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The Kurumba people live in central Burkina Faso; they produce mask headdress in the form of an antelope. The dancer wears a raffia skirt like that of the Bamana, they dance in pairs and sometimes appears with a masked hyena dancer.
The masks are used in three major events during the annual cycle; at first they escort the corpse of the dead male or female elders to the clan. Weeks or months later, during the dry season, the masks appear at the funeral to honor the deceased and to free the spirit to travel to the world of the ancestors.
Finally just before the first rains in the late May and June, the mask appears at a collective sacrifice in which the ancestors are honored together with the spirits of the protective antelope which is the totem of the most Kurumba clans.
At the public performance and funerals, the masks are physical representation of the spirit of the deceased elders and they may be addressed using the dead person’s name. The mask is a means of persevering the memory of the dead by providing a physical reminder of the dead elder’s achievements in life.
The geometric patterns painted on the masks are symbols that refer to major events in the myths of the formation of the clan and the masks represent the antelope that played a role in these stories when it saved the life of the elder.
Approximate dimensions: cm (H) x cm (W) x cm (D)
Weight: kg
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