Dan Mask

"The agricultural folk lives in a region of mountains and wooded savanna in the western Cote d'Ivoire, near the cities of Man and Danané, and in adjacent regions in Liberia. They speak a language derived from the Mande group and are considered to be the Mande of the south; they number about 350,000, and 270,000 in the Cote d'Ivoire.

The Dan live essentially in villages and are organized in patrilinear lineage groups; children live with their fathers, and marriage is governed by the rule of double exogamy, which prohibits union between cousins in both maternal and paternal lines. For the most parts, they have remained faithful to ancestral rites, and they posses numerous sacred objects, principally masks."

Bibliography: Werner Schmalenbach (ed.), African Art, Prestel-Verlag, Munich, 1988, p.108