A Mask of the Western Kuranko

In this research note I draw together a number of dispersed snippets of information about mask and figure carving among the western Kuranko of northeastern Sierra Leone. At its center is a description of a Kuranko mask I was able to photograph in April 1993 in the course of a research trip that took me northwards from the town of Masingbi on the road to Kono through the Kuranko chiefdoms of Nieni and Sambaia. I cannot claim to have carried out serious research into Kuranko masking or carving traditions, but there may nevertheless be value in putting my notes on seeing this particular mask and the observations I was able to make on that occasion in the context of what little we know of Kuranko masking from other sources: for example, the information in the registers of the Sierra Leone National Museum about masks described as “Kuranko” in its collections....