Ancestral Spirit Mask
CultureMossi peoples, Nakomse subgroup
Date1800-1950
MediumWood and polychrome
DimensionsOverall: 40 1/2 × 8 1/2 × 6 inches (102.87 × 21.59 × 15.24 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: the Mr. and Mrs. William W. Baker Fund
Object numberF78-7
On View
Not on viewCollections
Gallery LabelKaranga masks are believed to contain the energies of a particular clan's protective spirit and the spirits of lineage ancestors. The masks are danced during the funeral rites of male and female lineage elders. The masquerade dance recalls the mask's mythic descent from the heavens, bringing knowledge of cotton and weaving to humankind. Its sweeping, curved superstructure resembles the shape of the shuttle used by the community's male weavers. The masked dancer's movements would have simulated the action of the shuttle passing thread back and forth across the warp.
Paris art market, January 1978;
Purchased on the Paris art market by Mathias Komor, New York, no. F425, January-March 1978 [1];
Purchased from Komor by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1978.
NOTES:
[1] According to Mathias Komor, in a letter to Ralph T. Coe, Director, March 25, 1978, copy in NAMA curatorial files, Komor bought this mask from a colleague in Paris in January 1978. Komor’s label with his stock number is on the back of the mask.
Joyce M. Youmans, “African Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,” African Arts 33, no. 4 (Winter 2000), 44, 46, (repro.).
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