New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several traditions documented in this book separate political authority from spiritual or occult power, assigning them to different offices entirely. The Sukuma of northern Tanzania collapse the two into a single person: each village…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Many peoples documented in this book take their names from a place, an ancestor, or an occupation. The Mbala of the southwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo take theirs from a color: tukula, the…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Many objects documented in this book carry ceremonial weight reserved for adults, initiates, or specialists. The Namji of northern Cameroon built theirs around a child’s plaything: a carved wooden fertility doll, given a name,…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several masking traditions documented in this book keep their objects hidden from the very initiates the rites are meant to transform, revealing finished masks only at a climactic unveiling. The Nkanu of Angola and…
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 → Several masking traditions documented in this book carry a clear, unbroken line from sacred origin to present-day use. The Duma, or Aduma, boatmen of Gabon’s Ogooue River, present a harder case: their masks are…
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 maintain a whole wardrobe of mask types, each built for a distinct spirit, rite, or society. The Landuman of Guinea are known to use exactly one: the…
Kuba, Songye, Lega, Hemba, Yombe. A guide to Congo masks, what each tradition was built to do, and how to tell them apart on sight.
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several masking traditions documented in this book carry names that describe what a group does or where it lives. The We of Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia carry a name that describes something closer to…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several masking traditions documented in this book describe communities whose fortunes rose and fell with outside trade. Few trace that arc as cleanly as the Zombo, who broke away from the Kongo kingdom in…
Abaja, pele, keke. Yoruba scarification was a document worn on the face. What the ila lines recorded, and why the practice stopped.
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 carry at least a working consensus on what their masks were for, even when the deeper symbolism stays contested. The Boa of the northern Democratic Republic of…