Tribal Art

This version of African mask, a crest mask embodying a spirit of the bush, combines animal features such as a beak or a bifid mouth and rounded horns rising from a conical volume. These very refined masks, associated with the mangam ceremonies of the Mama, or Kantana, here a buffalo mask, are used within the ethnic group by members of a male association responsible for maintaining social order and increasing or promoting agricultural production. It is indeed north of Benoué that several ethnic groups produce very stylized masks worn horizontally.

Velvety pink ocher patina.
Desication cracks and signs of use.

This mask whose horns symbolize fertility is therefore danced during festivals in relation to agricultural fertility and sometimes human fertility.
The Mama buffalo masks are kept in the sacred wood and are brought back to the village to accompany the deceased into the world of the beyond or to participate in the enthronement of a chief.