Helmet mask with four faces "ngontang"

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Description

light-weighted wood, painted in white and black, in shape of a high-towering cylinder, carved with four, nearly identical faces with stylized features, coiffure of seven ring-shaped arranged lobes, cut signs and symbols, slightly dam., cracks, min. insect caused damage, traces of old age;
the “ngontang” mask type probably originated near the juncture of northern Equatorial Guinea, northern Gabon, and southwestern Cameroun. It appears to have been a synthesis of mask styles and dance movements already established in the region. “Ngontang” was first documented in Gabon between 1920 and 1930. Performances may relate to a range of different occasions from a family’s commemoration of the life of a deceased member or its announcement of a birth to an important public gathering. In some Fang communities the mask appears to have been used in ritual dances related to the “bieri” ancestral cult, especially for detecting sorcerers. Its Fang name, meaning “the young white woman”, reflects the belief in supernatural power inherent in the European and American missionaries, especially among the women, who were very rare on the coast in the nineteenth century. Sculptural works related to this performance depict serene softly curved feminine features covered with white chalk. Among the Fang, white is the colour of ancestral spirits.The male performers who wear such masks in dance undergo an initiation that affords them the necessary protection, talent and lightness of movement. Over the course of a performance it is said that they are possessed by the spirit of the “young white girl”.

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Comparing literature

Bassani, Ezio u.a., The Power of Form, Mailand 2002, p. 120 f. Siroto, Leon, East of the Atlantic West of the Congo, San Francisco 1995, ill. 2 Hahner-Herzog, Iris, Das Zweite Gesicht, Genf, München, New York 1997, ill. 67

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