Description: Beete Gorilla (Gon) Mask from Kwele people of the border region of Gabon, Cameroon, and Congo. Partially painted white, but mostly dark brown/faded black with a stunning patina. The mask measures about 12.25" long, 5.5" wide, and has a profile of about 4.25". It is in good used condition. There is a slight crack that may have been repaired at one point on the back portion of the mouth (see photos). Not very noticeable when hanging on the wall. The Kwele believe that unexplained deaths, epidemic smallpox, and other mysterious threats to the well-being of individuals or the community are caused by witchcraft. Witches are believed to live in male or female hosts, from which they emerge at night to feed upon the internal organs of their victims. The antidote to witchcraft is the beete ritual, which includes masked performances. The beete ritual, which lasted for a week, would open with the departure of men into the forest to hunt antelope, whose flesh, seasoned with medicines, had to be eaten at a meal at the closing ceremony. During the hunt, women and children stayed in the village; after one or two days, ekuk masks would “leave” the forest, enter the village, and invite the people to come dance and sing. Ekuk means both “protective forest spirit” and “children of beete.” It displays a flat surface and often has a whitened heart-shaped face, a triangular nose, coffee-bean eyes and small or non-existent mouth. This mask, with two large horns, represents the antelope. The faces are usually painted in white kaolin earth, a pigment associated by the Kwele with light and clarity, the two essential factors in the fight against evil. Later another mask, the gon (gorilla), announced by bells, would make its entrance; the women would immediately lock up all the domestic animals inside the huts; everyone would begin looking for shelter. Gon is a dangerous mask. The wearer of the gon mask is nude – as opposed to the person dressed in the ekuk, who wears a wide skirt of fibers. The gon mask is made in the image of a skull of a gorilla, an animal feared by the Kwele because of its frequent destruction of their crops. The masks are hung in Kwele houses and also worn during dances related to initiation ceremonies of the beete cult.(Source: Yuri Raskin / African Art Museum)
Price: 85 USD
Location: Burlington, Vermont
End Time: 2024-08-18T00:52:47.000Z
Shipping Cost: N/A USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Color: Multi-Color
Original/Reproduction: Original
Tribe: Dogon
