WATCHER

PANGWE

GABON

This Pangwe piece fits into the group known as Fang masks. Large, often frightening facemasks are common to this group from Southern Pangwe. These are masks that dispel evil spirits. In secret societies, those who wore them became judges, policemen and Bush Spirits and when they appeared, they scattered all evil. Throughout Africa, white on masks is the colour of death - many Fang mask are so painted. The wearer of the mask was draped from top to toe in fibre, so that the whitened mask, seemingly detached from human form, must have been truly terrifying as it emerged, by firelight, from the gloom of the forest.