Ndunga De Adivino mask

The Kongo have produced numerous types of masks that perform different functions. Their masks are known for the sorcerers or Ngangas who carry them during divinatory rites, in healings and in ceremonies intended to expose the guilty of a crime. This function resembles that of the royal masks of justice. The function of royal masks is primarily the exercise of power, the maintenance of order and the administration of justice. The masks of religious worship are mainly masks of initiation and circumcision. Their playful masks are very little known. There are also masks that participate in mourning ceremonies for the death of important characters.

This soothsayer mask, as is common in this category of masks, the face is divided into two colors, the right side painted in white with kaolin and the left side painted in red with tukula. A horn-like prominence emerges from the headdress. The presence of two colors is the symbol of the unification of two lands. Red and white are an allegory of the white and red lands that entered into the making of many nkissa. The white color is a ritual color, that of the aquatic spirits of the Bakongo world but it is also the color of everything positive, of purity, of strength, of generosity, of fruitfulness, of peace, of union with ancestors and of life in the hereafter while the red means life on earth with its triumphs and its failures, its joys and its sorrows, strength, suffering, power and war. The black color of the headdress represents misfortune, undisclosed secrets, witchcraft, the presence of evil spirits against whom the mask with its conjurations seeks to ward off. The mask has eyes wrapped in meditation attitude. Time skate.