1998.201 Ngoin helmet crest

Ngoin represents a royal female spirit and serves as a generic symbol of womanhood. It dances with Kam, the "leader" mask, whose wearer leades other maskers in and out of the performance area and dictates the mask steps. These masks are part of an ensemble of twenty or more masks of different characters that are worn during funeral celebrations for high-ranking elders and in the contexts of social control and law enforcement. The mask fits snugly on top of the dancer's head and is worn with a costume of blue-and-white resist-dyed royal cloth. The dancer's face is concealed under a fitted hood.

Roslyn A. Walker, Label text, Arts of Africa, 2015.

1998: Dallas Museum of Art, purchased from Joel Cooner Gallery, Dallas, Texas

Notes:

The main source for this provenance is the invoice dated May 30, 1998, in the Collections Records object file (1998.201).

Blasius Ngwa discusses performing traditional masquerades in the United States; related to DMA collection, Helmet mask (Ngoin), 1998.201; includes footage of the BMCA, Bafut Manjong Cultural Association dance group; 12934935: UMO

Photograph by Hans-Joachim Koloss. From Iris Hahner, Maria Kecskési, and László Vajda, African Masks: The Barbier-Mueller Collection (Munich: Prestel, 2007), 62.

213642459: UMO

Apply to objects where number equals 1998.201