Epa Mask: Oloko (Lord-of-the-Farm)

Performers wearing massive headdresses emerge each year in northeastern Yorubaland. The masks share the ikoko head at the bottom to convey "the great ones of the family who are now dead." Animals and people are seen at the top of the mask, high above the townspeople, who join in and recite salutations, praise names, and songs.

During the performance, Oloko runs in from the forest to salute the elders, who watch him carefully. Wearing the massive mask, he approaches a mound of earth called "a tiny bit of the world," and attempts to jump over it. If successful, he proves that the young men have the strength to shoulder the responsibility of the year ahead.

Wood, pigment, and mirror

39 x 15 9/16 x 20 11/16 in. (99 x 39.5 x 52.5 cm)

Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company

81.17.580

Provenance: [Tribal Arts, London, England]; purchased from gallery by Katherine White (1929-1980), Seattle, Washington, 1972; bequeathed to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 1981

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistoryLos Angeles, California, Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California, African Art in Motion: Icon and Act, Jan. 20 - Mar. 17, 1974 (Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, May 5 - Sept. 22, 1974). Text by Robert Farris Thompson. No cat. no., pp. 192, 194, reproduced pl. 229 (as "epa" mask).

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Praise Poems: The Katherine White Collection, July 29 - Sept. 29, 1984 (Washington, D.C., National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Oct. 31, 1984 - Feb. 25, 1985; Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, Apr. 6 - May 19, 1985; Fort Worth, Texas, Kimbell Art Museum, Sept. 7 - Nov. 25, 1985; Kansas City, Missouri, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Mar. 8 - Apr. 20, 1986). Text by Pamela McClusky. Cat. no. 36, pp. 80-81, reproduced (as Mask (epa)).

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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