Mask
Culture: Ibo
Provenience: Nigeria
Materials: Wood & Pigment
Description: Elaborate tall openwork crest above narrow whitened face. “Maw Dancer’s Mask: The dancer’s are men whose heads are covered by the masks and their bodies and limbs, including hands and feet, by a costume made partly or wholly of netted fiber. They represent the spirits of the deceased whose funeral rites are celebrated by the Maw society, and other ancestral spirits, which are believed to visit their own relations and descendants on these and certain other occasions.“