Double Vision: These Wooden Carvings That Honor the Yorùbá Special Connection to Twin Children

Whenhen an African art collector, exhibition organizer and art trader was gifted a pair of Yorùbá twin statuettes – ère ìbejì – in 2022 as a token for a successful business transaction, it signaled the beginning of a fresh obsession. Although he had seen before a few of ìbejì carvings in his uncle’s collection of African traditional art, the gift resonated deeply with him, a twin himself.

“I've constantly been aware of ìbejì but I will say my passionate research was definitely a recent development.”

“I have been gathering them since then,” says the collector, who studied as a lawyer in the UK. “I buy back from international sales and also every time I locate anybody in Nigeria who owns them and desires to give them away or get rid of them, I acquire from them.”

These Traditional Importance of Ère Ìbejì

The ère ìbejì are a physical embodiment of a unique spiritual, cultural and creative tradition among Yoruba communities, who have one of the world’s highest birth rates of twin births and are more than four times more prone to bear twins than Western populations.

The average birthrate of the Yoruba community of Igbo-Ora in Nigeria’s Oyo state, is 45 twins per 1,000 births, versus a global average of about 12 per 1,000.

“In Yorùbá culture, twins occupy a status of profound sacred and social significance,” says a researcher who has researched ère ìbejì.

“This community are known to have an elevated rate of twin births in the world, and this occurrence is interpreted not merely as a natural occurrence but as a indication of heavenly favor.

“Twin siblings are regarded as carriers of prosperity, prosperity and protection for their families and societies,” he says.

The Custom of Venerating Twins

“If a twin dies, sculpted representations [ère ìbejì] are created to house the soul of the deceased infant, ensuring ongoing reverence and safeguarding the wellbeing of the living sibling and the wider kin.”

The statuettes, which are additionally carved for living twin pairs, were taken care of like actual babies: bathed, anointed, nursed, dressed (in the same garments as the twins, if alive), adorned with ornaments, chanted and worshipped, and transported on women’s backsides.

“I'm attracted to artists who engage with what twinhood signifies: duality, absence, companionship, permanence.”

They were sculpted with stylised features – with bulgy eyeballs, their cheeks often scarified, and given mature traits such as reproductive organs and bosoms. Most importantly, their skulls are large and immensely coiffed to symbolise each sibling's spirit, origin and fate, or orí.

A Resurgence Effort: This Ìbejì Initiative

This custom, nevertheless, has been almost entirely forgotten. The ìbejì sculptures are scattered in overseas institutions around the world, with the most recent dating from the 1950s era.

So, in early 2023, the collector launched the Ìbejì Project to revitalise the living heritage of the custom.

“The Ìbejì Project is an informative and advocacy platform that presents traditional art to modern viewers,” he says. “Twinhood is universal, but the Yorùbá reaction – sculpting ère ìbejì as vessels for souls – is unique and should be kept alive as a ongoing conversation rather than frozen in collections abroad.”

In October 2024, he curated an ìbejì-focused exhibition in collaboration with a UK-based art space.

The initiative involves gathering authentic ère ìbejì, displaying them and pairing them with selected modern artworks that continues the tradition by examining the concepts of twinness. “I am attracted to artists who deeply interact with what twinhood represents: duality, loss, fellowship, endurance,” he states.

He thinks selecting modern artistic pieces – such as sculptures, artistic setups, paintings or photography – that share artistic and conceptual similarities with ère ìbejì resituates the ancient tradition in the current era. “[The Ìbejì Project] is a space where contemporary artists produce their own responses, carrying the dialogue into the now,” he adds.

“I'm most pleased when individuals who once dismissed traditional art begin to collect it due to the Ìbejì Project,” says the founder.

Future Ambitions and Worldwide Influence

Next, he hopes to publish a book “to render the ìbejì tradition available to academics and the wider audience”.

He states: “Though rooted in Yorùbá tradition, the initiative is for the globe. Just as we examine other cultures, others should study our heritage with equal dedication.

“My hope is that they will not be seen as institutional oddities, but as part of a vibrant, breathing cultural heritage.”