Rare helmet mask "degele"
Côte d'Ivoire, Senufo, "Second Master of Lataha", Korhogo Region, Village Lataha
sold
EUR 15,000
Provenance
Sotheby’s New York, 24 November 1992, lot 67Mark Eglinton, New York, USA
Size
H: 105 cm
H: 41.3 inch
Description
wood, rep./ partly renewed
The mask type was first discovered in 1939 in a village near Korhogo.
It only appears in pairs and comes out for the “Great Funeral” - “kuumo”, an all-community festival to commemorate the important elders who have died over a four- or five-year period.
The masquerade couple and their escorts encircle the entire village, a fusion of image and act that symbolizes the continuity between the living and the multiple ancestral dead, and honors those village men and women recently “initiated” into the realm of the dead.
Comparing literature
Schmalenbach, Werner (Hg.), Afrikanische Kunst aus der Sammlung Barbier-Mueller, Genf, München 1988, p. 84Publications
AHDRC: 0072765