Biała maska. Punu. Drewno. Gabon. XX wiek.

I have already written about Punu masks in this store. Here, I would like to admit that I was not a fan of these masks before. They seemed ordinary, unimpressive, and not very African to me. Now I know that in order to like and appreciate Punu masks, you have to get to know them thoroughly. Then, what I considered to be flaws become the advantages of these masks.

Generally, as I wrote earlier, these masks are divided according to the color of the pigment covering the kaolin layer into white (okuyi, mukundi) and black (ikwara).

White masks are beautiful, embodying the female ancestor, bringing joy and fun to people living on earth. They are worn by men dressed in raffia costumes that tightly cover the entire body. They dance on stilts over two meters long. Black masks appear when people are threatened by evil. They are supposed to ward off disease, misfortune, epidemics, crime, and witchcraft. Dancers wearing black masks perform after dusk, and their stilts are half as long as those worn by dancers wearing white masks. Black masks are also used during trials and to unmask people suspected of witchcraft.

There is nothing random about any of the Punu masks. The men who carve these masks, as only men are allowed to handle them, must follow a specific pattern that determines every movement of the chisel. You can choose between a high bun, a high bun with a shell-shaped veil, a high bun with veils on both sides of the head, and several other hairstyles that I cannot recall from memory. The same applies to the shape of the mouth, the slightly European nose, and the Eastern expression of the eyes.

An interesting fact is that in the 1920s and 1930s, Punu masks won the hearts of famous collectors and equally famous artists. Today, the excess of stimuli that tempt us in the modern world means that we prefer masks that are more elaborate, more exotic, and more deformed. However, even today, a rare, old, black Punu mask can cost a fortune.

The mask offered here is 30 cm high, 23 cm wide, and 12 cm deep.