Monkey Mask

KoréIt is the spirit of the waters. Its brotherhood pursues two objectives:

1.- Return to the human being its original harmony overshadowed by circumcision.

2.- Allow the human being to recover, on the spiritual plane, his primitive femininity, his mystical union with God and the triumph over death.

 Koré activates the moral and intellectual formation of the being. No one can pretend to any other initiation after having participated in the rituals of Koré. The big party of the Koré with the ritual of initiation takes place every two years and the practices and teachings are distributed in two times, every two consecutive years.

First time: The immortality to which the being aspires can only be obtained after a symbolic death. It is in this first part that neophytes, of the same age class, are “killed” and started to pass harsh tests. In the sacred forest of Koré they receive a complete training on the topics that concern them most, sexuality, secret cults, funeral rites, among others. It starts with the full moon and lasts for fifteen days. The sacred forest is totally forbidden to the uninitiated. Neither can women get close.

However, Koré's masks can be seen all over the world, among these masks are the hyena, lion and monkey masks.

Second time: It concerns the theomorphosis of being, which takes place twelve months later. The ceremony begins with a ritual theft of the bags with their clothes and belongings, which the neophytes hide in a hidden place and their owners will only be able to recover them by paying for some cauris that the neophytes will deliver to the head of the brotherhood, who in return will introduce a small stone into the bags. After ten sessions of ritual theft and six stones in the bags, the chief announces the date of the next ritual.

The ritual theft of their bags is assimilated to the death and reincarnation of humans. The Bambara think that the market square symbolizes the world and the bags or pulls them out of the street vendors symbolize men.

After the initiation rituals with symbolic death the initiates can already integrate into the society of adults.

The Koré is not celebrated in all villages, it is usually celebrated in the most important area of the area to which they come from the neighbouring villages. The ritual objects of the Koré are stored in the sacred forest and are the object of offering and bloody sacrifices. The priest or head of the Koré is not always the same, there is a rotation among the founding families of this group of villages.

The monkey mask, which we see here, participates in the return of the initiates to the village. Covered by young people tries to make people laugh by imitating the gestures of the animal. This mask represents the cynocephalus, although it has no resemblance to it. Time skate.