So Dancemask - medium density wood, probably Alstonia spec. - Fang - Gabon

Great So Dancemask – Fang – Gabon In fine condition, but old and clearly much used over long periods of time. It dates to the 1920/1930 era or even prior to that. On stand. Provenance: Ex – collection of Dr. Helmuth Zimmermann of the greater Düsseldorf area. Bought from his son in 2016. Obtained by the doctor on one of his hunting trips to Gabon in the 1955 – 1960 period. So, masks are rare as they were only made and used in a limited area of the Fang territory and danced in a cycles of three years only. Although the ground form of the So- masks is much the same throughout the examples known, it is the length of the horns that vary a lot. S0 represents the red bush antelope that lives in the forest and was a kind of totem animal to the Fang. The So- society was a prestigious organization that demanded high fees from new members for initiation rituals that took months to absorb. It was only known among the most northern Fang groups like the Ntumu, Ngumba and Mvai. The mask clearly combines animal and human traits, stressing the bond between man and its totem. Literature: Louis Perrois: Ancestral Arts of Gabon, Los Angeles, 1986, pp. 150 ff. Dimensions: 48 x 20 x 11 cm. People/ Region: Northern Fang of Gabon and the border lands of Cameroon. Material: medium density wood, probably Alstonia spec. Weight: 0. 817 kg. Sold with handwritten declaration of authenticity by Dr. P. Westerdijk, museum ethnologist and cultural anthropologist specialized, for over 50 years now, in the study of the material cultures in African nations that live south of the Sahara. For the original text from seller, set language on this site to: English