Masquerade Headdress
CultureKom Kingdom
Date20th century
MediumWood
DimensionsOverall: 13 5/8 × 11 1/2 × 7 inches (34.62 × 29.21 × 17.78 cm)
Credit LineGift of Drs. D. J.and L. W. Welling
Object number75-66
On View
Not on viewCollections
Gallery LabelIn Cameroon's Grasslands kingdoms, headdresses such as this, as well as masks and prestige objects, display images of wilderness animals, expressing the power and supernatural basis of elite authority. This headdress, in the form of a buffalo-a wilderness creature of massive size and strength-would have been danced during funeral celebrations honoring either a Kom king or heads of an important title-holding lineage. The three chameleons at the crest of the headdress refer to a leader's supernatural powers of transformation and the ability to communicate with the spiritual world.
Dan J. (b. 1937) and Larry W. Welling (b. 1940), Kansas City, MO, by December 1975;
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1975.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 87, (repro.).
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 251, (repro.).
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2013.47.4
2013.47.31
