Makonde Terracotta Mask, Mozambique or Tanzania

Estimate

15,000 - 25,000 USD

bidding is closed

Description

terracotta
Height: 6 1/4 in (16 cm)

Provenance

Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Munich, acquired in the late 1970s

Exhibited

Grassi Museum für Völkerkunde, Leipzig, Kunst aus Ostafrika/Art of East Africa, September 10, 2004 - January 2, 2005

Literature

Giselher Blesse, Kunst aus Ostafrika/Art of East Africa, Leipzig, 2004, p. 29

Catalogue Note

Although there appears to have been a long tradition of terracotta masks amongst the Makonde, until quite recently they were almost entirely undiscussed in the literature. Schaedler (1997: 316) notes that “independent reports from very recent times [… indicate that the masks] presumably represent the female counterpart to the masks for male initiation, since the women perform the initiation of girls and make the ceramic masks […]”.

In his important work on Makonde masquerades, In Step with the Times: Mapiko Masquerades of Mozambique, Israel (2014: 185), notes that “The women’s vitengamatu [sing. shitengamatu, meaning literally “open your ears”], made in clay, dance only once a year in the final coming-out ceremonies (nkamangu) of feminine puberty rites, held in the thick of the bush and almost paranoically guarded from intrusion. They are never danced in public, and men die without ever seeing them.”