Read Within Carved Lines Free: Chapters from the African Masks Book

I spent years travelling to watch masquerades, asking elders questions, and photographing masks in the places where they still live and dance. Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is what came out of that work.

I want more people to understand what our masks truly are, so I have opened five chapters of the book here for you to read free. Start with why I wrote the book, then read the question everyone asks: are African masks evil?

The free chapters

1. Chapter 1: Why Am I Writing This Book?
   Where my fascination with masks began, and why I say there is no Africa without masks.
2. Chapter 2: Am I Giving Away Secrets?
   People warn me to stop sharing our secrets with outsiders. Here is why this book holds no secrets, and why this knowledge must be written down before more of it is lost.
3. Chapter 3: Are African Masks Evil?
   The question I am asked more than any other, and the honest answer to it.
4. Chapter 5: What Are African Masks?
   What a mask really is: its origins, its forms from face masks to full body costumes, and the materials it is made from.
5. Chapter 6: What Do African Masks Mean to Africans?
   Not decoration, not art for a wall. What our masks mean to the people who carve them, wear them and live with them.

All photographs in these chapters are my own.