Title: Gongoli mask
Item Type: wooden mask
Key words: Gongoli, Kongoli, Mende, Sierra Leone, Kenneth Little, mask
Description:
A wooden gongoli/kongoli Mask with raffia organic fibres adjoined to the sides and extending down the mask’s face as fringing. The mask bears prominent teeth and lips, animal-like ears, round yellow eyes and a flattened nose. The nose has two hollow holes resembling nostrils which extend to the back of the mask.
Function:
In Mende society the gongoli/kongoli mask is referred to as the jester mask to provide comic relief during funerals or other serious masquerades/ceremonies. The masqueraders make fun of village elders or the chief and roll around on the ground acting silly. The function of the performance is to show the worst side of human nature: deformed, discheveled, chaotic, undisciplined, deceptive, and antisocial. The mask is worn with a costume of raffia and rags. The movements of the performer are disjointed, erratic, awkward, and amusing. Gongoli masks are usually owned by private individuals and may appear at any celebration.
Dimensions:
102cm x 38cm (mask and raffia)
Materials:
Wood, organic fibre (probably raffia, derived from the leaves of the raffia palm tree), black and yellow pigment
Production Methods and Techniques:
We assume that wood carving and staining processes were used. Unlike the carving of other masks and “special” objects, in Mende society, carving gongoli masks is considered rough and any man is allowed to do it.
Condition:
Fair. The mask displays some discolouration, scratching and chips. The raffia is shedding.
Provenance
Name of creator: Unknown
Where the item was created/made: Sierra Leone
Date Made:
Unknown, but it is likely to have been made during or prior to the 1940s, when Kenneth Little performed his ethnographic fieldwork.
Acquisition:
We believe that the object was acquired by Professor Kenneth Little during his fieldwork in Sierra Leone. The object was brought to the University of Edinburgh and was donated to the Social Anthropology Teaching Collection. The nature of this acquisition is unknown.
Acquisition Date:
It was likely acquired in the 1940s during Kenneth Little’s fieldwork in Sierra Leone. It was likely donated to the Social Anthropology Teaching Collection after Kenneth Little joined the University of Edinburgh in 1950.
Current Location: 5th floor of Chrystal MacMillan Building on display.
General Notesr:
Out of deference to his individualistic personality, the word Gongoli’ should be treated as a proper noun when referring to the character, although italicized it as a foreign word when it serves as an adjective or modifier (‘gongoli dancer’). The correct spelling of gongoli is open to some debate. Most Mende speakers and some academic texts insist on kɔnkɔli or kongoli, arguing that gongoli is a Krio deformation. I use gongoli in this text since I often refer to it as a pan-ethnic figure, the spelling is more familiar in the existing literature, and in spoken pronunciation the ‘k’s of kɔnkɔli are swallowed so that they are very close to ‘g’s (Anderson, 2018: 718). .
Sources:
Anderson, S.M. (2018) ‘Letting the mask slip: the shameless fame of Sierra Leone’s Gongoli’, Africa, 88(4), pp. 718–743.
Reinhart, L. (1975) ‘Mende Carvers’. PhD diss., Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
Name of Cataloguer: Ariela Silber
Date: 05/03/2025
Accession Number: SA013
