This well-documented mask was once worn in performances conducted by the N’domo, the first of several initiation associations in Bamana culture tasked with guiding the development of men from youth to old age to insure an ordered community life. All Bamana males receive a six-stage social and religious instruction. The first stage, or N’domo, lasts approximately five years and culminates in boys’ circumcision. The N’domo mask is said to depict primordial man in his uncircumcised, androgynous state.

In its most basic form, the N’domo mask depicts a human face topped with a side-to-side row of vertical horns, which number from four to eight. The antelope adorning the top of this mask is framed by two female figures and the ends of its horns are connected, an extremely unusual iconography in Bamana sculpture. This rare mask is from the Segou region of southern Mali.


From Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 89 (2015)