the arts of africa - Dallas Museum of Art

272 4 : african art and the influences of foreign trade
101
Four‑faced helmet
mask (ñgontang)
Gabon, Ogooué River and Woleu-Ntem Province,
Fang peoples, Betsi or Ntumu group
1920–1940
Wood and pigment
1015/! 6 × 815/! 6 × 89/! 6 in. (27.78 × 22.70 × 21.75 cm)
The Gustave and Franyo Schindler Collection
of African Sculpture, gift of the McDermott
Foundation in honor of Eugene McDermott,
1974.SC.33
fig 60 Representing Europeans, ñgontang masks were
originally used in the context of ancestor worship and
social control. By the 1960s they were principally for
entertainment. Gabon.
The Betsi and Ntumu call this type of helmet mask ñgontang, a term that
is a contraction of nlo ñgon ntañga, which means “face of the daughter of
the white man.” When the Betsi and Ntumu peoples first encountered
the Europeans, they believed the Europeans were spirits returned from
the world of the dead. Introduced in the 1920s, the mask has multiple
faces with eyes that see everything, and it was a ritual object that fought
against malevolent forces such as witchcraft.21 Eventually the traditional
beliefs were abandoned and the masks were used for entertainment pur‑
poses (fig. 60). It is thought the ñgontang replaced the ngil mask, which
policed the Fang communities and was banned by the French colonial
government.
The faces on the ñgontang are not identical (see the two‑dimensional
rollout photograph, pp. 274–75). They have different measurements, ana‑
tomical details, and scarification. The Dallas mask has two large and two
small faces. The larger faces have brows formed with perforations and a
black line drawn from the forehead to the tip of the nose. The mouths on
these faces differ—one is upturned in a smile while the other is pursed.
The male dancer who wore the mask looked through a pair of horizontal
openings carved in the bottom of the mask under one of the faces.