What are Mende masks made from?
Even though the masks are worn exclusively by women, they are carved by male artists. The sowei mask is made out of wood and finished in a monochrome black color made from vegetable dye.
What are traditional African masks used for?
The traditional African mask is worn during celebrations, dances and festivities and ritual ceremonies commemorating social and religious events. They play a very significant spiritual and functional role in the community and often there is no distinction between social recreation and ritual celebration.
What is unique about the Mende helmet masks in Sierra Leone?
Senior members of Sande, a woman’s association which functions among the Mende tribe in Sierra Leone, wear helmet masks that embody Sande’s guardian spirit, Sowo. The masks usually include an elaborate symbolic hairstyle connoting beauty, health, and wealth.
What is Mende art?
Types of Art Most Mende art is associated with initiation and healing and includes wooden masks, twin figures, and medicine objects. Utilitarian objects such as heddle pulleys are decorated with carved heads or other beautiful designs.
Where are the Mende people from in Africa?
Sierra Leone
Mende, people of Sierra Leone, including also a small group in Liberia; they speak a language of the Mande branch of the Niger-Congo family. The Mende grow rice as their staple crop, as well as yams and cassava. Cash crops include cocoa, ginger, peanuts (groundnuts), and palm oil and kernels.
What is distinctive about the Mende mask tradition quizlet?
The Mende people are unique in that women may own or even wear the masks themselves. Covered their faces in white chalk. Elder females would wear this mask. Ritual was meant to fatten them up, rolls on the neck is a beauty idea.
What is a type of African mask?
Senufo Mask. Teke Mask. Woyo Mask. Yohure Mask. Free African Mask Clip Art.
Why are African masks created?
Their purpose is to enable the wearer to transform himself into the entity depicted by the mask. In essence, the wearer works in tandem with the mask during a ceremony to release its hidden power.
What are the Mende masks?
Masks are the collective Mind of Mende community; viewed as one body, they are the Spirit of the Mende people. The Mende masked figures are a reminder that human beings have a dual existence; they live in the concrete world of flesh and material things and the spirit world of dreams, faith, aspirations and imagination.
Are face masks harmful to older adults with cognitive and hearing challenges?
Mandated face mask use for health care providers, secondary to COVID-19, creates an additional communication barrier for older adults with cognitive, communication, and/or hearing challenges. Face masks can soften a speaker’s voice, conceal vocal tone, and hide facial expressions that relay essentia …
Who are the Mende?
The Mende belong to a larger group of Mande peoples who live throughout West Africa. The Mende are mostly farmers and hunters. During the civil war, the Civil Defense Force (CDF), a militia group, was founded by Dr. Alpha Lavalie, a Mende himself, to fight the rebels along with government troops.
What do the Rings at the base of the mask mean?
The neck rings at the base of the mask are an exaggeration of actual neck creases. Mende people consider a beautiful neck to be one with rings as it shows adolescent girls becoming ready for childbearing by the increase in body fat. The rings indicate prosperity and wholesome living, and are given by God to show his affection for a fortunate few.