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Sowei mask

Photo: Paul Macapia

Sowei mask

19th-20th century

Mende

"Some people are born with different lines around their neck. Men see women with those rings around the neck. The first thing they compliment her on.. on the rings around her neck. They're like, 'She's so beautiful. Have you seen her neck?' You know, she doesn't need to wear jewelry on that neck, that neck itself is just a thing of beauty. The high forehead of the mask meant intelligence. People used to say this is a very intelligent child coming up. The hair-style showed that hair was always in braids and it was done every week. I remember having my hair done every single week you put the braids in and then you take the braids out, have them done again.

"A small mouth is also a sign of beauty and also someone who has a small mouth they say talks less. Not all the masks have horns. In the Mende society, people put liquids for medicine in horns." (Hannah Foday, 2002)

Incised wood, metal, and ceramic
14 3/4 x 8 1/8 x 9 13/16 in. (37.4 x 20.7 x 25 cm)
Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company
81.17.185
Provenance: [Judith Small Nash, New York]; sold to Katherine White (1929-1980), Seattle, Washington, 1964; bequeathed to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 1981
Photo: Paul Macapia
location
Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistoryCleveland, Ohio, Cleveland Museum of Art, African Tribal Images: The Katherine White Reswick Collection, July 10 - Sept. 1, 1968 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania Museum, Oct. 10 - Dec. 1, 1968). Text by William Fagg. Cat. no. 48 (as Helmet Mask).

Los 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., pp. 126-7, reproduced pl. 161 (as "Bundu" mask).

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Selections From The Katherine White Collection, March 12 - August 1987.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Art from Africa: Long Steps Never Broke a Back, Feb. 7 - May 19, 2002 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Oct. 2, 2004 - Jan. 2, 2005; Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum, Feb. 12 - June 19, 2005; Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, Oct. 8, 2005 - Jan. 1, 2006; Nashville, Tennessee, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Jan. 27 - Apr. 30, 2006 [as African Art, African Voices: Long Steps Never Broke a Back]). Text by Pamela McClusky. No cat. no., pp. 196, 202-3, 206, reproduced pl. 86.
Published ReferencesLamp, Frederick. "Cosmos, Cosmetics, and the Spirit of Bondo." African Arts, vol. 18, no. 3 (May 1985): pp. 41, 98, reproduced no. 31.

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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