This book is not for the faint-hearted, and possibly not for the person wanting to know about the visual history of mapiko masks because there are so few illustrations, and all are black and white. It is, however, a study in great depth of the historiography of older mapiko masquerading in Mozambique, and an intricately woven social history of twentieth-century Makonde masking forms. In combining extensive archival and field research, Israel brings to light a wealth of detail on the ways in which masking has changed over time and in a variety of social and historical circumstances. One of the features of the book, possibly in an attempt to guide the reader through complex territory, is the (possibly thesis-remnant) preface to each section that maps out the trajectory of his exploration.
In Part 1, Israel considers the colonial archive and the ways in which the anthropological literature constructed and interpreted...