Apparently, and for the layman, the mask is an artistic and technical phenomenon which can signify, through the ubiquity of this sculpture in Black Africa, a unity of artistic expression, a stage of technological advancement, a modality of cultural expression. The mask is not in reality this sculpted figure that we are accustomed to seeing, it is a character, a being who represents both a divinity and a force in human society. At the moment he wears it, his wearer is invested with the attributes recognized by this divine and social force. An icon of primitivism, this white mask with an enigmatic face – kaolin being the color of the dead – belongs to all the spirit masks of North Gabon. This object comes from the estate of an old Ardèche family from lower Ardèche which donated several soldi