MASQUERADES, SPIRITS OR SPIRITUAL BEING?
Masquerades are significant in many Cultures especially within the African Tradition where it has a major role in the realm of spirits or spirits themselves.
These lively colored, sometime enigmatic characters are not mere characters in masquerade or a dance, they are much more than that: they are embodiments of the spiritual world, a connection to the ancestral or even gods.
As to whether masquerades are spirits or representations of spirits is an exciting gateway to the discovery and understanding of the practices and the mythology related to the appearing of the mask.
To the traditional African society masquerades are usually regarded as objects of revered significance.
They are not dancers who represent certain ancestor spirits, detties or even natural forces, but they are the spirits incarnated in the performers. This is especially true with the Yoruba of Nigeria, the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria and the Dogon of Mali.
These cultures look at the masquerades as a connection between the earthly and spiritual realms meaning that the masquerade is in between life and death. For example, the Egungun of Yoruba people or the Gelede masquerade of the same ethnic group.
It is more or less a spirit that is given form with Egungun being one of the revered examples of it. It is imperative that one has to put on the Egungun costume so as to become the spirit; rather than people perceiving the clad wearer as a person.
Such garment involves the use of brightly coloured materials and masks that hide the human figure leaving room for the spirit. While in performance, the Egungun dances and responds to the community during festivals where it is believed to express the blessings and protection as well as dialogue from ancestors.
What the audience witnesses on the stage is not only an entertainment show; or even cheerful and frivolous; the performance is a ritual.
This understanding about the spirits of masquerades is anchored on the belief that the physical world and the unseen world are very closely related. And then, when for generations they no longer exist in human form or physically interact with others, they are not really gone; in fact, they are very much present in people’s lives.
They are revered, sought counsel and in essence, they are hailed through the benin masquerade. In this case, masquerade is not just the sign of spirituality; the masquerade is spirit, the physical manifestation of divinity in the world. But in most of the occasions, the masquerades also act as spirits in other they are regarded as spirits in a religious context instead of being considered as the spirits of the dead.
In some cultures, the masquerade signify a bond with the spirits, with the attributes such as justice, wisdom or courage. For instance, as observed among the Igbo, Mmanwu is pictured as a preventive and punitive figure responsible for the correct behavior of society’s members.
Some people may think that the performers are themselves spirits since the masquerades refer to the spirits and others consider them as symbols of higher principles or spirits. In this regard the masquerade adopts an instrument of expressing a number of complicated religious philosophies.
The performance is a kind of education telling the society about the values of moderation and balanced perception of the world and the spirits. Here the aspect of the masquerade is not really a spirit that roams around as a spirit among people but a representation of unseen forces which control the lives of people.
It might be argued that signs which indicate an outward disbelief in these traditions stem from the divergence in the perception of spirit world.
Different from some complex western beliefs concerning the spirit world many Africans are in close touch with the spirit world, such that it is not seen as a world of mere spirit beings but as a real world. Spirits are involved in all aspects of existence- physical, mental, and material health, luck, order, and peace.
To those who subscribe to such a view, the masquerade is certainly a spirit—an engaged one at that in the religious and social fabric of the people in question.
While, in the modern or post-modern sense, there are no doubt cultures which adopted the concept of the masquerade as means for communicating with spirits directly it is, for want of a better term, is not a spirit in spirit’s clothing.
From this point of view, the masquerade is a spectacle which represents the existence of the sphere of the supernatural without obviating it.
This view of the masquerade removes it to a plane more of what it stands for and represents: thus the masquerade functions in myth and ritual; it communicates morality and teaches communal values of society.
In any case, one could not doubt the importance of the masquerades as for maintaining the spiritual and cultural purity of many African states.
Whether referred to as spirits or representation of spirit, these women belong in the realm of the semiotic and are existentially located in between the material and the immaterial worlds.
They meet with the living, with the audience, and, at the same time, they translate the existence of the ancestors as well as encourage people to remember about their spiritual duties.
Finally, the question as to whether or not masquerades are spirits or representations of spirituality may not even have a definite response. It depends with the way one will analyze the masquerade as either a physical representation of the spirit realm or as a manifestation of humanity and God.
What is sure though is the fact that these masquerades are still grim and spirited in their mystery and sanctity and act as they represent the ardor of the preordained cultural spirit.
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