New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several masking and figure-carving traditions documented in this book treat a finished sculpture as a fixed, permanent object. Teke fetish figures, spread across both Congo Republics and Gabon, worked differently: a figure’s power was…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Many masks in this book exist to be seen, their entire function bound up in public display, in the crowd’s reaction, in being looked at. The Bemba of Zambia and the southeastern Democratic Republic…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several ancestor-figure traditions documented in this book are carved to order, made for a specific person and known from the moment the first cut is made. The Kissi, 140,000 people who inhabit a bordering…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Most masks in this book represent a single, coherent idea, an ancestor, a spirit of the bush, a moral category of the dead. The Chamba mask, worn along the Benue River in Cameroon and…
An African mask was never meant to exist everywhere. In traditional African societies, masks were carefully placed, moved, and stored according to clear cultural rules. These rules were not arbitrary. They reflected deep understandings of space, function, timing, and social order. This article explains where African masks were traditionally kept, why those locations mattered, and…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Few African masks are as immediately recognizable as Kifwebe. The carved concentric lines running across the face, the tall ridged crest rising from the forehead, and the stark geometric planes have made Kifwebe one…