Chimpanzee-Human Mask

For the Hemba, so'o masks are fearsome combinations of human and wilderness animal.  The mask's features are largely human, yet the gaping, menacing mouth belongs to the fiercely predatory forest chimpanzee. The masked so'o dancer's costume, which combines monkey fur, bark cloth and the pelts of both domesticated and wilderness animals, is worn in masquerades performed during Hemba funeral rites. This mask, like the masquerade, with its unnerving mixture of human/animal, civilization/ wilderness, vividly embodies the terrifying mystery of death and the murky conceptual domains of the Hemba afterworld.