The Cleveland Museum of Art Special Exhibitions Gallery of Sub-Saharan African Art

  Gallery of Sub-Saharan African Art > Curator's Highlight Tour > Mask
 
 
Image of <I>Mask (tsekedi, myondo, or ndeemba)</I>, early 1900s<br>Democratic Republic of the Congo,
<br>Yaka people
<br>Wood, cloth, fibers
<br>Gift of Katherine C. White 1969.8
Mask (tsekedi, myondo, or ndeemba), early 1900s
Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Yaka people
Wood, cloth, fibers
Gift of Katherine C. White 1969.8

Mask

This mask is part of a series of eight that appear at the end of the adolescent boys’ circumcision and puberty ritual called n-khanda.

During the n-khanda, dances are organized to mark the boys’ new status and to celebrate their reintegration into the village. Embodying the ancestors who founded the ritual, such masks are worn by the master of the initiation or by the newly initiated themselves.


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