Object Name: Beaded Apron
Artist: Felipe Garcia Villami
Place of Origin: USA
Cultural Group: Yoruba
Materials Used: Velvet, beads, cowrie shells, thread, mirror
Date: 1997
Dimensions: W: 61 cm, H: 55.6 cm, D: 3.0 cm (W: 24.0 in, H: 21.8 in, D: 1.1 in)
Credit Line and Accession Number: Fowler Museum at UCLA. Museum Purchase. X97.16.1

Bante (apron) dedicated to Sango and a host of other deities and worn on the iya bata. The beaded design, with the mirror of revelation at the center surrounded by cowries and yellow and green beads, reminds us of the opon Ifa (divination tray). The eight four-cowrie florets that surround the mirror and rings of beads stand in the positions that are usually assigned to eight senior odu If, along the edge of the divination tray. By suggesting the divination tray, the artist puns on the bante’s ability to pon (flatter/wrap) the bata drum. Created in 1997 by Felipe Garcia Villamil.

Source: Drewal, H., Mason, J. (1998). “Beads, Body, and Soul – Art and Light in the Yoruba Universe”, Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. page 148