This male mask, known as ‘Chihongo’, depicts a powerful ancestor of the Chokwe. Only the Chokwe chiefs or their sons danced with this type of mask when they went on ‘reconnaissance journeys’ through the villages of their dominion. With their masks dance, they emphasised - in full body costumes and wild dance leaps - their strength, power and authority, collected tributes and pronounced judgements.
The present old 'Cihongo-mask' displays the typical features of the Chokwe-style: carved relatively thinly from hard wood, dyed black and brown, with noticeable traces of red ochre coating. The band of the hairpiece, made up of short vertical strands in relief, tops the wide forehead with its central tribe-typical sign of the Chokwe, the ‘Cingelyengelye’ as an upwardly grooved relief (a type of Maltese cross). The wide eyebrow arches are dyed black. Big slitted ‘coffee bean eyes’ sit inside arched eye sockets, next to a small, curved nose with a grooved along the bridge of the nose. Both cheeks bear each 2 typical scarification marks, called ‘tears’. The small, protruding ears are pierced, for metal rings as ear pendants. The mouth – wide, open and pointedly converging at the front – opens onto 2 rows of pointy teeth. The mouth and lips are also dyed black, as is underneath the outer rim of the continuously carved round beard. A ‘coif’ of plant fibres was originally attached to the holes at the upper rim of the mask. Two minor tears and an even smaller inconsequential loss in the surface of the beard. Otherwise no damage. A rare object with good and partly shiny usage patina (on the inside at the back as well). Height: 23 cm; first half of the 20th century. (ME)

Provenance:
Austrian Private Collection.

Lit.:
'La Sculpture Tshokwe' by Marie-Louise Bastin, ill. 34 to 37; 'Chokwe!' by Manuel Jordan, ill. 69, 70, 71 et al.