Mask "ntomo" · Mali, Malinke · ID: 3040648
Mark Eglinton, New York, USA
Description
wood, dark brown patina, crowned by eight vertical protruding horns, large parts of the mask covered with silver metal sheet, min. dam., slight traces of abrasion;
the Malinke, Marka, Bamana und Minianka of the Senegal and Niger Rivers valleys in southwest Mali have much in common: they are agriculturalists, they all use Manding or Manding-related languages as their lingua-franca and their societies are organized in “ton” or age group associations. Nearly all the masks from this region are zoomorphic or anthropo-zoomorphic, even when, in some cases, the animal portrayed is not immediately identifiable. The masks even depict, as always in a highly stylized manner, animals which have now become extinct in the area and only oral tradition and these masks witness their former presence.
Comparing literature
Museum of Primitive Art (ed.), Bambara sculpture from the Western Sudan, New York 1960, ill. 105