Hyena or cheetah mask

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Description

wood, black, red and white pigment, collection number “G197”, base

For the “dama”, or final commemorative ceremony for important Dogon elders, hundreds of masked dancers perform, creating a brilliantly colored, ever-changing spectacle of scupture, costume, song and dance.

During his research in the 1930’s Marcel Griaule documented more than seventy different mask types, representing animals, birds, human characters, and abstract concepts, which he considered to be a visual summary of the world surrounding the Dogon.

The function of the masks is to release the spirit “nyama” of the deceased from the world of the living, the village environment, and to set the “nyama” on its course to the world of the ancestors.

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Comparing literature

Bilot, Alain, Masques du pays Dogon, Paris 2001, p. 105, ill. 42

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Publications

Imperato, Pascal James, Dogon Cliff Dwellers, New York 1978, p. 37, ill. 15

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