MASKS

What roles do masks play in African art? Discuss and bring in at least 3 examples from 3 different cultural contexts.

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The custom of masking appears to have transcended most African intercultural boundaries. Despite the geographic, religious, economic, and other diversity we have witnessed so far in our analyses of various African cultures, masking has pervaded nearly all of them. What are the commonalities in the way this custom is performed? And how are the details, motivations, and performances of the custom adjusted from culture to culture?

Using four cultures -- Senufo, Igbo, Dogon, and Bamana -- I hope to illustrate both similarities and differences in the reasons for and execution of masking rituals across Africa.

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For a relatively broad introduction, I would like to point out some perceived commonalities in the masking custom. Firstly, a discussion of the significance of the custom. More often than not, masking appears to be a way of contacting, communicating with, manipulating, or honoring the spirit world. The supernatural and its interactions with natural earthly processes -- rain, harvest, birth, death, etc. -- are intricately connected, and masking is a way to navigate that connection.

But the goal of such a navigation varies: it ranges from warding off evil spirits, to calming angry spirits who could effect the harvest, to encouraging fertility, to divination to helping a loved one cross into the afterlife -- the list goes on and on.

Bamana masking shows variety even intraculturally, as within the Bamana cultures there are five types, as we discussed: Ciwara, Ntomo, Kore, Kono, and Komo. Though initially believed to represent a sort of hierarchy, scholars now know that simply come from different regions of the culture with slightly different customs.

Of these masks, however, the Ciwara is particularly interesting in determining the role of a mask in African culture. This is because a particularly utilitarian attitude can be taken towards this mask: despite its striking aesthetic, it is in fact very much a functional tool. As we learned, dances on the grounds to be harvested are performed to calm angry spirits and ensure a bountiful season.

Therefore, we see for the first time masks being used to make pleas from and manipulate the spirit world for its effects on the natural world.

Dogon masks like the Sirigue above can also vary in function. The Sirigue is known to depict the "house of many stories" and has multiple purposes. The first is for important funerals, most likely to combat evil so as to allow the deceased to pass into the world of the ancestors unharmed. Here, we see the supernatural being invoked not for the secular world, but for more things supernatural, a contrast from what we saw with the Chiwara mask.

But the Sirigue mask is not suitable for all tasks. In fact, a different mask is invoked for another purpose: to mark generational changes, it is not the Sirigue but rather the Sigui (or "Great Mask") that is used. Every 60 years, this mask is used to invoke pardon for viewing earlier masks.

But even this, too, seems somehow related to the supernatural, possibly even the afterlife: while the new generations are asking for the ancestors to spare them pain in this life, the older generation could be securing peace in their lives to come.

This firespitter mask of the Senufo actually relates to another trans-cultural phenomenon: the Janus mask. We spoke of these while discussing the Igbo, and yet here it is again, the same term, to describe a mask with the Senufo.

The Janus mask refers to an level of masking association and special powers of protection. Appropriately, it is somewhat double-headed. That is, with two heads and four eyes, it reflects its own importance by demonstrating extra spiritual power, coupled with its ability to see double: the front and the back, the earth and the spirit world, etc.

Much like the Sirigue mask of the Dogon, this firespitting Janus is used to combat evil at funerals and other ceremonies. The proximity, geographically and culturally, of Dogon and Senufo is hereby reflected, despite the tremendous aesthetic differences; masking therefore illustrates this very important phenomenon.

I conclude with a Mwo mask of the Igbo. This mask is part of an important symbolic pairing, Mwo and Mgbedike -- female and male, beauty and beast.

This masking ritual seems to introduce a new function that we have not yet seen with Senufo, Dogon, or Bamana: the function of education. As we discussed, the symbolism of the pairing reflects strong Igbo values, presumably to pass on to children and to remind adults. It teaches the lesson of intersexual dependence: "beauty, while pretty & desirous ‐ may be weak or defenseless alone, [while] beast ‐ often dangerous ‐ can be vital but can work against community harmony. [The] two represent counterposed societal values" and teach about the potential harmony of marriage.

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Masks as tools of agriculture; masks as ushers into the spirit world; masks as education tools; masks reflecting the breakdown of transcultural boundaries; masks reflecting aesthetic uniqueness from one culture to the next -- masking therefore plays a tremendous role in reflecting the complex and nuanced nature of the diversity of African art. United yet unique, similar yet distinct, masks from one culture to the next tell tales of both unity and diversity, making this custom quite a vital one indeed.

Sources (besides lecture):

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1978.412.311

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/photogalleries/dogon/

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/757032/African-art/57119/Western-Sudan?anchor=ref519988

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20167662