Gelede belongs to the western Yoruba communities of southwestern Nigeria and neighbouring Benin, and its purpose is unusual among masquerade traditions worldwide: rather than a men's society concealing its power from women, gelede is performed by men specifically to honour and placate a power the tradition holds women, and especially elderly women, to possess, called awon iya wa, our mothers, a force capable of great good, as fertility and protection, and great harm, as witchcraft and social disruption, if left unacknowledged.
Performances centre on large carved wooden headdresses worn atop the head, elaborately painted and often depicting scenes of daily life, animals, respected community figures or exaggerated caricatures of misconduct, worn together with padded costumes and cloth that transform the male performer's body into an idealised or comic female form, danced to the accompaniment of drumming and call and response song led by a chorus. The masquerade is performed at set points in the agricultural and ritual calendar and at funerals of senior women, and its underlying theology holds that the awon iya wa, properly honoured through spectacle, dance and public reverence, will use their power for the community's benefit, fertility, protection from misfortune and the wellbeing of children, rather than turning that same power to harm.