Mask (Hemba)

Two knobs on the top of this head represent baskets used to collect food. Leaders who watched over initiation camps would wear it to enact ritual teaching and protect boys during this hazardous period of their lives. Forbidden foods, proper contact with women and ways to avoid community discord were among the topics masqueraders were enlisted to impart.

Wood, pigment, raffia

19 x 15 1/2 x 19 13/16 in. (48.2 x 39.4 x 50.3 cm)

Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company

81.17.909

Provenance: Collection of Marc Leo Felix, Brussles, Belgium; sold to Katherine White (1929-1980), Seattle, Washington, 1977; bequeathed to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 1981

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Praise Poems: The Katherine White Collection, July 29 - Sept. 29, 1984 (Washington, D.C., National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Oct. 31, 1984 - Feb. 25, 1985; Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, Apr. 6 - May 19, 1985; Fort Worth, Texas, Kimbell Art Museum, Sept. 7 - Nov. 25, 1985; Kansas City, Missouri, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Mar. 8 - Apr. 20, 1986). Text by Pamela McClusky. Cat. no. 40, pp. 88-89, reproduced.

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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