PUNU 'ikwara-mokulu' MASK
Tribe: Punu
Country: Gabon
Material: Wood, Pigment
Size: 13" (33cm)
Notes: Gallery style display stand included. Museum quality item, meticulously prepared to museum quality look.
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
**Carefully
hand selected for the best quality, and beautifully presented on museum
style display stands, they are ready for display.
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