Mask "ntomo"

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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.

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Comparing literature

Museum of Primitive Art (ed.), Bambara sculpture from the Western Sudan, New York 1960, ill. 105

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