Vuvi Masks verted omega), denote the eyebrow lines and the nose.” The Vuvi style is characterized by a combination of elements, including long curved eyebrows, eyes that can be either close to one another or elongated toward the temples, a short triangular nose of conical or rectangular shape, and a mouth that is always open, sometimes displaying teeth. Together these elements form a heart-shaped face. “This is the age-old forest environment vision, which recapitulates the signs of a face … of a bird of prey in the moonlight or of a butterfly, or the face of one or more deceased 103 ancestors” (Neyt, 2010: 30). A similar short, triangular nose is also observed in the carvings of the Kwele and the Tsogo, as are the rounded eyebrows, which are sometimes doubled. Like certain Fang, Tsogo, and Aduma masks, most Vuvi masks have no ears. In this they differ from those of the Punu, Tsengi, and Dzebi. The hair is rendered as a large rounded band to which vegetal adornments are attached. Some of these masks have a rectangular ochre-colored band extending from mouth to the chin, which represents the beard that only dignitaries may wear. White, Red, and Black The dominant color of Vuvi masks is white, made from pemba (clay) and bone powder. White denotes purity as well as sperm, while bone symbolizes both the vision of the ancestors and the moon, Ngonde, the latter seen here as a spiritual entity and not just an astral object. The white mask is not uniformly white—the eyebrows, the nose, and the mouth are colored with black or a reddish brown ochre. Other masks are colored red with tsingo (a powder made from padauk wood mixed with water and palm oil), a symbol of the sacred. It is also the color of the Tsogo bwiti. Red is (menstrual) blood, life, and the woman, but it is also a reference to Kombe, the sun, according to Julien Bonhomme, who did research among the Pove in 2001 and 2002 (2005: 131). The association of white and red symbolizes the sun/moon couple, and thus represent both sexes. The sun evokes the father and authority, and the moon evokes the divinity of the woman and her power of fertility. These cosmic symbols are also known from Tsogo bwiti temple doors (Musée du Quai Branly, inv. 71.1964.38.1, and Musée de Libreville, inv. 137-1 and 137-2). They are widespread in the Ogooue-Congo cultural area and are the sources for innumerable myths, legends, and cults. The symbolism of colors is common throughout the entire Ogooue Basin, with the association of the three colors red, black, and white. Color is more the result of functional and circumstantial necessity than an absolute mark of idensperm, the source and origin of life” (Kialo, 2005: 31). These masks generally have two colors. The Corpus of Vuvi Masks This study on Vuvi masks is far from exhaustive but offers a synthesis based on a corpus of some fifty masks from major private and museum collections. Vuvi masks are few in number and, for the most part, difficult to date. Most were collected around the 1930s. Their shared morphological traits are immediately apparent, and their abstract style has great similarities to that of Tsogo masks, and often to Fang masks, which accounts for past errors in attribution, questions concerning origins, and the double appellation Vuvi-Tsogo that is frequently encountered. One must bear in mind that “Style universes are not closed systems. … It is difficult to distinguish Tsogo objects from Sango objects with certainty, since most often these two peoples coexist symbiotically in the same villages. The Mitsogo even routinely borrow their neighbors’ masks and sculpted objects and integrate them directly into their own rituals” (Perrois, 1982: 18 and 40). This observation applies to Vuvi works as well. For example, a dancer wearing a Vuvi mask was photographed by Pierre Amrouche at the Tsogo village of Mimongo. Style While it is problematic to define the constants of a style for the Tsogo, who, according to Pierre Sallée (1975: 89), produce “an almost aberrant quantity of forms and types, among which the white mask is just one particular example.” The Vuvi, on the other hand, produce masks “which are nearly flat, and on which two arcs linked by a triangular appendix (resembling a stylized fleur de lys or an in- FIG. 18: Mask. Vuvi, Gabon. H: 32 cm. Ex Hélène and Philippe Leloup. Private collection, Paris. Photo © Michel Gurfinkel. Published: Perrois, 1988, p. 4. FIG. 19: Mask. Vuvi, Gabon. H: 31 cm. Ex Dr. Jean-Claude Andrault. Private collection. Reproduced with the kind permission of Lin and Emile Deletaille. Published: Musée de la Castre, 1990, p. 39, cat. 99; The World of Tribal Art, 2001, no. 25, interior cover. FIG. 20: Mask. Vuvi, Gabon. H: 27 cm. Collected in the 1970s on a forest track, 50 km north of Malinga (southern Gabon). Private collection. FIG. 21: Mask. Vuvi, Gabon. Ex Han Coray (numbered HC 302 on the interior). Current location unknown. Reproduced from Arts primitifs, Guy Loudmer, December 10, 1990, lot 299. With the kind permission of Guy Loudmer. FIGS. 22 & 23 (above): Masks. Vuvi, Gabon. Collected before 1930 and presented to the Pavillon des Missions of the 1931 Exposition Coloniale Internationale in Paris. Collection des Spiritains known as the Mortain Collection, inv. M. 10 (left) and M. 24 (right). With the kind permission of the Spiritains Fathers.
I-IVCoverE_CoverF Vuvi
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