The purpose of masks in African cultures is widely misinterpreted. To understand the meaning behind the purpose of the mask you first must understand the spirit of nowo. Nowo is a guiding spirit of a Temne women's organization called Bondo which regulates female affairs and prepares young girls for initiation into the adault status and into the community. During this time they need protection, guidance, and sponsorship of spirits to make the transition. The Temme nowo masquerade uses black masks which also have a ring around the base which symbolizes transformation and the emergence to represent nowo. Along with the black mask and the ring around the base is a white scarf turd to the nowo' selaborate hairline which indicated empathy for the
Traditionally, Chinese face masks were used in folk art performances before the Song Dynasty, which eventually transform into a facial paint masks in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. During the Qing Dynasty the arrival of European culture and the opera provided a way to merge Chinese and European culture in the use of painted folk art facial masks. The meaning of the mask focuses on the heart and soul of the mythological or fictional character being represented on the stage. In this manner, the design and color of the mask imbues a powerful sense of emotive and symbolic meaning for the audience to observe in the actions of the performers. Certainly, the “heart and soul” of painted facial mask defines the foundation of Chinese folk art culture to project a profound sense of drama in the Beijing Opera medium. In essence, these are the important aspects of the meaning of the Beijing Opera painted facial mask, which define the powerful emotive and cultural transmission of folk art into the modern setting of the European-styled
Leading up to the celebration the girls are taught a certain dance that must be performed at the ceremony. “the new initiates are brought into town for the first time since the initiation process began…” At the ceremony the Mende girls wear a Sowei mask and costume which is considered to be the embodiment of the river spirt Sowo. Once the mask and costume is on the person transforms and her actions are no longer hers but are the actions of the spirt Sowo. A sacred dance is performed and dance moves represent the strength and power of woman as members in the Mende community. “Sowo mask are divided into three structural components- the neck, face, and coiffure. Carved from a single block of lightweight wood, the masks weigh only two to four pounds. The mask displays a shiny black surface representative of the value assigned to smooth dark skin.” The rings around the masks neck demonstrates a trait that is considered beautiful in Mende cultures. Every mask has a different hairstyle, representing the style of the woman the mask is made for, you can see items such as shells, metal and claws on the coiffure.
Sande are a group which are much like the Poro, and the Sande are also known as the Bundu, Bundo, Bondo, and the ZadEgi. The society is made up entirely of girls and women, and are responsible for preparing the girls for adulthood. (Sande, Heritge) Today the Sande society can be found in the same countries as the Poro, and “is not a centralised institution, but rather is numerous more or less independent local lodges with common practices and traditions” according to Henry M of mytholyoke.com. Higher ranking members of the Sande are known as the Sowei, and the most recognizable Sande public figure is the masker called Ndoli Jowei which means the Dancing Sowei, who wears a black-dyed wooden helmet above a costume of black dyed raffia and cloth. (Sande, Heritage) Members of the Sande can also wear special masks and helmets that are sacred to the Sande people. These masks can symbolize many different things about the member, or the initiate. Some of the masks can mean beauty; which is special to the Mende people, and is said to represent an idealized image of female beauty and dignity. Another Sande mask design is the womanly characteristic of wisdom, which is represented with showcasing a high forehead. All Sande members believe that all women should become Nyaha, which means to become initiated within Sande. (Henry,
Masks have been mentioned in Venetian history dating back to the thirteenth century. They are formed out of paper-mache and decorated with various paints, gems, feathers, and other decorations (Magic of Venezia Mask Story). The Venetian Republic was composed of intensive social and economic inequality, making for a unique culture. Such inequalities resulted in the use of masks for the purpose of concealing an individual’s identity. Venice, being such a small city, made it difficult to keep secrets but the use of the mask helped make it a bit easier. The masks served the social purpose of keeping all citize...
Clothing is perhaps the simplest form of expression used by people to differentiate themselves from other members of society at both the collective and individual level. Clothing has the ability to simultaneously delineate an individual’s identifying attributes such as gender, profession, religion and ethnicity. Likewise, religious symbols entail wearing particular garments, amongst many other articles, and individuals choosing to wear it to overtly demarcate their religion and faith. Many traditions have distinctive religious symbols, such as Sikhs wearing the turban and Catholic nuns wearing the black veil. In Islam, there are several religious symbols such as the hijab, the burqa and the niqab intended to be worn by Muslim women. In recent
The clothing also represents the breakdown of the society. To begin, most of the boys were wearing school uniforms and some were wearing choir robes. This shows they are educated, civilized young men, who are most likely from, or around the city. As time passes, the boys do not remain fully clad. They shed their shoes and shirts. Their hair grows longer, and they are dirtier. This resembles their civilized ways beginning to fade. They also started using face paint for camouflage, and it eventually becomes a ritual.
“Be a man”, is on of the most destructive phrases to tell boys and men. The Mask You Live In explains the struggles boys and men have growing up in a patriarchal society. I chose to watch this to understand how men feel oppressed. All year, I became aware of females and their struggles in the patriarchy. It is interesting to see that men are affected too. The documentary should have had more personal stories because it allows the audience to connect with and have empathy for men. On the other hand, the movie thoroughly demonstrated the inner conflict boys and men face in society. Men feel they must be strong and dominate. They feel they need to hide emotion and empathy in order to fit in. They must be manly in order to
Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” is a lyric poem in which the point of attraction, the mask, represents the oppression and sadness held by African Americans in the late 19th century, around the time of slavery. As the poem progresses, Dunbar reveals the façade of the mask, portrayed in the third stanza where the speaker states, “But let the dream be otherwise” (13). The unreal character of the mask has played a significant role in the lives of African Americans, who pretend to put on a smile when they feel sad internally. This occasion, according to Dunbar, is the “debt we pay to human guile," meaning that their sadness is related to them deceiving others. Unlike his other poems, with its prevalent use of black dialect, Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” acts as “an apologia (or justification) for the minstrel quality of some of his dialect poems” (Desmet, Hart, and Miller 466).
A mask makes one unknown, unrecognized, and mysterious. When the first mask was put on, Jack "looked no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger" (Golding page #). At the formation of Jack's tribe, all who join wear a mask from that time on and become a part of the savages. As three savages return to steal fire, they are driven because they are "demoniac figures with faces of white and red" (Golding page #) not individual boys. The mask becomes such an anonymous symbol that, towards the end of the story, Ralph "gazed at the green and black mask before him trying to remember what Jack looked like" (Golding page #). Whether stealing, fighting, or hunting, the savages found their courage because they "looked like something else" "hidden behind the mask of paint" (Golding page #).
The Concept of the veil has been a significant symbol of clearly differentiating from the whites, in aspects of political, economical and social prospects. Durkheim explained symbol as “something that stands for something else”(pg. 135). It is a symbol that calls up shared notions and values. In the example of the Blacks in the south, the veil symbolized an “iron curtain” separating the two races, separation and invisibility, of the black and white. The veil had previously been worn because of previous traditions demanding a clear separation of the sexes. The veil is seen as a social barrier to prevent the “others”, black African Americans, from surpassing into the clean and pure white world. Nonetheless Du bois also states, that its possible for one to, lift up the veil when one wishes, and he can also exist in a region on neither side, white nor black, which shows Du bois’ many different meaning and function with the symbol of the veil.
Though a mask may just be a paper cut out, a molded piece of plastic, or in the Lord of the Flies, a painted face, they all have the same ability to create a feeling of freedom from responsibility. They may make they wearer feel more important or powerful and too good for work, leading to a lack of fulfillment of their responsibility. This belief in freedom from responsibility is best exemplified by Jack, the first one on the island to begin wearing a mask. He used a mask because he felt it gave him power and skill, giving him reason to take up hunting as a prime responsibility, opposed to keeping the fire going. In their...
When attending a masquerade, a person is expected to wear a mask. In fact, it’s looked down upon if a mask isn’t worn. But, what if for some people that mask never came off? In A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, each character has constructed their own metaphorical mask that they set firmly in place every morning when exiting their bed. Each character: Nora, Torvald, Kristine and Krogstad all have masks that they put in place when speaking to each other. Throughout most of the play, it is clear that all of the aforementioned characters have multiple facades that they use when speaking to one another; often switching quickly as they begin speaking to someone else. Henrik Ibsen’s use of the masquerade serves as an extended metaphor to show the masks that the characters use in their everyday lives.
Not only is costume used to make an impression on the audience when first sighting the clown; but also the make-up must be done right to enhance whether the clown is happy, sad, evil, or falls into another category of personality. The make-up also provides great detail, and in a way is a more modern format of the masks used in Greece and Rome during the 15th Century.
In her blog posting “ ‘Noting to Say’: ‘Black Skin, White Masks’ and Gender,” Emma Jeremie Mould discusses the double bind women of color find themselves in. First, they are overdetermined by the racist discourse of the Whites. Second, black women find themselves codified within the discourse of native men. In addition, she contends that some Western feminists analyze the plight of black women from the top down, through an approach that reinforces a racialized hierarchy among women.
Thirty six years after independence, Zimbabwe has not yet adopted a particular national costume by which the Zimbabweans can be identified. According to Kaiser (1990) “Clothes are cultural artefacts, embedded in current and historical sets of meanings, shaped by social and economic forces, reflecting current social and cultural concerns.” Diop & Merunka (2013) state that, “Many authors have accentuated the value of clothing in Africa as an expression of self and group behaviour.” They further argue that “Dress offers the concurrent coexistence of traditional and modern dress styles in many occasions and across consumer profiles.” “Wearing traditional dress may be a declaration of national, regional, tribal or religious