African Arts Gallery

An established population on both sides of the Black Volta in Burkina Faso and Mali, the Bwa are divided into three endogamous castes: blacksmiths, griots and farmers. The Bwa believe in a god Difini creator of the world, who later abandoned him to his son Do. Do, whose emblem is an iron rhombe named alive , is supposed to intervene during funerals and agrarian rites. The leaf masks are made by the villagers, only the South Bwa, the niegue , produce wooden masks often zoomorphic, and the famous board masks, abstract, representing the spirits of nature, the naw . (C.Roy) Incarnating a spirit, this mask abstractly evoking the calao bird is topped with a vertical plank and a feminine figure reminiscent of the style of gurunsi masks. The mask owner and his family worshipped the object through offerings such as millet beer, while invoking its protection. The surface bears symbolic geometric patterns. Patina of chipped kaolin. The black patina was usually obtained from charcoal and gum pods.