This stunning white mask comes to us from Bambara artisans in Mali. Styled after ngil ceremonial masks used by the Fang people who inhabit Cameroon and Gabon, the mask is hand carved from boumbou wood and painted with a symbolic white finish.

Once integral to ngil ceremonies, in which officers wearing such white masks would seek out suspected sorcerers by torchlight, the mask's strict executive purpose is tempered considerably by the elegant stylization of the human face typical of Fang art.