Bobo Nwenka mask

The Nwenka Bobo mask (Hauts Plateaux region, Burkina Faso)

According to Bobo tradition, the Nwenka mask is a gift from a supernatural hornbill who, after being wounded by a blacksmith, revealed his knowledge to humans... Teaching rather than revenge, that was the legacy received from an enlightened being.
It is a helmet mask (leaving the back of the masked man's neck exposed), with a fluted and exaggeratedly elongated face, crowned by a crest of several empty rhombuses and the head of Kuma, the revealing hornbill.
The one we offer you at Black Market has four rhombuses, which allows it to be identified as a Nwenka-Kagu, which allows the face of a man belonging to the blacksmith clan to be hidden. It is usually used in the Sibe rite to sanctify death.

Height: 167 cm