Superb Rare Colorful Yaure Harvest Celebration Mask, Ivory Coast

When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Superb Rare Colorful Yaure Harvest Celebration Mask, Ivory Coast:
$165.00

The masks of the Yaure represent human faces oftensupplemented by animal attributes. They have an elongated face with aprotruding mouth and pierced semi-circular eyes set under a high forehead. Anelaborate plaited coiffure parted on each side, often with horns at the end,completes the image, while the outline of the mask is characteristicallysurrounded by a serrated edge. The masks are considered emblems of yu spirits,very dangerous; they have to be handled with extreme caution. Cases of deaththat jeopardize the social order are the principal occasions for an appearanceof masqueraders. By means of their dance, they restore the social equilibriumof the community and accompany the deceased into the ancestral realm. Thesemasks are worn predominantly on two occasions: the je celebration and the lo ceremony. The first purifies the villageafter a death and helps the deceased\'s soul on its way to a final restingplace. Painted masks are mainly worn by dancers during this ceremony, while forlo funeral ceremony masks covered with black pigments appear. Women maynot participate in funeral ceremonies, neither may they look at the masks, forfear that this encounter with death might jeopardize their fecundity. Thismeans that before starting the village’s purification rituals related to adeath, for prudence sake the women are gotten out of the way. With the aid ofsuch masks, the people hope to influence supernatural powers, or yu spirits,that can do harm to humans, but that can also ensure their welfare. Thefunction of each type of mask is not rigidly fixed, which leads to theirappearance during either ceremony.

Material:wood, carefully painted mask. RELISTED AT A LOWER PRICE.
Measurements: 17\" in height by 9\" at width

Posted with Mobile