Three-faced mask "ngontang"
Pace Primitive, New York, USA (1987)
Raphael Roux, Paris, France
Description
wood, kaolin, red pigment, black paint, vaulted corpus carved with nearly identical mask faces, the larger face in the middle provided with loop-shaped scarification marks on the cheeks and zigzag tattoos above the mouth, eyebrows marked by pointed double arches, drilled holes, slightly dam., minor missing parts (left mask, backside at the rim), abrasion of paint.
The mask type “ngontang” was first documented between 1920 and 1930. Performances may relate to a range of different occasions from a family’s commemoration of the life of a deceased member or its announcement of a birth to an important public gathering. In some Fang communities the mask appears to have been used in ritual dances related to the “bieri” ancestral cult, especially for detecting sorcerers. Its Fang name, meaning “the young white woman”, reflects the belief in supernatural power inherent in the European and American missionaries, especially among the women, who were very rare on the coast in the nineteenth century. Sculptural works related to this performance depict serene softly curved feminine features covered with white chalk. Among the Fang, white is the colour of ancestral spirits.The male performers who wear such masks in dance undergo an initiation that affords them the necessary protection, talent and lightness of movement. Over the course of a performance it is said that they are possessed by the spirit of the “young white girl”.
Comparing literature
Publications
David, Jean & Jane, Gabon, Zurich 2005, ill. 80AHDRC: 0046178