Numbering just 40,000 people, the Punu of Southern Gabon and Congo clear farmland out of rain forest through slash and burn farming techniques. Men clear the fields and hunt while the women are typically responsible for tending the fields. They live in small traditional villages where the leadership is inherited matrilinearly (through the mothers side).
Tsangui mask
wood, kaolin, pigment
” tall
Punu mask
wood, kaolin, pigment
” tall
The Punu are famous for their serene representational masks of beautiful women. Each mask is an idealized portrait of a specific woman of great beauty but represents an ancestor spirit. The mask's hairstyle accurately represents Punu women’s hair. The mask is painted with kaolin (a white clay). For the Punu and most other peoples from west and central Africa, white represents the spirit world (imagine their surprise when they saw the first European). During Mukudj dances masks like this are worn by a male dancer standing on stilts (up to 9 feet in height) wearing an elaborate costume, weaving a flywhisk and performing an acrobatic dance accompanied by drums and singing.
The Tsangui are a sub-group of the Punu living in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Their masks can be identified buy the inclusion of horizontal scarification/beauty marks on the cheeks and forehead. They serve the same purpose as white Punu.
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Black masks are carved with the same realism of white masks but their function is very different. These masks serve a judiciary role with the power to seek out and punish wrongdoers (like the Fang N’Gill mask). They are much more rare (comprising 11% of Punu masks) than the Punu white mask.
