Horizontal Anteater headdress (N'gonzon Koun)

Ci Wara is still a powerful entity to be honored by a wide range of popularized entertainments. Public celebrations after days of heavy agricultural labor may be enlivened by the vision of a horizontal creature sweeping into sight. This horizontal Ci Wara is known as Gonzon, or anteater, renowned for their hardiness and stamina. Such headdresses serve as figureheads for the organization who sponsors this type of performance.

Wood, metal, and fiber

10 13/16 x 3 11/16 x 32 3/8 in. (27.5 x 9.4 x 82.3 cm)

Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company

81.17.22

Provenance: [Galerie Simone de Monbrison, Paris, France]; purchased from gallery by Katherine White (1929-1980), Seattle, Washington, 1972; bequeathed to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 1981

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistoryLos Angeles, California, Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California, African Art in Motion: Icon and Act, Jan. 20 - Mar. 17, 1974 (Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, May 5 - Sept. 22, 1974). Text by Robert Farris Thompson. No cat. no., p. 110, reproduced fig. F-5 (as "chi wara").

Published ReferencesWooten, Stephen R. "Antelope Headdresses and Champion Farmers: Negotiating Meaning and Identity through the Bamana Ciwara Complex." African Arts, vol. 33, no. 2 (Summer 2000): pp. 18-33, 89-90, reproduced fig. 15.

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