Bete mask 

"The Bete are an agriculturalist group who live in southwestern Ivory Coast, between the Bandama and Sassandra rivers. Only the western Bete are known to have a masking tradition, which goes back to the Gla society of the We, and which was adopted by the neighboring Nyabwa. This origin is underscored not only by the use of the Nyabwa language during masquerade dances, but by the fact that every Bete mask wearer is introduced to its use by an initiated Nyabwa.

Masqueraders perform during burials, at the end of the mourning period, or in honor of important people. Sometimes they or one of their attendants carries a lance. This weapon possibly points to the mask's original function - that of a war mask."

Bibliography : Iris Hahner, Maria Kecskési, László Vajda, African masks, the Barbier-Müller Collection, Prestel, Munich, London, New-York, 2012, p. 32