Q: My mother ordered this mask from a collector in Northern Rhodesia in 1949. (now Zambia). There is a letter from him and a note in the back mentioning a tribe which I cannot read clearly. Maroshe? Mashona is the only tribe I could find close to that spelling.
It is made of very dense, dark wood and there was at one time hair attached as topnotch and beard? It may have suffered from the many moves of a Navy family over the years, or it may have come like this.
A: I’m not sure which tribe this mask comes from. Maybe the Makonde people? If you’ve seen a mask like this or if you have any ideas of what tribe the writing on the back of the mask is referring to, please leave us a comment.
