Mambila art centers upon an association called suaga. It is primarily concerned with justice and supernatural cleansing within the community. Mambila make highly stylized animal masks. Masks and statues were kept hidden from the eyes of women in a net hung on the inside of a hut that was on stilts; it was guarded by the head of the family. The front wall of the hut was decorated with two figures, male on the right and female on the left, crowned by a rainbow and framed by the sun and the moon. Dancers celebrating the beginning and end of the agricultural cycle are led by a tribesman wearing a cephalomorphic helmet mask. He is often followed by a retinue of assistants wearing masks in the shape or stylized animal heads, usually dog’s or crow’s.
A stand for this mask can be ordered separately
