Africa, West Africa, Nigeria, Ejagham-style maker / early 1900s
Headdress
The Cleveland Museum of Art catalogs Headdress as mask (Africa, West Africa, Nigeria, Ejagham-style maker · early 1900s).
Look closely along the sides of the nostrils, upper eyelids, and around the mouth. The impressions of twisted yarn shows how the hide was carefully held in place while it dried to precisely fit the sculpted wooden core.
A CLOSER LOOK
The museum identifies this mask as Wood, rawhide, cane, paint, bone, natural fiber, and metal.
The museum's collection notes: Headdresses or crest masks made of antelope skin stretched over a carved head are a distinctive art form of the Cross River region in southeastern Nigeria and western Cameroon. Worldwide, this practice is unique. This female evocation of ideal feminine beauty was most probably worn by an Ejagham woman in the context of a female society called Ekpa, which was responsible for girls' education in preparation for marriage. The headdress represents a girl who evokes ideal female beauty and is ready for marriage. The depicted hairstyle was worn during the coming-out ceremony following the girls’ seclusion.
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE
The Cleveland Museum of ArtHeaddressOriginal explanation based on the sources above. Images carry their own reuse terms.