- 43
Makonde Terracotta Mask, Mozambique or Tanzania
Estimate
15,000 - 25,000 USD
bidding is closed
Description
- terracotta
- Height: 6 1/4 in (16 cm)
Provenance
Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Munich, acquired in the late 1970s
Exhibited
Grassi Museum für Völkerkunde, Leipzig, Kunst aus Ostafrika/Art of East Africa, September 10, 2004 - January 2, 2005
Literature
Giselher Blesse, Kunst aus Ostafrika/Art of East Africa, Leipzig, 2004, p. 29
Catalogue Note
Although there appears to have been a long tradition of terracotta masks amongst the Makonde, until quite recently they were almost entirely undiscussed in the literature. Schaedler (1997: 316) notes that “independent reports from very recent times [… indicate that the masks] presumably represent the female counterpart to the masks for male initiation, since the women perform the initiation of girls and make the ceramic masks […]”.
In his important work on Makonde masquerades, In Step with the Times: Mapiko Masquerades of Mozambique, Israel (2014: 185), notes that “The women’s vitengamatu [sing. shitengamatu, meaning literally “open your ears”], made in clay, dance only once a year in the final coming-out ceremonies (nkamangu) of feminine puberty rites, 🍰held in the thick of the bush and almost paranoically guarded from intrusion. They are never danced in public, and men die without ever seeing them.”