Although buffalo, and to a lesser degree monkey, masks predominate among Mumuye horizontal masks, there is evidence from a small number of divergent types for experimentation with images of birds, wild pig, dog, and others that defy easy identification.
Masks worn horizontally on the head are found across the Middle Benue. In their forms and meanings, they fuse references to animals and humans, the wild and domesticated. The resemblances between masks made by the Chamba, Mumuye, Jukun, Yukuben, Kuteb, and Kantana/Kulere peoples are evidence of a set of broadly shared religious ideas. These ideas and their materialization as masquerades must have spread across the region long before the nineteenth century. With few exceptions, the masks performed in rites of passage (particularly the initiation of young men, the individual and collective remembrance of the dead, and the shifting of seasons).
These hybrid masks are grouped to reveal their strong formal commonalities: each has a central helmet, or cap, where the wearer’s head is covered; backward horns; and a frontal snout. They combine shorthand references to the horns of the dwarf forest buffalo (or bushcow) and to the human skull, as well as other to other human features, for example, nose, ears, hair plaits, or scarification markings. Some performed in gendered pairs with the females taking a distinctively different form. (The Middle Benue: Resemblances, Connected Histories, Fowler Museum at UCLA)
On customised stand
Provenance: Private collection, London, UK
For a qualified reference, see: Berns, Fardon, Kasfir, 2011, 'Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley'
Fardon, R., 2007, 'Fusions, Masquerades and thought style east of the Niger-Benue confluence, West Africa'
David Malík PhD
Founder/Director
