Mourning face mask "okuyi"
Description
wood, corresponding with the Punu ideas of beauty: half-closed eyes, finely arched eyelids, a narrow nose, a mouth with red lips, hairdo with central crest and flat lobes aside, characteristic whitened facial plane (extremely abraded), forehead tattoo, slightly dam. (eyes, chin, lips), missing parts (head, lobes, chin right hand side), crack, rep. (breakage at the chin), socle;
belonging to the so-called “white-faced masks from the Ogue”. These masks represented female entities from the spirit world, fantastical beings who intervened in the villages on important collective occasions: bereavements, palavers, the birth of twins, times of epidemic, hunts for malevolent sorcerers, and so on. Masked dancers standing on stilts would confront each other in “jousts”. Each dancer would be assisted by a team, whose purpose was to help him perform his competition with an acrobatic feat. The best dancer in the eyes of public would win the match.
The mask served as motif for the photo “Solarisation au masque Punu” of the french photographer Maurice Tabard, which is dated from 1936. For a copy of the photo see the catalogue KAOS, 2007, p. 38.