Superb bifacial mask - Kwélé - Gabon (No reserve price)

Kwele bifacial mask
This African mask appears during the Bweete or Bwété ceremonies in Gabon and embodies an ekuk, a forest spirit. Two faces joined, with heart-shaped features, wear fine smiling lips tucked at the end of the chin. A renflemenk shapes the lower part of the mask. A two-tone patina erodes with age. Depending on the presence of horns and their arrangement, the masks are named bibibudzé, Ekuku zokou, etc., and are associated with the ancestors or the forest spirits, “ekuk.”
From the Kota group, the Bakwélé live in the forest on the northern border of the Republic of the Congo. They live by hunting, agriculture, and metallurgy. Practicing the cult named Bwête borrowed from the Nqwves, which was accompanied by mandatory initiation rites, they used, at the end of the ceremonies, in addition to the zoomorphic elephant or monkey masks, the ekuk masks evoking the antelope whose horns meet and loop under the chin. The blood of the antelope was used by the Kwélé for therapeutic purposes. The Beete lasts several days and ends with the consumption of a medicinal dish that has been “activated” by the energy released by the dance and by the songs of the Ekuk masks.