Ubangi Congo Wood Mask with Beard, Early 20th century, Africa

Expressive early classic cubist Dan mask with refined expressive look, narrow open eyes and mouth and fine line scarification marks around outside of face. Created early 20th century by the Dan People...

The African Kuba Bwoom tribal mask is the oldest known mask, the Kuba bwoom mask. The materials used for the realization of the Mask are: Wood, colors and vibrates plants, caures, beads, animal hair. In dance it expresses exuberance and joy. The style is similar to that of the middle Kasai. This mask is a helmet with animal hair, carved with a very wide forehead and hollow cheeks that are announced by motifs or dashes and beads. The mouth of the mask is very pronounced carved in wood and then applied on the mask. To distinguish the forehead in different areas are used black and white beads to draw attention to other aspects of the face such as the nose and chin. The entire edge of the chin is surrounded by beads of various colors. The person wearing the mask cannot look because there are no holes for the eyes present; the mask must create the feeling of being blind. Some masks similar to the bwoom mask include the funny mask, the ram mask and initiation masks such as Nnup. The real Kuba masks...

This very flat mask originates from the Atoni people of Timor, featuring two very small eye holes. For the Timorese people masks portray both male and female ancestors, worn by warri...

This very flat mask originates from the Atoni people of Timor. For the Timorese people masks portray both male and female ancestors, worn by warriors to scare off enemies or during c...