Alluring Nyau Society Mask

Vintage Nyau society mask field collected in Malawi in the 1970s by Donald and Paula Brody. The Chewa people of Zambia, Mozambique and central Malawi have a secret society, known as Nyau, that oversees cultural-religious education and initiation of youth, segregated by sex. With rare exceptions, only male Nyau society initiates carve and perform masks, typically in conjunction with rites of passage, funerals and other important occasions. These performances are known as Gule Wamkulu, or the Great Dance. Chewa cultural origins lie with the Luba. Oral tradition has it that their masquerade tradition was brought with them in migration long ago from Congo, although there is little obvious similarity between twentieth century Nyau society and Luba masks. However, traditions are forever evolving, particularly when people move to new lands and are subject to a different set of natural and social environmental factors. Prior to the twentieth century, Chewa masks are recounted as having primarily represented animals, often as full body mask-costume combinations. According to Laurel Birch de Aguilar (Inscribing the Mask: Interpretation of Nyau Masks and Ritual Performance among the Chewa of Central Malawi, 1998), who researched Nyau in situ over the course of years and became a Nyau initiate, these zoomorphic forms, some still in use today, have an ancient ancestry related to funerary rites. Other mask forms, and indeed Nyau itself, are likewise concerned with honoring the dead and adhering to custom. Nyau masks are seen by the Chewa as ancestral spirits: unruly, wild and animal-like. Their associated costumes are typically a motley combination of tattered clothes, feed sacks, natural hides, synthetic hair and feathers. Masks themselves have power; they are also subject to spells. Performers are said to anoint them with medicines and to spit in them prior to use to ward off malevolent spirits and witchcraft. Nyau masks take on a variety of forms and characters that reflect Chewa perceptions of themselves and their world. Whereas in the past, nature—and from the seventeenth century on—slave raiding were primary concerns, from the late nineteenth century onward, European colonization presented a new set of conditions and preoccupations. This apparently led to an elaboration of human characters and hierarchies that were intentionally ambiguous, even contradictory.

By de Aguilar’s accounting, this mask can be described as a Maria mask. Marias are female representations performed by a male dancer. Maria is understood to be a foreigner and yet also the spouse of Chadzunda and mother of all, including Simoni. As the chief’s spouse, she is also his counsel and defender. Maria masks may be carved as young initiates or as mature, older women. Here she is depicted as young, with the requisite cheek markings. Ex Lucien Gueniquez, exhibited at Axis Gallery, New York, November 2001. $750

17″ H

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