Unidentified Lwena Artist
Date:
Before 1925
Medium:
Wood, plant fiber, and glass beads
Size:
Depth: 8 11/16″
Width: 9 1/16″
Height: 9 1/16″

Initiated men are the ones who perform the Mwana Pwo masquerade. They wear a costume made of braided plant fiber and adorn themselves with wooden breasts and a skirt. This, however, is not an act of personal gender expression. Rather, it is an act of transformation. When Mwana Pwo dances, the ancestral spirit represented by the mask is thought to come alive, bringing the female ancestor it represents to life in the performance space.

Gift of Alan Wurtzburger, By Exchange, Through the Cooperation of Murray and Barbara Frum, Toronto BMA 1982.1

Looking Skeptically

Transcript

[Kathryn Wysocki Gunsch] If you look at this mask closely, you’ll see that there is perfect symmetry to the facial markings. When you look at the perfectly plaited hair, you can see how neatly that was added to the top of the mask. And then we have small strands of beads that aren’t symmetrical and that aren’t neatly applied. These might’ve been added to the mask after it left Angola by a dealer or trader who wanted to convince an American buyer that this was really African. Especially in the early part of the 20th century, African art was seen as primitive or somehow not interested in symmetry and order. And so it’s possible that someone added these beads to make the masks meet the expectations of buyers. Now that these beads have been added, we will keep them as part of the history of the object.