The Iconology of the Yoruba Edan Ogboni

Abstract

IntroductionThe anthropomorphic brass staff of the Yoruba Ogboni Society—the edan Ogboni—holds a position of isolation and aesthetic distinction within the Yoruba plastic. Whereas traditional wood-carving is humanistic in its identification with life, is spontaneous, descriptive, and experimental in idiom, Ogboni art is iconic—archetypal, hieratic, and conservative, a manifestation of eternal principle. Where the formal theme of Yoruba carving is abstract, dynamic, architectonic, Ogboni art is absolute, static, and linear. Frequently the edan Ogboni is little more than high relief—a non-sculptural projection of drawing in wax. Though art associated with Orisha is often religious it is not generally held to contain a spirit, and is never worshipped as a spirit. Orisha art is most typically symbolic of the spirit, where Ogboni art, in contrast, is sacred and worshipped as the actual vessel of the spirit. This difference in function, besides affecting the resulting form, determines the attitude of the artist to the object rendered. Yoruba wood-carving is therefore free to be naturalistic and spontaneous, where Ogboni art is rigidly traditional and conservative.