Unmasked: Colonialism and its rewards
Francis Picabia’s “Monster”, from 1946.
The Chamba in Nigeria and Cameroon kept masks like this one well away from the village when not in use. The spirit depicted — and those who carried and wore the mask — were believed to lurk in the bush, ready to bring violence.
Modern art’s fascination early in the last century with so-called primitive art chagrined Salvador Dali to the tweezer-tips of his moustache. He was appalled that Picasso and the cubists and, worse, his fellow surrealists André Breton, Paul Eluard and Louis Aragon, could derive inspiration from “savage” artisans.
But he must have recognised the parallel. In their anguished and grotesque imagery, the surrealists in particular were evoking the same monsters of the subconscious that tribal shaman recruited for their ends.
At any rate, it’s a shame he couldn’t at least appreciate the fundamental beauty of the traditional craftsmanship of Africa, Oceania and the aboriginal Americas, whose face masks are as expressive as anything in modern art, as Modigliani well knew, being able to improve on them only by cocking an eyebrow here and there.
The only problem in absorbing this influence, I think, is the matter of ownership.
A Bamileke helmet mask from Cameroon, today valued at about €15,000, represents a buffalo, an animal embodying power and courage and thus aligned with the tribe’s chief.
I’m not aware of any major controversy today over the sale of antique African carvings. The current debate seems more about the market for the “craft guns” that are used in Africa’s inter-tribal conflicts.
There are quite righteous grumblings from Southeast Asia about foreigners making off with venerable sculptures, but you don’t hear about Africans objecting to the resale of 18th-century masks at the big auction houses in Paris and New York. These masks were scooped up in the thousands by rampaging colonists who history continues to excuse en masse as “explorers”.
To be fair, of course there was an educational factor, with many of the masks and other artifacts finding their place in First World museums, the better to share the culture of faraway places. These were, however, the minority of the purloined items.
A Kanak mask on the left from New Caledonia (€50,000 to €80,000), usually used in rituals mourning the death of chiefs. Representing the chief himself, it has long hair, since it was forbidden to cut one’s hair during the period of transition from life to death.
At its side is a Lu bo bie elephant mask of the Kran tribe in Liberia (€18,000). with perforations in the resin at the ends of the eyes in which seeds were fixed. Villagers who broke the law or refused to pay a debt faced this visage with the threat that if restitution wasn’t forthcoming, the elephant would destroy his house.
I own a bronze Buddha head I picked up for a couple of dollars in Cambodia, and although it’s not remotely antique — they’re mass-cast in huge quantities for tourists — I can’t control some winces of guilt.
It was the same with a large face mask I bought in Jamaica. The carver probably lacquered it the week previous, ready for the local straw market, but you still feel like you’re absconding with a chunk of sovereign culture.
So I’m astounded by the volume of very old tribal masks that Sotheby’s and Christie’s are constantly hoisting onto the bidder’s block, including all the ones pictured in this post, sold or on sale in the last 14 months or so. Most are from Africa, a few from the South Pacific and Central America.
The prices can be quite staggering, but the buyer has to consider their age and erstwhile importance. Many of these were sacred objects, most of them psychologically iconic in the community context, some with deep personal significance, especially to the tribes’ royal families and their courtiers.
In their symbology as well as their handcrafted beauty, masks have always had an abiding appeal. Think of the masks of Greek tragedy, the Venetian balls, the death masks once so popular in Europe.
A pair from Ivory Coast’s Dan tribe, each valued at up to €25,000. The hollowed-out eyes of the one on the left indicate the face of the spirit whose job it was to ensure that all the home fires were extinguished each night.
Is the Shroud of Turin a mask? Is there a line between old masks and old artifacts of Western religion, like Russian Orthodox icons, centuries-old menorah and mediaeval liturgical vestments? These too are imbued with sacredness, as much as any native North American totem, and they’re eminently collectible too, as are old copies of the Bible and the Qu’ran.
I’d love to see a chart comparing the relative value of the tribal-mask market with that of, for example, football jerseys or baseball cards. These days we collect anything. It’s just that, usually, they are the things of the modern world produced within our own culture.
Despite the horns on the Guro mask on the left, from Ivory Coast — “collected” around 1912 and on sale for around €6,000 — the carver’s intention may have been to evoke a leopard skin stretched on hooks covering the body of the dancer.
Right, a Baule-Guro mask from Ivory Coast, worth around $30,000, actually from the small Atie tribe, neighbours of the Baule.
A jade Olmec mask that could date to 900 BC, valued at as much as $600,000.
On the left, a jade Mayan mosaic mask from 300 to 600 AD, worth in the area of $200,000. Next to it, a Chontal stone mask from Mexico, made to accompany the dead into the afterlife. It’s possibly 2,500 years old and estimated in value at about $25,000.
This Kota reliquary figure valued at around €35,000 was “collected” by Gabon’s French governor in about 1912.
Below left, a mask used by Muslim Ligbi people on Ivory Coast’s Ghana border, possibly good for €90,000 today. On the right is an Igbo mask from Nigeria valued at between €7,000 and €10,000.
This Yaka mask from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (€8,000) is a buffalo head with a cap of raffia.
From the 14th to 18th centuries, when a monarch — an oba — died in the Kingdom of Benin, in what is now Nigeria, his would-be successor had two bronze heads made, one in the late ruler’s likeness and one in his own.
They were placed on a purpose-built altar, face to face, each surmounted by an ivory tusk engraved with commemorative scenes. Thus the new oba established the bond of continuity with his predecessor, legitimatising his own rule.
This example was on auction last year for €400,000.
From New Ireland, now part of Papua New Guinea in Melanesia, which was, despite its name, opened up by the Dutch and then colonised by the Germans, comes this kepong mask (€70,000 to €100,000).
These were made with tree bark and other plant fibres, often adorned with shells, for the malanggan, a dance festival honouring the dead but also, with initiation rites for youths, stressing life’s continuation.
In the Madak area in the island’s north, says Sotheby’s, which has sold this particular item twice since 2005, this type of mask symbolised not-quite-human cave dwellers whom tribe members considered their wild counterparts.
Baron von Heÿking picked this one up in 1876 and passed it on to the Leipzig museum. Kepong masks were among the exotic artefacts that fascinated European artists, including Breton. The German expressionist painter Emil Nolde took part in a medical expedition to New Ireland and tucked away all sorts of inspiration.
