Nyabwa mask

The Beté masks were tradicionally war masks intended to frighten the enemy and enkindle its fighters, they also appeared to establish peace. For some time they have been participating in playful ceremonies. Its features are usually exaggerated, eye bumps, wide nasal fins, superimposed by thick wooden semicircles or concentric horns as if they were thick spider legs that are touched. Currently these last masks are called a spider mask. But we are facing a mask that breaks with the usual canons of war masks. This mask has replaced the horns with bony and robust fingers that hide the face to look at and curiously it is huge thumbs that touch each other, guarding the rest of the fingers a few centimeters away. The eyes are small and rectangular, the mouth prominent, formed by thick lips. The expression of the mask is as if it were afraid to look, it certainly represents the aversion to war. Ancient greyish patina.