African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

African Americans 489
expression. Membership may be linked to an age-grade or it may be open to anyone who
would like to join and is deemed socially respectable.
Agot maskers use carved wooden headdresses and full body costumes (see
photographs). The identity of the dancers is concealed under long cloth robes that cover
the entire body, except for the hands and feet. Cut-out eyeholes allow the dancer to see.
Tied to the top of their heads, each masker wears a carved wooden headdress painted
with glossy enamel paints. The two characters look more or less the same, with variations
in the details of the headdresses and in the type of cloth used to make the costume. One
headdress represents a woman and one represents a man. The female character can be
easily recognized by the fact that she usually carries a white European-looking doll.
Agot refers to the type of masquerade and to the name of the dance group. In some
cases, the names of individual dance groups may be modeled after aspects of daily
experience that are important to Ejagham women, such as beauty, agriculture, and the
market. One group named their dance after fermented cassava, Akpu. Their performance
celebrates the introduction of cassava, which revolutionized women’s ability to feed their
families. These women begin with a pantomimed demonstration that precedes the
entrance of the masked dancers and reenacts women toiling in the fields, discovering a
cassava root, and bringing the food product back to the village, which results in the
prosperity of the community.
As Satirization of Male Behavior
Both the Ekpa and the Agot women’s masquerades comment upon, or satirize, male
behavior. Describing an Ekpa performance in Cameroon, Ute Roschenthaler writes,
[T]he dance group, composed of at least nine women, appears. Some of
them imitate and satirize typical male roles to the delight of the spectators:
two or four “guards” run around carrying swords and machetes to control
the dance floor; the “protocol leader” shakes his rattle; the “hunter’s dog”
searches for prey; the “soldier” points his gun at the audience; the
“policemen” (called “blue bottoms”) frighten with their large rods….
(1999, 45).
In this humorous display, women are making fun of men and the ways in which they
behave. Likewise, Agot masquerades sometimes include songs that critique male
behavior. For example, in 1994 a chorus of Agot women sang:
Life
Emanuel
Emanuel feeds his children
Emanuel feeds his children fat.
Fathers feed your children like Emanuel