Ty Wara Female, Bamako Style

Tyi wara, ty or ti wara, chy, ci or cy wara: many names are used for the best-known crest mask of the Bambara.

It is the mythical antelope, born of the union of the old mother Mousso Koroni and the snake, one of the five primordial animals, which taught people to cultivate the land and revealed the secrets of agriculture. Its stylised representation of the hippotragus, or horse antelope, is the emblem of the ‘Fla-n-kuru’, a brotherhood of the Tyi Wara society belonging to the age-grade system, which brings boys and girls together in a single seven-year age group. These youth associations have the social purpose of clearing land or helping the most disadvantaged with fieldwork, such as sowing and harvesting. This assistance forms part of the initiation process. On these occasions, a pair of dancers wearing male and female Tyi Wara masks, protective animals of the crops, would appear, preceded by a sacrificer carrying a fetish and accompanied by a jester mask. The masks went through the fields, imitating the movements of the hippotragus, to drive out the ‘nyama’,

negative emanations, detect any danger or discover malevolent spirits capable of tearing the soul from cultivated plants or the life force from their seeds.

Bambara mythology tells that the hippotragus, sent by Faro, gave humankind its first cereals and then taught people to work the land. The masks always appear in pairs, male and female. Their wearers’ bodies are covered with plant fibres, and the mask is fixed to a kind of wicker basket on the head, or secured with plant fibres.

The female antelope carries a small antelope on her back as a symbol of motherhood and fertility.

The male couple symbolizes the union, strength and wisdom the farmer needs to fertilize and cultivate the land that will give him and his family food. It also evokes for the Bambara the analogy between the sexual act and the work of the earth, the analogy between the fertility of the woman and the work of the fields.

In the region of Bougouni they are called "Gousougou" or "Gouzoungou".

Dark patina. Acquired in Abidjan in the mid-sixties of the last century.