John Thabiti Willis's monograph demonstrates that Yoruba masquerades can be apprehended as important historical actors in their own right. Animated by the spirit of powerful communal and individual ancestors, masquerades do more than simply visit their towns and communities: they are social and political forces with great potential and power. Drawing on a wide range of written and oral sources, Willis explores the history of two famous masquerade traditions, those of Gelede and Egungun, in the town of Otta (present-day Nigeria), from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century. The book's substantial Introduction emphasises that both types of masquerades influenced key historical moments. At the same time, the forms and practices associated with each masquerade were subject to historical change, and the emergence of novel Gelede and Egungun masks at different historical moments reflected and encouraged new forms of social and political engagement.

The book is divided into five chapters and illustrated with several maps and excellent images. The first chapter traces the emergence of the Egungun masquerade from different possible origins in the diverse ethnoscape of the Niger-Benue confluence, to its prominent role within the Oyo empire, which came to dominate the Yoruba region by the mid-seventeenth century. While Egungun played an important role in establishing and maintaining Oyo hegemony over southern Yoruba towns such as Otta, Gelede spread to Otta because of its reputation for ensuring communal welfare. Chapter Two shows that both masquerades were energized by slippage between biological and symbolic notions of gender and kinship. All masquerades were animated by men, but masks could be male or — especially in Gelede — female. Gelede historically ensured well-being by appeasing the mothers and witches of a community. Like other spiritual practices linked to Oyo rule, Egungun was part of a deeply gendered form of control that cast the representatives of the Alaafin (ruler) of Oyo as the ruler's wives or children, irrespective of gender, age, or relationship.

Throughout the nineteenth century, masquerades stood at the heart of Otta's politics. Following Oyo's imperial collapse, several groups of refugees settled in Otta and mobilised different Egungun masks in struggles over local control. When the town came under external attack from Dahomey, powerful and violent Gelede masks emerged to help defeat the invaders (Chapter Three). By the mid-1800s, both masquerades featured centrally in struggles over power among Otta's royal family and its chiefs. In the late 1840s, royal interests were represented by Gelede performances aimed at uniting the community. But by the 1850s, the town's royal family came under growing pressure from its most powerful chief: potent new Egungun masks played a leading role in the war that preceded the eventual confirmation of Otta's new king, Oyede, in 1858 (Chapter Four). Towards the end of the nineteenth century, new types of Egungun masks gained distinction with the help of women. Willis traces the example of the mask of Egungun Oya, which came into an elite family through the marriage of a warrior, Arogunmola, with a woman, Moniyepe, who had inherited the powerful Egungun mask from her own father. In another instance, an Otta woman, Adelowo, created her own Egungun, called Laboo, to overcome her childlessness. Emphasising civic virtues and celebrating wealth, these new masks did not share the warrior ethic of earlier Egungun forms (Chapter Five).

Willis's book suggests that both Gelede and Egungun performers adopted masks with new aesthetics and characteristics in response to changing circumstances, sometimes inspired by the examples of other deities and masquerades. This process enabled both masquerades to expand their influence, and thereby to redefine themselves without losing their distinctive identity. Gelede practice, originally linked to the celebration of communal peace and well-being, shifted in response to Dahomey's attack on Otta. The powerful and aggressive Gelede Idahomi masks confronted and threatened the enemy, thereby reconfiguring Gelede’s traditional role as a protector of the town. Similarly, masks that were substantially shaped and developed by women transformed Egungun, which had previously been associated with typically male forms of competition and even warfare. Yet while Otta's new Egungun masks celebrated prosperity and splendour rather than force, they nonetheless continued to foster competition.

Willis's careful documentation of female agency in relation to Egungun reveals that women could engage with male-controlled masquerades as daughters, wives, and mothers. By mobilising specific resources at particular historical junctures, women (and men) challenged and transformed existing gender roles and norms. As new Egungun or Gelede masks did not necessarily supplant older masks, exceptional gender performances took place alongside more typical masquerades. Politically and aesthetically, masquerading therefore ordered social practice by revealing radical change, such as the active engagement of women with Egungun.

Illuminating the historical contingencies of masquerades, and their ability to reflect, facilitate, and structure social and political change, Masquerading Politics makes a significant contribution to debates about gender and power in Africa.