What are Songye masks used for?
These masks were and still are important in Songye religious, social, and magical rituals. Specifically the Kifwebe masks, the most well known of Songye masks, are used to ward off disaster and threats to the tribe.
What is a kifwebe mask?
Striated face masks known as kifwebe was historically created by sculptors in an area of the Zaire River Basin inhabited by both Songye and Luba communities. Significant departures in the role and formal interpretation of this sculptural genre subsequently developed in each culture.
Where is the Songye tribe located?
central Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Songye people, sometimes written Songe, are a Bantu ethnic group from the central Democratic Republic of the Congo. They inhabit a vast territory between the Sankuru and Lubilash rivers in the west and the Lualaba River in the east.
When was the Dan mask created?
Dan mask, wood, pigment, late 19th–early 20th century; in the Brooklyn Museum, New York. The roughly 1,500–4,000-foot- (450–1,200-metre-) high Dang (Dans) and Toura mountains are hot and humid and covered with lush vegetation. The area is isolated, and even the most general lines of history are unknown.
What are Kifwebe masks made of?
This type of mask is associated with kifwebe (plural bifwebe) associations in central Africa, first documented in the early 1900s by European anthropologists….Kifwebe.
| Title: | Kifwebe Element of Masquerade Ensemble |
|---|---|
| Date: | Late 19th century |
| Artist: | Artist/maker unknown, Songye, Kalebwe |
| Medium: | Wood, pigment |
What is a portrait mask?
Masks of a human face image, often called portrait masks vary in their depictions from being extremely naturalistic to images that blend stylized sculptural forms with more personal naturalistic features. This mask is of the latter type, and shows very refined definition of all the carved forms and junctures.
Where was the Dan mask made?
They originated somewhere to the west or northwest of their present lands, perhaps among the Malinke (Mandingo). The Dan are closely related to the Gere (also spelled Ngere, or Guere) to the south. Dan mask, wood, pigment, late 19th–early 20th century; in the Brooklyn Museum, New York.
Where is the Dan mask from?
The Dan people live in the western part of Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and eastern Liberia and are widely known for the wide variety of masks that are central to their cultural life and social organization. For the Dan a mask is more than just a face covering.
Where are the Chokwe people from?
Chokwe, also spelled Ciokwe, or Cokwe, also called Bajokwe, or Badjok, Bantu-speaking people who inhabit the southern part of Congo (Kinshasa) from the Kwango River to the Lualaba; northeastern Angola; and, since 1920, the northwestern corner of Zambia.
Who wore the portrait mask?
The 400,000 Baule who live in central Côte d’Ivoire in West Africa have a rich carving tradition.