The Masquerade that Doesn’t Dance

I promise I was going to call this article something else. Even in my brief moments of narcissism, I do my best to evade the center stage. But with a title that defines my bio across almost all social media platforms I’m signed up on as the title of this piece, it becomes a little hard. My original intention was to title this piece, ‘Lessons from MamaMa’ after my dearest niece- Darasimi Ogundele. Dara is one of my favourite people in the world and the title change had to be initiated by someone who also holds a huge enough chunk of my heart.

So, some lessons from MamaMa?

This little light of mine…

One of the fun things I love about toddlers which it would seem I also share is their affinity for songs. For instance, I write this article under a heart wrenching rendition of Clement Whyte’s Agbara Olorun; a song that instigates very intense nostalgia for a Baptist boy from Oyo. But guess which songs do this even better, the songs from Sunbeam (IYKYK). This little light of mine is one of these songs. It’s one of the first promises we made to ourselves. Sadly, we tend to forget this promise.

I am running…

Everytime I see MamaMa, we play a little game. Rather than run towards her, I run away from her and she starts to chase. I tend to give up after some time (those little angels can run) but one of the fascinating things that happen during this chase is that she says to whoever cares to listen, ‘I am running’. Maybe it’s not enough to run, maybe we need to tell the world we are running.

But what about Masquerades?

One thing about being as Yoruba as I am  is that certain expressions of the culture fascinate, and maybe hurt when you find that some of their original essence get lost when they cross to other cultures. My surname is 'Ọ̀jẹ̀labi'. It can be literally translated to, ‘We have birthed a celestial’. However, in the Yoruba culture, this celestial reincarnation is defined by the ceremonial appearance of the Egúngún who is believed to be the tether of ancestral spirits to the earthly realms. So, in defined routine or on special occasion, a designated mortal is responsible for performing necessary rites to don the ẹ̀kú and perform the sacred duty of being host to ancestral spirits. These ceremonies were typically characterized by singing and dancing and invocation.

The tragedy of translation struck when it regarded to these ceremonial events as ‘masquerading’ and the Egúngún as ‘Masquerades’. After all, the burden of translation is to find the closest representation. So when you, a descendant of the Egúngún drifts even farther from this cultural context, you forget to 'dance'. But enough of my intriguing existential dilemma ( I hope I have answered you Oyinkan Ojelabi),

If you have read thus far, I am indebted to you. Maybe I have successfully broken inertia.