Mende Sowei Helmet Mask

This expertly carved Sowei helmet mask from the Mende people of Sierra Leone displays complex combinations of iconographic motifs that are especially popular in eastern Mendeland. This mask display two suspended snakes on both sides of the mask topped with a bowl with two rats underneath, surrounded with four fishes, and two birds facing each other in both sides. The mask also features ngaya maki scarifications on the cheeks and two leather encased amulets in a form of small drums above the forehead and the nape. According to Yale's archives this mask belongs to workshop Number 9 related to the carver Master of the Rainbow Eyes.

The Mende culture is primarily found in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Western Guinea, and Mali. Secret societies among the Mende are called Poro, meaning "laws of ancestor spirits," thereby imparting power to the Poro from ancestor spirits. The Poro duties include settling disputes, controlling fishing and harvesting, and regulating the economy and trading. Other societies within the Mende are responsible for military training, agricultural fertility, general education, sexual conduct, and medical and social services. The Mende women belong to a secret society called Sande which is primarily responsible for training young girls for the adult roles they will soon encounter. Mende girls are instructed in child care, homemaking, sexual matters, and the proper attitude towards husbands and authority. Mende boys are instructed in road maintenance, clearing land for agriculture, bridge and trap making, basketry and weaving, traditional law and custom, and the art of enduring hardship and pain. Secret societies dominate the lives of traditional West Africans and serve to establish social, political, economic, and artistic rules that solidify and unite the culture.

The Sande society uses the word Sowei to represent the personification of the society's spirit, medicine, and the most important masked dancer. The Sowei is present at initiation school, brings male offenders to justice, and is the chief mourner at funerals for Sande officials. Sowei mask are kept in special enclosures called Kende, where the mask attendant keeps medicine and masks.

Age: Early 20th Century