The Truth About Traditional African Masks and Their Use

New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several court traditions documented in this book concentrate their visual identity in a single royal emblem, a specific object or symbol reserved for the throne. The Mangbetu, who relocated their kingdom to the northeastern…

New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Most funerary objects documented in this book are built to last, kept in a shrine or passed down as a lineage’s most protected possession. The Ntomba, 5,000 people living on the banks of the…

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…