Tribal Masks

Woodland tribes especially ones in the Northeast, used one culture mixed with their own. The Iroquois made wooden “false face” masks, used in healing ceremonies and carved from living trees. These masks appear in a great variety of shapes, depending on their use.

Pueblo craftsmen produce work for masked religious ritual. These are usually made of leather with appendages of fur, feathers or leaves. Some cover the face, some the whole head and are often highly abstracted forms.

Distinctive styles of masks in South and Central America began to emerge in pre-Hispanic America about 1200BC, although there is evidence of far older mask forms. In the Andes, masks were used to dress the faces of the dead. These were originally made of fabric but later burial masks were sometimes made of beaten copper or gold, and occasionally of clay.

African Mask – Teke Masks

The teke mask originates from the upper Ogowe region Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon. Members of the Kidumu society wear Teke masks either during a funeral for a chief, for weddings, or important meetings. The name of the Teke people come from the occupation of the tribal Teke-people, that is, trading from Teke, meaning “to buy”.

The teke face mask was is a round moon-shaped disk that is completely flat and is decorated with abstract geometric designs, with horizontal stripes that are painted with red or white background and painted over the background would be dark earthy colours such as blue, blacks and browns. These stripes are arranged symmetrically along both vertical and horizontal axis of the African Teke mask and they portray an abstracted interpreted human face and at the same time, the mask is designed with symbols.

Each of these Teke masks are original pieces of art, individually hand-carved. Though these masks are carved with the same style, no two are exactly the same which adds on to the values of these masks.

Teke masks are carved with local wood and are coloured with clay and paint, the mask is carved with a bar at the back of the mask, which the wearer is to hold in place with its teeth.

My Opinion

I like how they used earthy colours to paint the mask and that it looks simple, but carved with a lot of care. The reasons I don’t like it is because, it’s not so hygienic to put an inedible object into your mouth and because the mask is said to be a flat mask, the nose wouldn’t be comfortable.