Similar Posts
Pende Mask of the Congo: Types, Meanings, and Ceremonial Use
The Pende people of the Democratic Republic of Congo produce some of Africa’s most diverse masks. This guide covers the main types and their ritual roles.
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 have drifted, over time, from a role rooted in real fear or real danger toward one closer to entertainment. Few make that drift as explicit as the…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Most masking traditions on this site are built around one recurring event: an initiation, a funeral, an installation of a chief. Lwalwa masking is built around a recurring failure. When hunters came home from…
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 → Attribution in Central African art history is rarely as tidy as a museum label makes it look, and the Binji are one of the clearest examples of that on this site. Their carvers produced…
The Pende people of the Democratic Republic of Congo produce some of Africa’s most diverse masks. This guide covers the main types and their ritual roles.
