Yaure

The Yauré are a small group of little more 20.000 persons implanted in western Ivory Coast, mainly in the northeastern area of Buaflé. They're neighbors to the Guro and of BauléThey belong to the Mandé group. They are engaged in agriculture and are also gold seekers. They live in an area suitable for hunting. They are excellent mask sculptors who have a great resemblance to those of their neighbors. Baulé and Guró, with which there are frequent confusions. Traditionally, the Yauré villages were governed by the council of elders assisted by secret societies, the Dyé being the most important, with attributions judicial, social, political, administrative, etc. They have a creator God, Bali, inaccessible and distant as in most animistic cultures. They need to resort to mediators to mediate them and to influence these secondary spiritual powers, called Yu, responsible for the well-being of humans, but which can also bring them misfortunes, they use masks. They have seven categories of masks, meaning the seven emblems of the Yu, usually with an anthropomorphic face on which often a protective animal appears, sometimes they are adorned with horns or combs. High front and semicircular eyes. Its hairstyle, in three parts, is characteristic and its face has a toothed environment, with small triangles. They symbolize spiritual power and, when there are deaths, are used to help the deceased reach the realm of the dead in the best conditions, thus the Dyé masks restore the order of the altered universe with death. They are masks endowed with great power, whose vision is forbidden to women because it could lead to death. MASCARAS YAURE They represent the spiritual power or “Yu”. His artistic canons are quite similar to those of his neighbors. Guro and Baulé. Most of their masks present delicate faces of women with the typical hairstyles of the ethnic group. With a high forehead and semicircular eyes. A beaked ore borders the face of their masks. They usually carry some motive over their heads like birds or combs, etc. Participate in the ceremonies of the "lô" and the "ye". They are masks of funerary character intended to purify the village after a burial and to accompany and help the deceased on his way to the hereafter. Allure masks can participate in any type of ceremony. MASCARAS AMAN OR LOMANE OF DJYÉ The masks Lomane, fourth mask of the seven of the Dyé, have a human face and on the head rises one or two birds. They were masks used in funeral rites. They belong to brotherhoods of men in charge of organizing funerals of important characters, to honor the spiritual power of the deceased. These masks belong to the secret society Djé and represent the spiritual power of the “Yu”, which is the intermediary spirit between the world of spirits and man. In contact with the deceased ' s body, they could acquire extraordinary forces that could become dangerous. These masks that mediated between the spirit of the deceased and the families are also called Anoman masks, a bird (in trunk). The bird frees the body of the animals from parasites so that their presence means that destroying the worms that corrod the body symbolizes the purification of the body. This mask is a symbol of purification.