Mask (mbap mteng): Elephant (aka)
early 1900s
- Medium
- Cotton, burlap, glass beads, twine, leather, and wood
- Classification
- Mask
- Dimensions
- Overall: 139.7 x 50.8 x 19.1 cm (55 x 20 x 7 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Africa, Central Africa, Cameroon, Grassfields region, Bamileke-style maker
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, African Art
- Credit line
- The Harold T. Clark Educational Extension Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
The name given to masks like this, mbap mteng, means "animal with huge ears." In the Cameroon Grassfields kingdoms, the elephant signifies power, authority, prestige, and leadership. The colorful glass beads that decorate the mask’s surface were imported from Venice and Bohemia (in Europe) and signal wealth and prosperity. Its geometric patterns include triangles that evoke the leopard, another animal linked with royal power. Members of Kuosi, an elite male society, wore such elephant masks for ritual dances and funerary ceremonies. This mask would have been worn with a costume that included a feather headdress
