we're at the National Museum for African art and we're looking at a mask made by
the Chokwe people in the democratic Republic of Congo and this mask would
have been dance by a male dancer
even though we're looking at a mask that represents an ideal woman the masker
who's a man and the carver who's a man would have made this to honor women
particularly women who were young and fertile and had successfully given birth
because there was an honor in Chokwe society given to those women and this is
also a culture that is matrilineal that is the family line is passed down
through the mother and one of the reasons to dances mask was not only to
honor women who were at this stage in life but also to recognize the founding
female ancestor of the Chokwe lineage it's made of wood that's very thin and
difficult to carve receive fiber and this elaborate hairstyle we have to
imagine the rest of the costume that would have been here when the mask was
dance and this would have been a tight-fitted bodystocking covered in
raffia cloth the dancers groin area would be covered in a loincloth and he'd
be wearing wooden breasts and we're using the word dance but from the descriptions
the dancer walked in a very graceful and stately way and Chokwe women actually
do dance like that that's very graceful and fluid and slow and respectful and
when we say he's wearing a woman's face and he's wearing women's breasts he's
not impersonating a woman he's really not to honor women who have courageously
gone through childbirth and retain this inner wisdom and beauty so beautifully
articulated in the facial features and we see that sense of calm in the face
and the fact that her eyes are closed her mouth is closed suggest is turning
inward she's not talking
she doesn't need to talk at this point in life she deserves respect and she
doesn't have to open her eyes wide she's already knowing the mask itself is a
deep dark red which is probably created through a mixture of
red earth and oil but there's white kalyan or white powder around her eyes
and this whiteness is connected to the spiritual realm in fact her eyes are the
most important part of the face their abstractly big and it draws attention to
the fact that she has the spiritual ability almost of second sight that her
power comes from being able to give birth
the face is very symmetrical the kin comes to have narrower . the broadest
part of the faces by the eyes and ears this wide forehead that is accentuated
by the hairstyle and we have these constant circles that are bisected by
the lines of the mouth of the eyes and then we also have the circle of the
earring in the ear with this mass was obviously really lo ved in fact we can
see a repair on one side of the face so that they could continue to use it
we also have pounded dots around the eyes which further emphasizes their
cynical nature but also suggests women's tattoo patterns women wore a whole host
of different tattoo designs that had special references in special meaning to
the trackway people were little known until the earlier part of the 20th
century by Europeans Europeans in particular Portuguese didn't begin
trading with the Chokwe until the early nineteen hundreds and so they weren't
documented and such in the way that other groups were however the chalk way
had been part of a larger kingdom from which they broke away they had trading
relations with many groups throughout Africa and so they certainly didn't
exist in isolation and there are about a million today in the democratic republic
of congo and as this mask shows us the ideal woman and ideal virtues her
hairstyle would have been fashionable at the time so they could really see
themselves in the mask when it was being performed for them so this is an ideal
of womanhood in so many ways