Ibo people, Southern Nigeria

23 inches, painted wood with headdress

Each year during the peak of the rainy season Igbo village groups in
the southwestern region stop everyday activities for a full
month. This season is dedicated to Owu, the time when water spirits descend to earth from their homes in the clouds in
order to dwell and cavort among human beings. These types of masks are called Okoroshi, best translated as "water spirit." The benign and friendly ones are Okoroshi-oma, meaning good, pretty and light. Fewer of these white-faced, white-dressed female characters come out than their aggressive male counterparts in dark blankets with a great variety of swarthy and deliberately unattractive masks, the Okoroshi-ojo, meaning evil, dark, and ugly.

$645