- Bundu mask
- Sande Society of the Mende peoples, modern day Sierra Leone
- 19th to 20th century
- wood, cloth, fiber
Mende Peoples
Sande Society
- counterpart to the men’s Poro Society
- initiation, education of female youth
- women leaders who dance the mask serve as priestesses and judges
- during three years of Sande Society control during ritual calendar
- ndoli jowei (leaders) were mentors to girls
- masked spirits and symbolic attributes help
- after initiation is complete, they march into the village from the forest
- initiations are coordinated with school year
- girls are painted white for their liminal status
Bundu Masks
- obscure the identity of the performer
- symbolize wives, mothers, family providers, medicine keepers
- often repaired and used several decades
- idealized female beauty
- gives the wearer spiritual power
- antithesis is gonde mask, which is ugly and clumsy
- female water spirit
- black raffia
- cloth costumes
- coiffures
- woven hair is essential harmony
- shiny black color
- clean, healthy, oily skin
- the black bottom of the river, where spirit resides
- traingular shaped faces
- slit eyes
- silent, serious demeanor
- self control
- fat rolls around neck
- emerging from water ripples
- amulets
- high forehead
- bands at the base of the mask
- like a chrysallis
- like emerging from water