New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Most carved figures documented in this book preserve, at minimum, the basic proportions of a body: head, torso, limbs, even when stylized heavily. The Goma of the northwestern end of Lake Tanganyika carved four-legged…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Many masking traditions documented in this book carry ritual, initiatory, or entertainment functions. The Mau, northern neighbors of the Dan in Côte d’Ivoire, carve one whose purpose is closer to a courtroom than a…
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…
Not the same recycled eight sentences. Twenty specific, checkable facts about African masks, from bite bar wear to what Britain took in 1897.
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…