Kuba - DR Congo

This mask is unusual. Judging by the facial decoration, it is a Ngaadi Mwaash mask, but it is a helmet mask whereas the classic Ngaadi Mwaash is a full-face mask, and furthermore, this one is one-eyed. As for its features, the forehead is broad and domed; the eyes, lacking eyebrows or eye sockets, are set in a small depression: one is white, globular, almond-shaped and with a transverse groove, and the other is black, also almond-shaped and with an inner depression; below they have horizontal slits to allow the wearer to see; the nose, schematic and triangular, with pronounced nasal wings, without nostrils, painted orange; the mouth, also schematic, protruding and closed, crossed by a thin horizontal black line, the upper part trapezoidal and the lower semi-elliptical, also painted orange; the ears, flattened against the temples, are realistically drawn with a Y inside them (a feature of the actual masks), also painted orange; the entire face, except for the ears, eyes, nose and mouth, is painted with black and white triangles, those on the forehead and sides being small and those around the nose-mouth area large; the two types separated by wide bands of orange, yellow, black and white stripes which, starting from beneath the eyes, spread outwards to the sides until the end of the face; the nape of the neck is decorated with alternating orange and black stripes, in the shape of a continuous V which ends at the top in orange and black stripes; the mask ends at its lower edge with a strip of fabric featuring a row of cowrie shells separated by three small beads and edged at the top and bottom by strips of white and dark blue glass beads; at the top, the mask is covered by a black-haired ox hide.

Provenance: Medicus Mundi missionaires
Argiles Collection, Barcelona