Idiok mask

In the villageIbibio as in theAnang there is a secret society Ekpo who is responsible for the cult of ancestors and who performs legal, political and religious functions. Your masks, iDiok, in many different forms and colors they try to parody some bad aspects of the conduct of the spirits of some deceased for which their carriers dance agitally. Many of his masks are masks with face deformations or exaggerated features that reflect behavioural changes. Some of these masks are masks of disease and reflect the ravages caused by leprosy as well as bad behaviors. The mask iDiok of the Ekpo represents a ghostly spirit, a wandering spirit, of a deceased who has not been able to reach the status of ancestor and its purpose is to provoke fear and annoy the living but can also do good works. For more effect the mask dances at night covered in raffia clothes. Its bearer has the power to symbolically kill the women and the uninitiated that it finds in its path.

We said some masks idiok of society Ekpo are masks of disease, of the spirits responsible for sickness or deformation and represent, in sum, a spirit tormented by disease. Society Ekpo, the most important of their societies along with Idiong, it exercises judicial functions and deals with political and religious aspects, it is also responsible for the cult of ancestors who are asked to protect against diseases and the initiation of young people. It is also the guarantor of the well-being of the village. In short, they have social control.

This mask of black polychrome. red and white is a mask of justice, of light wood that has resisted very badly the passage of time and has suffered a strong attack of the xylophages. It belongs to the group of talking masks, but in this case it is not the jaw the articulated part but the lower lip, which moves with the dance while speaking its Danso carrier the impression that the mask is articulating the words. Thick carved teeth that stand out on the red lip. The articulated part, to prevent its deterioration, is attached with a tip. On the forehead a scarification in the form of a picture with sixteen small pictures inside, symbology that we do not know. And, on the forehead, two parallel circular bands on which rises a kind of crown toothed with beaks.