Punu-Lumbo South-West of Gabon High 30 cm Wood, kaolin, red padouk
Female face painted with kaolin, decorated on the forehead and temples by geometric scarifications set off, like the mouth, by red padouk. The combed headdress composed of two chignons and two lateral bunches, is blackened by fire; it is delimited on the obverse by thin headband that crosses the bulge of the forhead beginning behind the half-moon ears, and at the back by the throat clasp of the finery which it overhangs in the form of a parrot's beak. The collar is pierced by two attachment holes.
This mask has all the characteristics of Punu white masks: high headdress and black lacquered curvilinear plaiting, bulging forehead, perfect balance of the features chiseled in the wood manifested equally in the eyebrows and the slit eyes, the nose and the sensitive mouth. The filtering look gives the mask an appearance of mystery and intense internalization.
This type of mask was used at mourning ceremonies and evokes the spirit of a young girl. In Gabonese belief white is the colour of reincarnation, and the first Westerners to arrive in these regions were taken to be ghosts. The dancer hidden by an immense costume was often mounted on stilts, bearing a whip and a machette.
According to the type of ritual, the mask could be menacing and make the audience run away or else provoke the public's laughter.
