Sowei or Bundu mask
It's a helmet mask of the Mendebelonging to the Sandé women’s society and used by the women of the “bassa” people.
MYL-11
Documented paths
Mende masks: Sowei, Sande and the catalogue record
MYL-10 and MYL-11 preserve different spellings of Sowei, Bundo and Bundu. The third selected record, MYL-6, is named Gonde. Bringing them together does not make them equivalent: the point is to examine distinctions retained in the historical catalogue.
The text of MYL-11 mentions both Mende and Bassa. Those names remain part of the original document; an attribution has not been revised from a photograph. Each record’s different views allow the objects to be compared before turning to their historical interpretations.
Documented context
The Met places masks named sowei or ndoli jowei within a region encompassing Mende and Sherbro communities in Sierra Leone and Bassa and Vai communities in Liberia. It links them to Sande and its members’ performances. That context does not determine the origin of our objects.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Ndoli jowei mask
Reading the catalogue
Original historical document in Spanish
Es una de las llamadas máscaras a lo Jano, de doble cara.
Jesús Arrimadas Saavedra · original catalogue · MYL-11
This quotation retains the archive’s wording. Editorial context and comparative sources do not certify the objects’ attribution, age or provenance.
Objects to explore
An editorial reading of the collection; complete documents remain in the object records.
Browse records for this culture · Mende · Browse records for this culture · Mende
