Description
Dogon Buffalo Bambara Mask
Superb solid hand-carved mask by the Dogon people of Mali.
This mask comes with a custom made solid steel stand on a solid square base.
“For the Dogon, the èmma consists of a person dancing in a costume that includes a headpiece but is not limited to it.
Masks are not worn; masks are men who dance, perform and shout.
The total outfit consists of a kind of skirt and arm adornments fashioned from red and black fibers,
a pair of very wide Dogon trousers, a headpiece with cotton bands for attachment,
and various handheld objects relating to a particular mask, such as a dancing stick, a rattle, or a dancing ax.
The headpiece defines the type of mask, but the fibers define the outfit as a mask.”
The Dogon are famous for their strange and often very beautiful masks.
Many of them are devoted to animals.
They wear them to dance and imitate the behavior of the character depicted on the masks.
The Dogon are mainly found in eastern Mali in the Bandiagara region.
However, some isolated Dogon villages are located in Burkina Faso,
along the Malian border near Djibo.
Dogon Burkina country extends across this border zone.
The masks can be worn during the Dama dancing ceremonies.
The Dogon believe that the Dama dance creates a bridge into the supernatural world.
Without the Dama dance, the dead cannot cross over into peace.