Mask - Gabon (No reserve price)

Fang mask

Mask
This African mask appears during ceremonies, the Bweete or Swece, at the Gaboos and embodies an ekuk, a forest spirit. Two faces joined, with a heart-shaped hollow face, adorned with fine smiling lips tucked at the end of the meoton. A reinforcement forms the lower part of the mask. A two-colored comb eroded; depending on the presence and arrangement of horns, the masks are called pibibudze, Ekuku zokovete, or are associated with the ancestors or forest spirits ekuk. Tribe of the Kota group, the Kwele. Bakuele live in the forest on the northern border of the Republic of the Congo; they live by hunting, farming, and metallurgy. The cult named Swété, borrowed from the Nowexes, was accompanied by obligatory initiation rites; at the end of the ceremonies they used four elephant or gorilla zoomorphic masks, the ekuk masks evoking the antelope whose horns meet in a loop under the chin. The antelope’s Lesang was also used among the Kwélé for therapeutic purposes. The Beete takes place over several days and ends with the consumption of a medicinal dish that has an active...