Egungun be Careful: Reconciling Yoruba Culture and Contemporary Nigerian Law on the Status, Powers and Immunity of the Indigenous African Masquerade | Chapter 5 | Recent Research Advances in Arts and Social Studies Vol. 2

 In native societal structure, enlightening norms entrust the masquerade as a persona accompanying remarkable rank and powers. By virtue of its capacities and status, a masquerade savors some indulgences, including intruding on the rights of other persons, outside facing permissible sanctions.By and large, modernity has not radically changed the traditional idea of the masquerade in terms of its ordinarily imbued capacities and status. However, unlike in the pre-pioneering past where customs formed the bedrock of the regulation, conducts in the contemporary settings are contingent a complex web of non-established laws which involve the constitution, accomplished statutes and judge-made laws.With modern law operating on the principle of ‘egalitarianism before the law’ or ‘nobody is above the law’, conducts of the masquerade, necessarily, hopeful appraised and adjudged inside the general legal foundation operating in the society. Thus stands the question whether the indulgences, immunity and accompanying exceptions availed the masquerade under native systems are still influential, and to what extent, if so, under contemporary Nigerian permissible system. This paper attacks this question and related issues, with the practice with the Yoruba tribe of South-situated or toward the west Nigeria as focal point.

Author(s) Details:

Babafemi Odunsi,
Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria and Faculty of Law, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Nigeria and Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.

Please see the link here: https://stm.bookpi.org/RRAASS-V2/article/view/12533