1. Sacred and Secular Imagery: The Masking Tradition

2. Pablo Picasso,
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
Oil on canvas, 1907

3. Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselle D’Avignon
(detail) 1907, oil on canvas
Mbuya (sickness) mask,
Pende, Zaire, Polychrome wood,
20th century

4. Visual metaphors

5. Nkisi Nkonde,
Kongo Peoples, Zaire
Wood, cord, iron, nails, feathers, pigment
Natural fibers
20th century h. 83 cm

6. Fante Linguists with staffs, Fante Region Ghana

7. Stool with mudfish motif, bronze, Benin, Nigeria, Late Period
Metaphor of transformation, survival and continuity

8. The mask is the mediating force at that delicate intersection
between the real and the imagined; the concrete and the imperceptible;
The serious and the playful; the whimsical and the terrifying; the living and the dead
Ancestral veneration/worship; mediation
Rites of passage—education
Social control—punitive; intervention; social harmony
Entertainment—humor and satire.

9. Ancestor Veneration

10. Figure with Mask like Head,
Rock Painting, Tassili, 10,000 BP

11. Oba William Ayeni,
Orangun of Ila wearing the
Great Crown (Ade Nla) with beaded
Veil,
Yoruba Peoples, Nigeria
20th cent

12. Kuba King in full ceremonial
Regalia surrounded by
Members of his family,
BaKuba, Congo/ Zaire
Early 20th cent.

13. Chiwara Masquerades in performance during the agricultural cycle,
Bamana Peoples, Mali

14. Education

15. Sowei Headdress,
Sande society, (Gola, Vai Peoples)
Liberia Sierra Leone
Wood, pigment
20th century

16. Fire spitter mask (kponugu), Senufo, Ivory Coast
Wood, 20th century

17. Social Control

18. Gelede Headdress with two pythons attempting to swallow a tortoise
Yoruba, Nigeria, wood, pigment, 20th century

19. Entertainment

20. Masquerades, Yoruba, Nigeria, wood, cotton, 20th century