“If a Woman Knows Cult Secret, She Must Never Tell”: Ritual Consecration, Secrecy, and Female Power in Egungun Pageantry Among the Yoruba

King Sunny Ade, the Juju musician who popularized the Yorúbà folk song quoted here, created the lyrics to serve as a caustic warning to his rivals, critics, and detractors that any attempt to undermine his creative abilities will be met with strong opposition likened to an outright annihilation—the stock in trade of the Oro institution.² When I began my research into the intriguing tradition of Egungun, I quickly learnt a counterhegemonic negation of the song lyrics: “If a woman knows cult secret, she must never tell.”³ That statement is deliberately adopted here, as it recognizes the limitations placed on women in a cultural tradition that was partly invented by them, in spite of their knowledge and leadership position within the cult of Egungun. While reinforcing this societal norm on the restriction and access to esoteric knowledge, Barber (1981: 739) noted that “The important thing is not women's...