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The Significance of the African Masks and Masquerades

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I need help understanding the importance of the mask and masquerades in African art and culture of the past and present.

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The significance of the African Masks and Masquerades.

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Normally masks are worn for protection, disguise, entertainment, ceremonial activities since antiquity. In each of these circumstances masks try to hide that which is otherwise evident and portray a different conventional nature, crafted skillfully with spiritual character and traditional tribal features.

In Africa masks are not worn for protection, disguise but for entertainment and ceremonial purposes. These purposes are mostly rituals and festivals, where masks express high power, great authority, wisdom, deep spirituality, things of the netherworld, the difference and transcendence of the spiritual world and somehow magical world. In this case he who wears the mask appears to be an intermediary between the normal and actual world and the spiritual and netherworld. The idea of wearing a mask shows the desire to enter into communion with ...

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