Male Antelope Headdress (Chi Wara)

Masking is a part of Bamana life – every event and rite of passage among the Bamana is marked by public dances by any number of dance associations that utilize masks to retell cosmological stories and to enforce correct social behavior.

Many of these initiatory societies are very specifically age-related and possess and manipulate powerful masks and charms for the well being of the community as a whole, and to enhance individual social status.

A Bamana age-grade, the tyi wara association, known as tyi wara kun, prepared young men for their role as family provider with needed agricultural skills. According to Bamana myth, tyi wara, a half man and half animal was a supernatural being, who first taught mankind how to cultivate the fields.

These headdresses always appear in pairs, one male and one female, on performers who are completely camouflaged in a costume of fiber dyed black.

This example is in the vertical style more characteristic of examples deriving from north of the Niger River in Mali. Particularly fascinating in this example is the balance of the horizontal and vertical axes.

Bamana carving often plays off of the balancing of arcs and planes, creating an object that appears to defy ordinary geometry when it dances. This example is no exception; the horizontal axis is created by both the mane and the body, while the back of the horns form an arc; against this arc, the mane and head echo the arc in the opposite direction of the tail – the composition resolves with the legs at oppositional diagonals.