The Epa headdress of the Yoruba Epa Festival

The Epa headdress is used in the Yoruba Epa festival celebrating the important social roles of a town and its people. The headdress is worn at the climax of the week-long festival whose purpose is to reinforce the structure of the community. In the Epa festival, men perform the ceremony with large headdresses carved from wood, in honor of Epa, the male deity who was a wood carver. His cult was limited to the Northern Yoruba people. The headdress is not just a work of art, but also a representation of the very practical nature of the Yoruba spiritual system. "African art often appears in ritual contexts that deal with the vital moral and spiritual concerns of the human condition" (African Art: Aesthetics and Meaning).

African aesthetics is based on ethical and religious values, and for this reason the principal subject of the headdress are human figures. The Epa headdress is an example of African art in a ritual context that deals with the vital moral and spiritual concerns of the human condition (African Art: Aesthetics and Meaning). The headdress is an excellent example of the fusion of form and function that characterizes African art. The Epa mask or headdress remembers "the great one, the great ones of the family who are not dead" (Drewal 202). African mask artists, called carvers or sculptors, are concerned with making headdresses and masks visually interesting, showing various aspects as the dancer moves before the audience.

Carved from soft and light wooded-tree

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surrounded by his followers and wearing the tall, heavy headdress (the Epa headdress is among the largest of all headdresses and masks), he receives salutations, praise names and songs. The lower, abstract helmet portion hides the dancer's face, allowing him to see through the mouth. This is in keeping with the aesthetic value of the art that stresses human relationships and activity in general, rather than the individual. Stilt dancers follow the masked dancers who perform feats of agility. "Stilt dancers and masks appear in festivals of a few other deities through the calendar year of the Yoruba, but the Epa festival is one of the more popular events" (African Art and Culture). The upper, more naturalistically carved superstructure celebrates the central figure at the top that represents the herbalist priest Osanyin, who wears a fringed hat. In his right hand, the priest holds his official staff, and below the staff is a pot drummer. In his left hand he holds a staff depicting two musicians, a kneeling flutist on top and a dundun drummer below. The pot drummer, knelling flutist and dundun drummer herald the presence of the priest, with the dundun drummer beating out tone patterns that sing the praises of the priest. The m

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