Staff crowning with four mask faces

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Description

wood, surface treated with wax / oil, base

Artfully carved head piece of a sceptre or dignitary staff “mbweci”. Here in a rare version with four masked faces instead of just one head or Janus-shaped. Bastin commented on a staff crowning with five heads: “This sceptre may represent a chief’s lineage” (Bastin, 1982, p. 192, fig. 112).

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Comparing literature

Bastin, Marie-Louise, La sculpture Tshokwe, Gossau 1982

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