x1986_498(2)

Muti Wa Lipiko

unidentified Mozambican

Mozambican

----

undated

The Makonde are best known for their masks representing human and animal characters. Two major styles exist: rather abstract face masks that were collected in large numbers by German colonials in what is now Tanzania, and more naturalistic helmet masks, like this one, that were produced by the Makonde living in Mozambique. These masks are associated with male and female initiations. The German ethnographer Karl Weule, who, just after the turn of the century, collected most of the masks that are now in German museums, reported that the male and female masks were used to celebrate the emergence of young women from initiation camps. ³The four masks...stand up two and two, each pair facing the other, and begin the same series of movements...The masks are of wood, two of them representing men, and two women. This is evident a hundred paces off, from the prominence give to the pelele [lip labret], whose white stands out with great effect from the rigid black surface² (Weule 1909: 235). Jorge and Margot Dias have studied the Makonde over the past thirty years and indicate that masks are worn in mapiko dances associated with the initiation of both men and women. Initiation includes instruction in the skills of adulthood, as well as in Makonde dances, songs, and the costumes and secrets of the mapiko masks. The initiates are told that the masks are not the spirits of the dead, but are worn by living men, and after a period of training in dance, they wear the masks in a great festival at the center of the village. The masks may also appear during an ngoma ceremony in which adolescents are taught about marriage and the demands of adult family life (Dias 1961: 31, 46, 57-60; Dias and Dias 1964: 56-81; 1970: 159-217). Makonde artists add to the naturalism of their carvings by using beeswax and human hair to represent scarification patterns and fashionable hairstyles. Many of the female masks include the large lip labrets that Makonde women used to wear. -- Professor Christopher Roy, School of Art and Art History, University of Iowa

East Africa
Africa
Mozambique

Makonde

Height: 9 1/4 inches
Width: 7 1/4 inches

Wood, Wax, Hair, Pigment

The Stanley Collection

University of Iowa. Stanley Museum of Art

X1986_498

U.S. and international copyright laws protect this digital image. Commercial use or distribution of the image is not permitted without prior permission of the copyright holder. For permission to use the digital image, please complete an image request form http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/forms/uima or contact the University of Iowa Museum of Art.

Contact the Stanley Museum of Art at the University of Iowa: https://stanleymuseum.uiowa.edu/about/contact/

wood (plant material)
wax
human hair
pigment

183425165

Helmet mask

Initiation

Male and female initiation