Mask (ndeemba) (early 1900s): Art, History and Details

Mask (ndeemba) (early 1900s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This Mask (Ndeemba) has been featured prominently in the African galleries since making its debut at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1962. Dated to the 1900s, the object is part of a group of eight masks that appear at the end of the circumcision and puberty ritual (n-khanda) for Yaka boys. It would have marked the new status of the boys who became men and commemorated their re-entry into the village. Affirming age-long tradition, such masks are worn by the master of the initiation or by the newly initiated himself.

Object facts

• Title: Mask (ndeemba)
• Date: early 1900s
• Culture: Africa, Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Yaka-style carver
• Type: Mask
• Technique: Wood, raffia, paint, and cotton
• Dimensions: Overall: 47 cm (18 1/2 in.)
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 1969.8

A detail from the museum

Look under the fluffy layers of raffia fiber to see the handle; this mask was "worn" by holding it up to the face.

Collection credit

Gift of Katherine C. White

Further reading listed by the museum

• Fagg, William, and Cleveland Museum of Art. 1968. African Tribal Images; the Katherine White Reswick Collection. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, cat. no. 231.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. 1969 Year in Review. The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 57, no. 1, cat. 132.
• Drewal, Henry John. African Art: A Brief Guide to the Collection. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1989, fig.10.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.