Kpelié mask

Among the enormous multiplicity of African ethnic groups few have made metal masks. Except for the Dogon who have built some iron mask, there is no data on other masks made of the same metal. Although more numerous the manufacture and use of bronze masks is also limited to very few ethnic groups. Although the techniques of casting bronze and lost wax have been dominant for several millennia, as evidenced by the works produced that include an important variety of objects, small figures, exvotes, heads, statues, weights weighing gold, pipes and ornaments, the existence of bronze masks seems to date from much more recent dates, about six to eight decades, except for some of Benin's old mask. These relatively recent invoice masks have no known ritual value, they are rather prestigious masks intended to show the rank of their owners although in some places they are revered, as protective figures, and revered in family altars. Most of it is true works of art that demonstrate the great technique achieved by its castors.

The Kpelié mascra is one of the most representative masks of senufo art, representing for them the canon of feminine beauty. This decidedly anthropomorphic mask unquestionably reaches the highest level of aesthetic refinement of the senufo creations. An elongated and straight nose with wide fins on an equally elongated face, facing flimsy, and eyes normally reduced to two thin slits, under large eyelids. The mouth, embossed, circular or rectangular, shows the carved teeth. They usually have hyena ears, but not in this case, and antelope legs. On the head they usually present a calao, mythical bird of the Senufo or some character, a woman in our mask, or antelope horns and in many cases a combination of both. On the forehead the representation of the navel of Katyeleus, the old mother of the world and the supreme divinity of the Senufo. These faces seem to radiate spirituality, meditation and mystery and transmit an abstract notion, that of the immaterial being whose identity is revealed only to the neophyte at the end of the most important, sometimes painful, trials of initiation. Precisely the purpose of the Kpelié mask is to remind the neophyte of the imperfection and precariousness of the human condition, disastrous consequences of mystical adultery.

It is one of the main masks used in pore ceremonies and according to liturgical needs are masks can be male or female. It is worth noting his patina that manifests a great antiquity for a bronze mask.