Bijagos - Guinea-Bissau

Among the Bidyogo, martial virtues are cultivated during a long process of learning organised into age groups, which convokes the knowledge of the behaviour, abilities and virtues of the most powerful animals of the land and sea. While younger boys use calf and fish masks, older, uninitiated youth, use bull, shark or swordfish masks. Any of the ceremonial dances associated with these masks is unpredictable and violent, reflecting the character of the animal and its own undomesticated nature. The rope that passes through the nostrils of some of these masks, symbolises that the initiate is like a tethered bull, belonging to the group which precedes the phase of initiation, meaning he is a being whose strength only then will start being tamed Provenance: Galerie Laroque, Paris Guilhem Montagut collection, spai

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