 90-piece collection of West African art, allows a glimpse into the history of this West African people which is interwoven with their religious mythology.

Johnston, who is guest curator for "Masks, Music and Motion," emphasizes that African artists were always well known to their patrons and people living in their communities but, in the past, European and American collectors rarely asked "Who made this?" and few of the objects in this exhibit have carver’s marks that could identify the artists.

Today, Johnston says much of the art work that used to be done only for ceremonial purposes is made for the tourist market by well-known artists.

Johnston first saw these objects in boxes in a garage in Connecticut, where they were brought by her brother Fred W. Welty after he returned from many years in Europe and Nigeria. She was struck by their power but also by something else.

"It’s good to look at a them in terms of their design and shape, and they do reflect the talented artists who made them. But what interested me was how they were used," she says.

On her brother’s death in 1989, Johnston inherited part of his collection.

"After being with some of the pieces, I began wondering how people used them to solve everyday problems and answer questions–not only for difficult problems, but for the good things as well," she says. People wonder why the good things happen to them, too, such as healthy births, the love of families and success in life. These things are expressed through the masks, the dancers, the motion."

The 24 objects in the exhibit include striking sculptures and other artwork created specifically for four of the many different forms of Yoruba ritual: Egungun, Ibeji, Sango and Gelede.

Egungun masqueraders, who communicate with the dead on behalf of the living, wear masks and costumes that hide the entire face, head and body.

Olu Adekanmbi, a Yoruba chief from Nigeria who earned his doctorate at the UO and performed in the Egungun ceremony as a teenager (see sidebar story), describes these bright and many-layered costumes:

"(The Egungun masqueraders) are human beings covered from head to foot with cloths.… There is a colorful rectangular net (awon) covering the face through which the masquerader sees and speaks in a guttural voice. An Egungun Agba (elder Egungun) costume like the one donated to the university represents a dead ancestor. The costume is elaborate, with patchwork panels on the body, surmounted by a three-dimensional, projecting, box-like structure covered with the same patchwork fabric. The second type of costume is one which is more fitted to the body. It is called Omo Egungun (young Egungun). The costume is tight around the ankles, and the upper portion is sack-like."

The Ibeji society honors twins who have died. The Yoruba have the highest rate of fraternal twin births in the world, and they believe that twins share one soul. When a twin dies, the family commissions a wood carver to make an ibeji image in the particular style of the village. They are always shown as adults, with the hair styles and kin group scars they would have worn had they lived to grow up.

Members of the Sango society, honoring the trickster god of fire and thunder, carry a variety of carved wooden or metal wands that, like the five in this exhibit, have a stylized thunderbolt at the top.

Objects from the Gelede, a men’s society that honors women and particularly older women, include the dramatic wooden mask shown on the exhibit poster. The wooden mask, worn on top of the head, has a beard symbolizing power. Its crescent moon and bird carvings reflect the Yoruba belief that older women can transform themselves into birds and fly away into the darkness on missions of good or evil.

The exhibit also includes a statue of King Ewuare, a great 15th-century king who unified the people of Yoruba, as well as the dun-dun, the pressure drum formerly called the "talking drum." It is used for ceremonies and also was used to send messages from one place to another. With training and practice, the drummer can mimic the sounds of Yoruba speech.

In conjunction with the Yoruba exhibit, the Museum of Natural History will host a Saturday Safari family activity day in January and a series of lectures in April.

On Saturday, Jan. 23, the museum invites everyone to make masks, make music and move during a family day celebration from noon to 3 p.m. at the museum. The cost is $2 per person or $5 per family, with UO students and museum members free.

Visitors will make African masks, experiment with a pressure drum and play ayo, the Yoruba version of mancala. UO ethnomusicologist Don Addision will teach and perform. He is a musician and music historian specializing in traditional and popular, rural and urban Nigerian music. This event is part of the Saturday Safari series of hands-on explorations of museum exhibits for children and families.

Sundays at the Museum, a series of informal learning opportunities with UO and community specialists in Yoruba and other African cultures, will begin April 11 and continue on April 18 and 25. Set from 2—4 p.m., these quiet afternoons will give adults, students and older children a chance to explore different aspects of the Yoruba exhibit and to take a guided tour of the museum. Suggested donation is $2 per person or $5 per family, with UO students and museum members free.

On Tuesday, April 20, Henry J. Drewal , an author and renowned expert on Yoruba art, will give the 1998-99 Luther S. and Dorothy Cecelia Cressman Memorial Lecture in the Humanities. Sponsored by the Oregon Humanities Center, the free public lecture, "Whirling Return of the Ancestors: Egungun Masking Performances Among the Yoruba" will be delivered at a time and place to be announced later.

Presently the Evjue-Bascom Professor of African and African Diaspora Art at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Drewal is a well-known author and editor of several books and many articles on African and Yoruba arts. He spent many years in West Africa and Brazil and twice was apprenticed to master Yoruba sculptors. Drewal loaned several of his photographs and videos for the UO exhibit.

Hours for the UO Museum of Natural History and the Museum Store are from noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Visitors park free in selected areas nearby with a pass from the museum front desk.

For information about the natural history museum and its current exhibits, call (541) 346-3024 or send e-mail to <mnh@oregon.uoregon.edu>. The museum’s web site at http://oregon.uoregon.edu/~mnh includes community program information and archaeological projects as well as information about studies by the research division.

The UO Museum of Natural History, whose entrance is marked by massive cedar log posts topped by a copper salmon sculpture, unfolds mysteries about the natural sciences and human cultures past and present–from backyard birds and native plants to ancient obsidian tools and cedar baskets.

Founded by renowned UO archaeologist Luther Cressman in 1936, the museum links public programs and exhibits with strong archaeological and ethnographic collections and research. The museum is the repository for all anthropological artifacts and specimens found on Oregon state lands, including the 9,000-year-old sagebrush sandals popularized as "Oregon’s oldest running shoes."

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