Is it really ambiguous?

Hi People,



One matter that the ambiguity in the carving of the snout tip raises is this: Is the ambiguity (animal snout or human face?) a construct of our own mentality or was it the carver's intention to be ambiguous?

This issue is fairly general in collector interpretation of tribal art, and warrants serious attention. Cases in which something can be read as a human face - as in this instance - are particularly difficult because we are hard-wired to perceive even very simple patterns as representations of faces. It takes little more than a pair of dots and something below them to do this. I offer in evidence some of the "smilies" in our message board software:

As you can see, these simple forms are not only perceived as human faces, they are perceived as human faces expressing very specific emotions.

So, to return to the original question: Did the carver intend for the end of the snout on this mask to represent a human face, or is that something imposed on it by the viewer? I don't think we can find an answer by looking at this mask in isolation. It will require knowing something about the cultural tradition of the Mama people and applying that knowledge to the issue.

Regards,

Steve Price

Dear Steve,

I don't think the end of the snout was meant to be ambiguous. Looking at a lot of pictures of African art, not one looks ambiguous to me, so I don't think it's common. It would convince me that this one is purposely ambiguous if it is known that the Mama used ambiguity in their art. Do you have a reason to believe that they do?

Rich

Hi Rich,

Good point. I don't know that ambiguity is common in Mama art, and I haven't seen it in any other Mama mask. On the other hand, I don't think I've seen any other Mama masks with any sort of details at the end of the snout, so this one is unusual in at least one respect.

The situation here is, as I pointed out, complicated by the fact that the ambiguous detail (if it is ambiguous) has the human face as one of the alternative readings. The reason this complicates things is that we see human face representations so readily in such very simple forms.

More input on this would be most welcome.

Regards,

Steve Price