Who Is Egungun?
Egungun is not an individual Orisha but the collective force of all ancestors — the dead who continue to be present, to speak, to guide, and when necessary, to intervene in the affairs of the living. The Egungun masquerade is the physical ritual embodiment of this ancestral force — the masked figure who appears in ceremony to bring the message of the dead to the ears of the living.
In Yoruba cosmology, death is not a severing. It is a transition to a different mode of being. The ancestors who have passed are not gone — they are simply on the other side of a boundary, retaining their interest in their descendants and the affairs of the world they inhabited.
What Egungun Governs
Egungun governs ancestral communication, the justice of the ancestral realm, family patterns and their resolution, the masquerade tradition, death rites and proper burial, and the blessing that the ancestors can bestow on those who honour them properly. Egungun also governs inheritance — not just material, but the inheritance of character, gifts, patterns, and unresolved spiritual matters.
Egungun in Your Life
When Egungun is active in your chart or reading, the ancestors are speaking. Something from your family line is seeking resolution — a pattern that has been repeating, a wound never fully healed, a gift that was buried and is now asking to be uncovered. The ancestors are not haunting you. They are helping you — but you must be willing to listen.
Honouring Egungun
Egungun is honoured through remembrance — speaking the names of the dead, placing photographs or objects belonging to ancestors in a dedicated space, pouring water and libation, preparing their favourite foods. White is associated with Egungun — the colour of the ancestral realm. The most powerful offering to Egungun is attention — deliberately listening for ancestral guidance.
Egungun in Astrology
In the AstroDu framework, Egungun corresponds to Saturn — the planet of ancestral patterns and karma — and to the Moon's South Node which governs what has been carried from the past. Egungun governs the 4th house and the 12th house.
Sources: Atlanta University Center Ifa Textbook; Wande Abimbola; louisianavoodoo.com; originalbotanica.com. Compiled and interpreted for AstroDu by Iyanda, Astrologer and Ifa Practitioner, Ibadan.