Smithsonian Libraries African Art Index Project DSI Search this
Type:
Articles
Date:
2005
Notes:
Color illustrations.
Morton-Williams describes an eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century wood carving in the form of a high-ranking Oyo-Yoruba cavalryman, which is part of a private collection. The Yoruba have placed the theme of the sculpted mounted warrior in several different settings: in temples, or shrines; the palaces of kings and the houses of high-ranking noblemen; and the super-structure of some masks, particularly the epa masks of the Ekiti-Yoruba. Calvary warriors existed in the kingdom and empire of Oyo, which was pillaged about 1835 during the course of civil war.
The equestrian figure, which was collected in the Republic of BeĢnin, could have been carved for a temple or shrine in honor of the Oyo divinity Shango, a deified king of Oyo; or Oranyan, founder of a military nation and the earliest Yoruba king; or an ancient divinity known as Alajogun, Lord of War.
Topic:
Yoruba equestrian figures (Representations).) Search this
