Okoroshi Oma mask

This mask, Okoroshi Oma, like the Okoroshi Ojo, participates in the rituals destined for the cult of water, Owu, rituals that are celebrated during the rainy season that, with intermittances, lasts almost a month and are celebrated in much of the territory IgboThese rituals are the occasion for the manifestation of the water spirits, Okoroshi.

Okoroshi Oma is a benevolent, feminine mask that represents goodness, beauty and light. His face is white just like his clothes. In front of the group of good spirits Okoroshi Oma, they oppose in dance

the evil spirits incarnated in the Okoroshi Eye masks, painted in black. They represent ugliness and darkness, they are called the “punishment of God” (Ike chi). They carry a whip in their hand and adopt a threatening attitude. Their dances represent the duality between good and evil, day and night or clarity and darkness, beauty and ugliness, clarity and mystery, fertility and aridity.

Oval-looking mask whose face forms a rhombus. A double straight discontinuous line goes down from the top of the forehead to the nose, separating the nasal fins in a semicircular way. The mask has three zones of semicircular segments of different size, eyebrows, eyes and nasal fins. The mouth, embossed, with well-marked teeth, is shaped like an inverted and striated isoscele triangle. Two overlapping lines of small rectangular scarifications break the circle formed by the ears. The face of the mask, which over time seems to have lost its original white color, offers an ocher tone framed by traditional red and black colors. Old patina.