波音游戏-波音娱乐城赌球打不开

The act of wearing a mask was transformative—a transfiguration frequently enhanced by the aid of matching costumes and accessories, rhythmic music and dance. During a masked ceremony, the individual disappeared, giving way to a spiritual or ideational personality and the performer became the embodiment of the mask’s symbolic attributes.

The most powerful masks were thought to possess spiritual power and served as intermediaries between the masked performer and the wider community, on the one hand, and the world of ancestors and spirits on the other. However, not all masks had a spiritual purpose. Masks could  be sacred or secular in nature, just as masked performances might fulfil a broad range of functions. Secular performances reinforced the dominant political ideology, social values and institutions, affirming political structures and social hierarchy. Conversely, sacred ceremonies were imbued with magical power. Such performances had the ability to ritually cleanse a village and expunge malignant spiritual forces.

Across Central Africa, masked individuals performed specific movements or dances appropriate to the characters. Zoomorphic masks were worn to embody specific animal traits, whereas anthropomorphic masks represented archetypal heroes, ancestors, or deities. The latter group commonly divided itself along male / female lines, depicting gendered stereotypes who, to varying degrees, represent primordial progenitors.

Central African masks are extremely diverse in style, reflecting the variegated––and sometimes conflictual––worldviews of different political, cultural and ethnic groups, while conveying a sense of the skills and aesthetic interests of their anonymous makers.