Queen Idia’s Mask: The African Treasure Europe Still Refuses to Return

New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Most masking traditions documented in this book ask a dancer to carry weight, but the Kurumba of northern Burkina Faso built theirs around a headdress that, by the book’s own account, seems physically impossible…

New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Some peoples in this book are documented through pages of ritual detail, named ceremonies, and recorded myth. The Biombo are documented mostly through resemblance. Their masks carry surface decoration close to that of the…

Used in Poro society initiations across Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and Mali, the Senufo Kpelie is an ancestor-honouring masterpiece.

New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Color carries specific, deliberate meaning across many of the masking traditions on this site, but few peoples built an entire mask type around a single color the way the Punu did. Punu masks are…