The Great Mask
Dogon, Mali
Wood
30-50 Feet High
(Picture from www.dogon-lobi.ch)
The Great Mask, also referred to as the “mother of masks,” is very powerful after absorbing the spirit power released by death. It is carved from one piece of wood and measures 30-50 feet tall. The mask resembles a plank with a sculpted mask at the bottom. The first ancestor who died in the form of a serpent represents the Great Mask. [1] Dogon myths suggest men metamorphosed into serpents, because death did not exist. When an adult man dies, the Great Mask is placed against where the body lies. The mask is made once every 60 years and lasts for seven years. After 60 years, a new mask is sculpted to replace the one before. The masks are stored in an altar consisting of rock shelters outside the village. The Great Mask was never intended to be worn.[2]
[1] Monica Blackmun Visona, Robin Poynor, and Herbert M. Cole: A History of Art in Africa 2nd Edition (Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2008, 140.
[2] Barbara DeMott, Dogon Masks: A Structure Study of Form and Meaning ( :UMI Research Press, 1982), 77,117.
Wood
30-50 Feet High
(Picture from www.dogon-lobi.ch)
The Great Mask, also referred to as the “mother of masks,” is very powerful after absorbing the spirit power released by death. It is carved from one piece of wood and measures 30-50 feet tall. The mask resembles a plank with a sculpted mask at the bottom. The first ancestor who died in the form of a serpent represents the Great Mask. [1] Dogon myths suggest men metamorphosed into serpents, because death did not exist. When an adult man dies, the Great Mask is placed against where the body lies. The mask is made once every 60 years and lasts for seven years. After 60 years, a new mask is sculpted to replace the one before. The masks are stored in an altar consisting of rock shelters outside the village. The Great Mask was never intended to be worn.[2]
[1] Monica Blackmun Visona, Robin Poynor, and Herbert M. Cole: A History of Art in Africa 2nd Edition (Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2008, 140.
[2] Barbara DeMott, Dogon Masks: A Structure Study of Form and Meaning ( :UMI Research Press, 1982), 77,117.