CategoriesCultural and Religious Styles
Mende Art
Art of the Mende of Sierra Leone and Liberia, above all the sowei helmet masks danced by women of the Sande society.
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About
The Mende of southern Sierra Leone and neighbouring Liberia are known above all for one of the few African mask traditions danced by women. The Sande society, which prepares girls for adulthood, brings out the sowei, a helmet mask carved by men but commissioned and worn by senior women. Look for a glossy black surface, rings circling the neck, a small face with lowered eyes and a closed mouth, and a tall braided coiffure, sometimes topped with birds or small figures. The rings and polish express ideals of health, beauty and composure, and the black evokes a water spirit rising from a river.
Men's associations such as Poro have their own maskers, dressed in raffia and cloth. Soapstone figures known as nomoli, made by earlier inhabitants of the region, have been turned up in the soil by Mende farmers, who sometimes kept them in rice fields to encourage harvests.
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