Magazines - Tribal Art Autumn 2007

By Peter Mark, adapted, with the author's permission, from the appendix of the book The Wild Bull and the Sacred Forest,Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992.

Introduction:
The horned mask embellished with Arabic script on its interior illustrated here is in the collection of of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. Before being transferred to this museum, it entered the collection of the Musée de l'Homme in 1934 as part of a group of artifacts from North America, all of which had been in the Bibliothèque de la Ville de Versailles. A group of early painted hide robes from this same collection was the subject of an article by Christian Feest in the previous issue of this publication. The story of these objects is fascinating and worthy of elaboration.
The the time of its accession, this mask––which is indisputably a kebul type from the Casamance region of Senegal/Gambia––was identified as "Masque de chasse en vannerie, recouvert de graines rouges et représentant la tête d'un buffle. Etats-Unis. Louisiane." The collection had belonged to the Versailles Library since 1806, when it was transferred from the Château de Versailles. At the château, it had formed part of the Cabinet d'Histoire Naturelle, which was part of a public museum there from 1793 to 1806.
The earliest published catalogue of the Versailles library collection dates to 1869. Listed among the objects from North America was a "masque de chasse de la Louisiane". This admittedly cryptic reference, together with the identification of the mask as coming from North America, would leave questions about whether the object was this particular mask, were it not for the existence of additional documentation. An 1897 article about the Cabinet d'Histoire Naturelle in the Versailles Library includes an illustration of the North American exhibit, which was based on an earlier photograph. This picture shows a clothed mannequin that supposedly represented typical Indian attire. Above the figure was hung a horned headdress. This headdress is, beyond a doubt, the Casamance mask. Clearly, the object was misidentified throughout the period that the collection was at the Versailles Library. This institution served only as a depot; no research was done while the objects were kept there. Thus the attribution must date from an earlier moment in the mask's peregrinations, when it belonged to the Cabinet d'Histoire Naturelle at the Château de Versailles.