Most masks in this book appear repeatedly, at funerals, at harvests, at initiations that recur every generation. The Temne of Sierra Leone built one that does the opposite: a mask representing the guardian spirit of a ruling dynasty, seen in public only once, during the enthronement of a new chief, after which it disappears and…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Owning an African mask outside its place of origin is not inherently wrong—but it does come with responsibility. African masks were created within specific cultural systems. When they leave those systems, their meaning does…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several fetish or power-figure traditions documented in this book assign one carved form a single, fixed job. The Kongo, spread across three countries at the mouth of the Congo River, built a system where…