African Arts Gallery

Tsogho Mask (N° 23826)

Carved in dense wood, this deep mask concentrates its features under the volume of a protruding forehead. The discretion of the features is opposed to the roundness of the face, on which are inscribed obliquely triangular patterns. Minor losses and abrasions.
Neighboring tribe of the Pounou or Punu , the Tsogo , Mitsogo , are traditionally farmers (slash-and-burn agriculture) and matrilineal , and renowned for their very elaborate rituals of religious practice, and particularly of initiation, notably the bwiti or the mwiri for men, and the nyembe< /i> for women. They live on the right bank of the Ngoumé River. The function of their African masks is essentially the propitiation of the spirits of the ancestors and divination through the use of medicinal plants, particularly hallucinogens. Their masks are kept at the back of the ebanza house where the initiates gather.