Dance staff for Èṣù (Ògò Èlẹ́gba) (1800s): Art, History and Details

Dance staff for Èṣù (Ògò Èlẹ́gba) (1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Èṣù (also called Èḷégba) embodies the most complex deity in the Yorùbá pantheon of gods. The messenger of the Yorùbá gods, Èṣù is also the bearer of sacrifices, guardian of the ritual way of life, and is associated with highly significant places including crossroads, markets, and home entrances. As seen here, Èṣù's power is often visually represented in Ògò Èḷégba (dance staffs); in this example, the unusually paired man and woman reference his ability to switch between the two genders, turn death into life (through childbirth), and to overcome the tension between the sexes. The male character bears a ritual flute reserved for this god. The abundance of cowrie shells means that Èṣù brings wealth.

Object facts

• Title: Dance staff for Èṣù (Ògò Èlẹ́gba)
• Date: 1800s
• Culture: Africa, West Africa, Nigeria, Yorùbá-style maker
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: Wood, leather, cowrie shells, seeds, and natural fiber
• Dimensions: 62 cm (24 7/16 in.)
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 2018.34

A detail from the museum

If Eshu isn’t properly honored, trouble may befall the community or individual.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Debbaut, Jan, Dominique Favart, and G. van Geertruyen. Utotombo: l'art d'Afrique noire dans les collections privées belges. Exh. Cat. Brussels: Société des Expositions du Palais des Beaux-Arts, March 25-June 5, 1988.
• Drewal, Henry John, John Pemberton, Rowland Abiodun, and Allen Wardwell. Yoruba: Nine centuries of African art and thought. New York: Center for African Art in association with H.N. Abrams, 1989.
• Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth. “Acquisitions 2018: African Art.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 59, no. 2 (March/April 2019): 8-9.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.