TITLE: Dogon Peul Mask
TYPE: hood mask
GENERAL REGION: Africa
COUNTRY: Mali
ETHNICITY: Dogon
DESCRIPTION: Peul (female Peul tribe member) mask
CATALOG ID: N/A
MAKER: N/A
FUNCTION: Funerary; Protection/Purification; Spirit Invocation; Secret Society
AGE: N/A
MAIN MATERIAL: cloth
OTHER MATERIALS: rope; cowrie shells; thread
The Dogon people of Mali have many mask forms, primarily used by secret societies in funerary rituals to purify the village and protect it from ancestor spirits. The peul mask is a cloth hood mask that has a unique coiffure and eye holes. It is typically decorated with cowrie shells and glass trade beads to simulate a woman of the neighboring peul ethnicity.
Peul masks are rare, and the Museum currently has no representative example in its collection.
