- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Headpiece or helmet mask of the type associated with Sande or Bundu women's society of West Africa.
- Long description
- Wooden helmet or dance mask with a human face with an open slit under each of the elliptical spirals carved for eyes. Includes carved neck rings and an elaborate hair-style with a turtle or tortoise on the top. Stained black. [ZM 23/04/2013]
- Geographical reference
- Cultural groups
- Mende
- Date / Period
- Date made: Circa by 1900-1914
- Date collected
- circa 1900-1914
- Acquisition information
- Purchased: 1984
- Materials and processes
- Material Wood Plant, Material Pigment, Process Stained, Process Carved, Process Incised
- Dimensions
- Diameter: max 240 mm, Height: max 410 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1984.28.1
- Research and responses
The elliptical spirals for the eyes seem unusual on this mask, although it has many other typical features of the helmet masks associated with the Sande or Bundu women's society of West Africa (a women's society that traditionally, plus continues to be, involved with preparing and educating girls into womanhood). The website of the 2009 to 2012 UK funded project Reanimating Cultural Heritage of Sierra Leone includes examples of helmet masks from the collections of the Sierra Leone National Museum and UK museums. In each case they are referred to as a sowei mask with a description that includes the following: Carved wooden helmet mask used by the exclusively female Sande (Mende) or Bondo/Bundu (Temne) societies. The mask is traditionally worn by a high-ranking member of the society, the dancing sowei, known as the ndoli jowei among the Mende or a-Nowo among the Temne. Worn with a raffia costume, the masks typically have a polished black finish with neck rings, elaborate coiffure and dignified facial expression. The mask is thought to represent conceptions of idealised womanhood.' (see sowei masks under search the collections at http://www.sierraleoneheritage.org). In addition, there is a film showing a dancer wearing a helmet mask (see Sowei on the video clip gallery). For further information about Sande masquerades and examples of these masks see G.H. Imperato and P.J. Imperato: Bundu Sowei Headpieces of the Sande Society of West Africa (New York, 2012) or R.B. Phillips: Representing Woman Sande Masquerades of the Mende of Sierra Leone (California, 1995) (copies of both in the Balfour Library) [ZM 24/04/2013]
- Associated publications
- Illustrated in colour as Figure 4.2 on page 60 of '"By Their Fruits You Will Know Them": Sande Mask Carvers Identified', by Frederick John Lamp, in Jan-Lodewijk Grootaers and Alexander Bortolot (eds), Visions from the Forests: The Art of Liberia and Sierra Leone (Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2014), pp. 56-81. Caption (same page): '4.2 | Mende | Sierra Leone | Sand Helmet Mask, late 19th or early 20th century | Wood | H. 16 1/8 in. (41 cm) | Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, U.K., no. 1984.28.1 | Captain Charles Claude Humphreys, who regularly sailed between England and Sierra Leone from 1900 to 1914, collected this mask in the early twentieth century. The mask was formerly owned by Humphreys's daughter Aylwin Patricia Chancellor, to whom he had given it. It is attributed to Sogande the father of an earlier member of Workshop Nòwo-9.' Lamp discusses the Workshop Nòwo-9 on pages 60-64, noting (page 61) 'This style has a long history. A Sande mask probably by the same workshop, now in the Pitt Rivers Museumn, University of Oxford, was probably collected between 1900 and 1914 in Sierra Leone.' [JC 14 1 2016]
Search terms: Mask, Dance, Ritual and Ceremonial, Figure, Dance Accessory, Animal Figure