ART AND SPIRITUALITY: THE IJUMU NORTHEASTERN-YORUBA EGÚNGÚN

The Ijumu-Yoruba Egungun Masquerades is an exploration into the visual culture of egungun masquerades among the Ijumu-Ookun Yoruba people that inhabit the most northeasterly Yorubaland, in the western part of the Niger-Benue confluence region. From the art historical-ethnographical standpoint using two conceptual frameworks, connective theory and linguistic approach, this book fully examined the cultural essence of the art and ritual of the Ijumu egungun masquerades tradition, by delving into its history and typology and social, religious, aesthetics, and visual contexts. Drawing inference from an in-depth juxtaposition, it explicated that the Ijumu egungun masquerades tradition exhibits certain peculiarities, which set this minority Yoruba subgroup apart from their other majority Yoruba counterparts of the southwestern Nigeria. The book suggested that the uniqueness in the Ijumu- Ookun Yoruba egungun masquerades? visual culture is a derivative of interculturation, which includes cultural exchange, reconfiguration, adaptation, and assimilation among the diverse Nigeria?s culture groups that reside in the Niger-Benue confluence region.