Mask - Gabon (No reserve price)

Gabonese masks are often named after the rites with which they participate (Bwiti, bwété, byéri, ngil, emboli, okuyi, mukuyi...).

They come into play in every vital circumstance for the community: social rites (mourning, funerals, illnesses), rites of purification or fertility (birth, adolescence, virginity), rites of reconciliation and justice (to restore the chief's authority, harmony within families, or to resolve intergenerational conflicts), or finally protective rites (which aim especially to attract the good graces of ancestors or spirits...).

The Mukuyi masks, commonly called “white masks,” are coated with kaolin which in the old days was mixed with powdered human bones. This ritual white cosmetic, still in use throughout equatorial Africa, is called Pfemba.