Initiation mask "ndeemba"

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Description

wood, cloth, polychrome painted, small mask face with characteristic facial features and rattan bonnet, supporting a phantastic pagoda-like superstructure with five antenna-like projections, abundant cuff of grass fibre bundles, min. dam., traces of abrasion, base;
used at circumcision rites for young boys, symbolizing fertility and virility.

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Comparing literature

Bourgeois, Arthur P., Art of the Yaka and Suku, Paris 1984, p. 173 f.

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Exhibition

Schmerberg, Ralf, Der Stamm der weissen Krieger, Stuttgart 1994, p. 63, ill. 29

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