 
PUNU 'ikwara-mokulu' MASK
Tribe: Punu
Country: Gabon
Material: Wood, Pigment
Size: 13" (33cm)
Private Collection: CA, USA
These black punu Ikwara masks, which meted out justice, danced only at twilight or at night, on stilts made from musasa, muri-ditenga - 'the tree of the ghosts', which, by all accounts were much shorter than those used by the daytime Okuyi dancers. Punu (and Galwa, Lumbu or Shira) black masks in museums and collections are much rarer then the others, perhaps because of their dangerous and frankly evil nature, which, may have prompted the villagers to conceal them carefully from European collectors (like all objects connected in some way with witchcraft) and, when they had been discovered, to be more reluctant to sell them to travelers than other more banal items.
*"Visions of Africa: Punu" - Louis Perrois and Charlotte Grand-Dufay ISBN:978-88-7439-401-2
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