Assessing Chokwe Mwano Pwo Masks?

I'm not sure I'm posting this in the right place or not, but it seems as if this is the spot to talk about questions of "authenticity" (with all the ambiguity that implies, of course).

The fascinating, informative archived thread on Ibejis made me think that perhaps one of the readers here might be able to provide similar information about Chokwe Mwano Pwo masks -- or at least a less-elaborate introduction. Like Ibejis, these masks seem to be iconic African works frequently copied for trade.

So, my question is: beyond basic esthetic appeal, fineness of carving, and so on, what are the details one would look at to determine whether a Chokwe mask has been made for trade?

John Monroe

Hi John,

This is as good a place to raise your question as any. My personal prejudice about discussion boards like this one is that they work best by allowing conversations to drift in whatever directions they take.

I do have a rather old (pre World War II) mwana pwo that I am sure was made for sale to tourists, and if I can find time this evening I will take some photos of it and post them. I think the piece is attractive, although not of great value.

If anyone would like to prepare a brief essay introducing the topic of authenticity in Chokwe (or any other group) work, I will be happy to set it up with its own discussion forum. I hope that this site will eventually include a collection of archived essays with discussion as a resource to collectors at all levels.

Regards,

Steve Price

Pwo Masks

Hi John and Steve,

I have two Pwo masks in my collection, and while I am quite fond of them because of their excellence of design and quality of carving, I consider them the most doubtful itemes in my collection as regards authenticity. To be frank, I don't know why I am being so severe with them. The overall patina seems OK and the signs of wear are logical. The red pigment and caolin on the lips and eyes seems convincingly faded and worn. They also differ in type from Pwos so often photographed and which have inspired some excellent copies made for non ritual (perhaps touristic) purposes. Mine are both of a woman with thick, wide but heart shaped lips (one has the vestiges of dark red pigment), no teeth, high cheekbones, and a jutting, pointed chin. I've seen the type in a published collection before, but I can't remember where.

They have slight grease marks on the inside, where a wearer's face and hands would have come into contact with the wood. The grease marks are not obvious and rather light, giving at least the impression that they got there naturally, and were not added just to give the impression of the mask's having been worn. On one the friction of the raffia netting has begun to abraid and erode the patina of the wood around the holes.

Despite all of this, I still have doubts. They seem just a bit too slick. I do not mean by this that masks made for tribal use shouldn't display excellent workmanship. They must. But the face on these reminds me of 1950's European ceramics of African women made to hang on the wall. (On the other hand, perhaps we should not rule out an influence of these ceramics on the Chokwe. The Chokwe are, after all, not all that remote.) Or maybe I'm being too severe a parent.

All the best,

Bruce

Hi,

the Chokwe live in a 'vast' area south of Congo (ex-Zaire) and Angola, their influence can be feld even in Zambia. They influenced a lot of tribes like the Kete, Pende, ... where they live amongst or aside them. They 've produced a great variaty of masks. The last ten years a lot of chokwe art was produced for 'touristic' purpuses, masks nicely carved with a 'great shiny' patina, doubtfull traces of use, with the 'original' headdress included. The chokwe still use masks for their own use today, these masks are authentic and you can't compaire them with the ones made for the tourists. However it's sometimes difficult to distinguish the 'authentic' mask from the 'fake' mask. The greatest experts in the field have to admit that!

Hope this information helps a little bit, and I'm sure that someone will give some more usefull information regarding the chokwe.

Yours, Carlo Bold

Pwo Masks

Dear Steve,

It seems as though our thread on the subject of indications of authenticity in Pwo masks has gotten stalled. I fear that this is not because of lack of interest, but because quite a few of us out there are stymied on this matter. Steve, you mentioned that you have some Pwo masks that are quite old, but you are still sure that they were made for sale ouitside the tribal context. What about them brings you to that conclusion? From what I wrote on this topic, I think you can see that I feel pretty much the same way about mine, but I can't really define the reasons for my suspicions. Help, if you can.

Thanks,

Bruce

Hi Bruce,

I said I would post a photo of my mwana pwo mask, then forgot all about it. My apologies. here it is:



The person I got it from, whom I trust very much, said it had been in her possession since around the end of World War II, which makes it at least 50 years old, probably a good bit older. But I am 100% sure that it was never used in a tribal setting, and nearly as certain that it was not intended to be anything except an item for sale to an outsider.

Let's take the first issue first. Was it ever used? This one is easier than most. The inside shows absolutely no signs of patination beyond the carver's cuts. No smoothing of rough spots, everything quite unfinished and untouched. I don't think there is even the slightest probability that it was ever worn by anyone.

Was it intended for sale outside the community? This is more of a guess, but the form of the mouth (especially) is pretty far outside the Chokwe tradition, as is the overall shape of the face.

So, I don't think it is "authentic". Nevertheless, I think it is decorative, and I like it enough to have it displayed on a wall in my home.

Regards,

Steve Price

Pwo Mask

Dear Steve,

Thanks for your response. I have to agree with you. While the mask is, in fact, very attractive, there is a good deal about it that doesn't ring true in reference to tribal authenticity. To me, the proportions and the shape of the face are even a greater problem than the mouth, although the mouth is also, as you said, outside of the tradition.

Your posting the photo, however, has done us all a great service, since it has provided a concrete example of how excellent workmanship, provenance, and age are no guarantee of tribal authenticity. As you know, i have argued in other places that one's eyes and knowledge are as important as provenance and age in determining tribal authenticity.

Moreover, it shows us that the creation of iconographically inaccurate pieces for the export market was a very old phenomenon. I had been under the impression that items made for the export market more than 60 years ago (WW II was, in fact 60, not 50 years ago!) were still made largely within the culture concerned and thereby iconographically correct. Your mask shows that that is a false assumption. It shows that not only were pieces made for export over 60 years ago, but they probably had been made far enough removed (not necessarily geographically, but culturally) from the original culture to make "mistakes." On the other had, the artist who carved your mask may have been a traditional Chokwe who made changes thinking it would make his product more sellable to the outsiders. Both these alternatives seem to be associated with the contemporary commercialization of tribal African culture. You mask shows us that these possibilities existed well before the end of colonialism.

Thanks again,

Bruce

Hi Bruce,

I've read that African tribal work was being made for export at least 100 years ago, although I can't think of the source right this minute. There is probably more of it in museums than most of us like to acknowledge.

Regards,

Steve Price

Pwo Masks

Dear Steve,

That African art was made for export 100 years ago, and some of it has found its way into museums makes me somewhat uneasy. However, what really dangerously complicates the issue from a scholarly point of view is that some of this art, like your mask, does not accurately represent or reflect tribal realities. Or reflects these realities in a way that we have not yet understood. In short, what this intimates is that our ideas of traditional tribal culture may have to be reassessed. But that's what scholarship is about, isn't it?

Hi Bruce,

I'm a biologist who has been a university professor for more than 35 years, and your message reminds me of one of the (many) things I keep on the bulletin board beside my desk. Scientists do not discover in order to know, they know in order to discover. That inversion of purpose is more than just a trait; it is the essence of the matter. E.O. Wilson, in American Scholar, vol. 53, p. 447, 1984.

Wilson uses the word "scientist" here, but I believe "scholar" would be better. Scientists aren't the only ones for whom discovering new things is the most exciting of all activities (at least, of the activities that are possible without taking off all their clothes )

Regards,

Steve Price

It's nice to see this discussion continuing! I am particularly happy to have seen Steve's mask.

Like Bruce, the first thing that strikes me about the piece is the mouth -- the teeth aren't filed to points, as they are on iconographically "traditional" masks. Could this depiction of unfiled teeth have been the carver's effort to appeal to European buyers by creating a mask that looked more like them?

If so, that's interesting. It's entirely possible that departures from "traditional" forms, provoked by contact with new people, images and ideas, could in fact also tell us as much about "tribal" life as iconographically traditional artifacts do. The key, it would seem to me, is knowing enough about the culture in question to separate what's innovative from what's "traditional," and then to determine *why* the innovation takes the form it does.

This is why, for my part, I contemplate the possibility that Western museums are full of items made for sale to foreigners without a trace of unease. Those objects can be extremely valuable sources as well, provided scholars take the time to look at their originating cultures closely, and "discover" the meanings they contain.

Of course, this attitude comes in part from another assumption I take for granted -- I'm not so sure that African art made to respond to novel socio-economic circumstances, or even expressly for sale, is inevitably meretricious, even when it involves clearly-perceptible departures from "tribal" norms.

When made for sale, art comes to be about a culture's perception of the potential buyer, and what that buyer wants. This is in fact an important thing, since, for better or worse, one of the defining aspects of African history during the last 200 years has been an ongoing series of encounters with "the foreign" -- some enriching and some disastrous.

Mami Wata shrines provide an especially good example of the cultural importance "the foreign" has come to assume in African culture...but this development is also perceptible in more subtle manifestations, like Steve's Chokwe mask.

On a nuts-and-bolts level, finally, I've got a concrete question: the Chokwe masks that I have seen are generally carved from very dark wood -- how do the internal sweat and grease marks appear? Do they create visible stains, or rather areas of particular smoothness and gloss?

This is the sort of knowledge I'm trying to accumulate -- like Steve, I'm a university teacher, which means I've got limited money and therefore have to serve as my own "expert." I am not totally obsessed with "tribal use," but I don't want to find myself paying more than an object is worth because I don't know any better either!

John Monroe

Signs of wear

Dear John,

The signs of probably having been worn in my Chokwe masks are, in fact, difficult to see because of the very dark coloration of the wood. The wood is also hard and dense, and therefore does not absorb skin oils very readily. That the signs of use are not readily apparent is, in fact, what persuades me that they may, in fact, be authentic. They appear as darkened spots where nose and forehead would meet the wood; they are, however, very slight and can be seen only when the wook is illuminated properly. If these use signs are fabricated, the forger was really much more sophisticated than that which is generally the case.

Smooth or glossy spots on the interior, however, should be treated with caution, since they are very easy to fabricate. To be sure, a mask made to be worn cannot have any rough or splintery parts on the inside, which would cause the wearer discomfort. I have a rather convincing Songye Kifwebe which seems to have been specially smoothed and even waxed where the wearer's nose and lips would come in contact with the wood. This seems reasonable, since the mask is quite large and heavy and the ritual in which it is used is quite wild. Such a treatment on a smaller, lighter mask, such as a Chokwe pwo, which is not used in a particularly abandoned ceremony, would make me suspicious since simply a fairly smooth, non abraisive interior would have been sufficient.

I guess what I am saying is that in judging signs of use in a mask, it is helpful to know what kind of ritual the mask was made for and to look at the size and weight of the mask, and to take these elements into consideration when determining the authenticity of the sweat marks, glossy surfaces, etc, on the inside of the mask.

Best wishes,

Bruce

Hi Folks,

Sotheby's has a sale coming up on April 16 in Paris, with a very beautiful Chokwe mwana pwo, lot 125.



They're expecting pretty big money for this piece - the estimate is 15,000 to 25,000 euro. I don't know that it will bring such a high price, but it is a superb example (in my opinion), and I thought it worth adding to this discussion.

Regards,

Steve Price