Mask - Côte d’Ivoire (No reserve price)

Masque Guro

Masque Gouro Zamblé )

Among the group of the southern Mande, in the center of Côte d'Ivoire, on the banks of the Bandama, the Gouro are organized in lineages, and constitute the western neighbors of the Baoulé who have borrowed several characteristics of their African tribal art creations. Animists, they have since the 1950s used a family of masks associated with the Zaouli dance. Indeed, like the Baoulé’s Goli masks, the entire Guro mask ensemble, linked to nature spirits, unfolds in two zoomorphic masks followed by a third anthropomorphic one, which is considered the spouse of the Zamblé mask, the Gu. These masks belong to families practicing the ancestor worship of lineages, which employ them for ritual and sacrificial purposes in order to win divine blessings. Priest and diviner share the predominant ritual roles among the Guro. Secret associations devote worship to the nature spirits, through the masks in which the spirits are believed to dwell. Their protective spirits called zuzu were venerated through statues placed on altars. The gu, gye and dye masks, in the hands of notables, are exhibited only at the