Lipico Mask Depicting Boxer

According to Alexander Bortolot, “Masks that appear grotesque or deformed came into popularity in northern Mozambique in the 1950s. Makonde artists such as Shumu and Lipato, among the most famous mapiko artists of their generation, invented masks like these for use in new mapiko choreographies based either in foreign dance forms they observed in southern Tanzania while working there as laborers, or in comical and ridiculous scenarios drawn from life – a hunter with a horrible eye infection or a fisherman with a fishbone stuck in his throat.” In this case, the character appears to be a male with a wounded eye and a lump on his head. Is he a boxer or a drunkard who suffered a beating? Mapico masks depicted character types such as the “beautiful Makua woman,” “the crazy old crone,” or “the police officer,” but they also portrayed personalities of the local community: “the Sikh merchant,” for example, or “the Queen.”

10″ H

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