The Aesetics of Color:

Yoruba Color Aesthetics

This is a flask that is used to hold some kind of liquid. It conceals; you can tell by the shape of it that it's a bottle, but you can't tell what liquid is in there. There could be anything in there. The beads are hiding what is in there. On the other hand, it reveals because the beads tell you a little bit about what it's used for. "Pupa," comes out the most in this piece of art; even though you have some of the other colors, you can tell by looking at this that the priest that carries this is probably dedicated mainly to the "pupa" deities.

There's a revealing quality in terms of the symbolism because of the interlacing pattern. For the Yoruba people, the interlacing pattern ties into a saying that they have, which translates as: "Life in this world is a journey, the other world is home." The journey in this world refers to the material world we live in and in which we experience our physical bodies. The other world, our home, is the spiritual dimension. The Yoruba people believe that we are eternal, immortal souls and that the physical life that we have is just a very short passage. They believe that the task of every human being that wants to aspire to good is to try to weave these two realms together in our everyday life. In other words, even though we are in a material world right now, we should still give attention to our spiritual side. But on the other hand, we shouldn't get all worked up only about our spiritual side and forget our natural physical needs too. They believe that we have to have a balance between the two. So the interlacing design is a symbol of that because it's a weaving; it shows the weaving that every person should do in their life, the weaving of the two realms together. It's often seen on religious objects, because the priest is the one who helps people figure out how to do this as it is a very difficult thing to try to do.

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