Bobo
Burkina FasoDoyo Pibou Mask, Do Society, n.d.
On view
Polychromed wood
Dimensions17 × 9 1/4 in. (43.2 × 23.5 cm)
Gift of Justice and Mrs. G. Mennen Williams, 1973.21
According to Bobo culture, the god Wuro created the world as an ordering of opposing pairs: for instance male and female, man and spirits, village and bush, and so on. The Bobo peoples believe that this natural balance is easily disrupted, and inherently destroyed by man. Therefore the Bobo peoples seek to restore balance to nature. In Bobo culture, there are only three functions for a mask: burial and funeral rites, male initiation, and the annual harvest. Bobo masks are often animal-like, yet highly abstracted and stylized, symbolic of the spirits that protect the village and drive out evil forces at the beginning of the agricultural season.
