Helmet Mask: Sowei

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Helmet Mask: Sowei

Artist Mende people, Sewa subgroup

Place of OriginSierra Leone

Datelate 19th - early 20th century

Dimensionsincludes length of raffia, H: 30 in. (76.2 cm);
mask, H: 18 in. (45 cm)

Mediumwood and pigment with raffia fringe

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

2006.1

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 13, Canaday

Collections

Sculpture

Published ReferencesWilliam Siegmann, "Women's Hair and Sowei Masks in Southern Sierra Leone and Western Liberia," in Roy Sieber and Frank Herreman, eds., Hair in African Art and Culture, exhibition catalogue, The Museum for African Art, New York (Munich: Prestel, 2000) 70-77.

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 48, repr. (col.).

Reich, Paula, Toledo Museum of Art: Map and Guide, London, Scala, 2009, p. 48, repr. (col.)

Page, Jutta-Annette, Peter Morrin, and Robert Bell, Color Ignited: Glass 1962-2012, Toledo, OH, 2012, p. 133, repr. (col.). fig. 4.

Exhibition HistoryVisions d'Afrique, National Museum of History, 6 December 2003 - 22 February 2004,Taipei, Taiwan, 2004, p. 122, cat. no. 75.

Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art, Student Curators Present: African Art, April 27-July 24, 2012 (Hitchcock Gallery).

Comparative ReferencesSee also Ruth B. Phillips, "Masking in Mende Sande Society Initiation Rituals," Africa (London) 48 (3) 1978: 265-77.

See also Carol P. MacCormack, "Sande: The Public Face of a Secret Society," in Bennetta Jules-Rosette (ed.), The New Religions of Africa (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Company, 1979) 34-40.

See also Ruth B. Phillips, "The Iconography of the Mende Sowei Mask," Ethnologische Zeitschrift Zürich 1 1980: 113-32.

See also Lester Monts, "Dance in the Vai Sande Society," African Arts 17 (4) Aug 1984: 53-59, 94-95.

See also Frederick Lamp, "Cosmos, Cosmetics, and the Spirit of Bondo," African Arts 18 (3) May 1985: 28-43, 98-99.

See also Sylvia Ardyn Boone, Radiance from the Waters: Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Mende Art (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), particularly Chapter 5, "Sowo: The Good Made Visible," pp. 153-244, which itemizes the features that make a mask beautiful and alluring to Sande eyes.

See also Daniel Mato and Charles Miller, Sande: Masks and Statues from Liberia and Sierra Leone (Amsterdam: Galerie Balolu, 1990).

See also Ruth B. Phillips, Representing Woman: Sande Masquerades of the Mende of Sierra Leone, exhibition catalogue, UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History (Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1995).

See also Pamela McClusky, "Beauty Stripped of Humans Flaws: Sowei Masks," in Art from Africa: Long Steps Never Broke a Back, exhibition catalogue, Seattle Art Museum (Seattle, WA and Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2002) 197-213.

Label TextWomen in Africa almost never dance wearing masks, so the masquerades of the Sande Society are nearly unique. Mende men take many wives, and every woman is expected to marry after she has been initiated into Sande. The mask fits closely over the head, and the intricate hairstyle, downcast eyes, small mouth, delicate ears, and ringed neck represent ideal feminine beauty.