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Outstanding African DRC Gabon Kwele Tribal Mask Inches: Height: 14.75 Inches INTERNATIONAL BIDDERS WELCOME 
Documentation of Authenticity / Any Available Provenance Will Be Included With This Piece CONDITIONWood deterioration, chips and scrapes, age cracks, worn areas, lost of pigment, overall condition fair to good. Thank you and please view my other items. BACKGROUND The Kwele believe that unexplained deaths, epidemic smallpox, and other mysterious threats to the well-being of individuals or the community are caused by witchcraft. Witches are believed to live in male and female hosts, from which they emerge at night to feed upon the internal organs of their victims. The antidote to witchcraft is the Beete ritual, which includes masked performances. Masks used in this ritual represent different protective forest spirits. Most of the masks have white faces. The Kwele consider white to be a powerful color symbolizing light and clarity, two essential weapons in the fight against witchcraft. Ekuk means both “forest spirit” and “children of Beete.” The masks are hung in Kwele houses and worn during dances related to initiation ceremonies. Their function was to "warm up" the village atmosphere in order to activate the beneficial forces. The wearer of the Ekuk mask wears a wide skirt of fibers. This mask with two connected horns represents the antelope or the ram. The Kwele are unclear about the connection between this animal and witchcraft. Painter Fred Uhlman words - Most of the artists I admired, Picasso, Modigliani, Deraini, to mention only a few, had collected African art and had been profoundly influenced by it. Shortly afterwards I bought the Baule Fetish and the Baule bobbin which are still two of the finest pieces in my collection. It is easy to see why I bought them and why from that moment I have never stopped collecting. The head of the bobbin or heddle - pulley which is after all only a functional object for the purpose of weaving seemed to me then and today as beautiful as a Greek goddess. The fetish moved me as deeply as the bobbin by its silent tragic dignity and its air of profound meditation. |
