Baule Double Mask, Côte d'Ivoire

Two faces, side by side, almost as Siamese twins, are carved in relief in a monoxyle block, the rear side of which reveals the hollow negative form of a single face - of the four eyes, only the two central ones are pierced through - which the bearer wore against his own face. Seemingly emerging from the flanged "base", the two oval forward-thrusting faces vividly display the perfection of their forms. The half-closed eyes that accentuate the serene appearance, suggest contemplation and express contained intensity and concentration. Thus inhabited by an inner presence, these faces, which, to all appearances, seem isomorphic, seem to fuse their twinning into a single indissoluble being. Yet each becomes individualized in a subtle interplay of echoing elements.The scarification pattern that highlights the splendor of the epidermis runs in parallel dispositions yet does not repeat itself. This type of scarification is termed Baule Ngole literally "Baule signs [of recognition]", and was once a sign of recognition, not only from a social standpoint (as is the case with the one adorning the temples and the bridge of the nose) but also from an individual one. The sculptor has thus relied on other Baule Ngole  to differentiate the two characters: three signs in the middle of the cheeks, and motifs that follow the curve of the forehead as well as two diagonals stemming from three salient points on the other.

If this mask is called Nda, it is because its purpose is to celebrate the joy of giving birth to twins, and to celebrate them in order to manifest the immense admiration of those around them. The Nda appears at regular intervals (with five or six other masks) as part of celebration ceremonies open to all, the names of which vary depending on the subgroups: ajusu, ajemble, ngblo or mblo. The Nda even becomes a part of everyday life for the flesh and blood twins that it evokes, symbolizes and values. As such, it falls within the category of portrait masks (the Ndoma) bearing the surnames of people they honor. Indeed, doesn't the word Ndoma itself mean "equivalence", replica" or "a double of the person" ? Essential fact: during a ceremony, the Nda mask is accompanied by the people it represents, who dance with the bearer and who are thus established as the living doubles of the work of art. If unavailable, they appoint "representatives". Upon the death of the twins, these "substitutes" continue this service, but the mask is more often than not no longer part of dances. Like a game of mirrors, the duplication is thus reflected, multiplied, magnified by the mask; for twinning is at the heart of Baule conceptions, entirely at odds with the bewilderment and heartbreak of European Romanticism surrounding the topic of the double. ³ For them, the concepts of complementarity and androgyny are founding notions⁴ ; they like to couple beings by extolling harmony and symmetry on an aesthetic plane - as evidenced by the Asie usu couples ("genies of nature") depicting a genie in its masculine / feminine duality, but also by the bifrons or hermaphrodite statuettes, which express the dual male and female nature of the person.



Duality affects many areas, from daily life to the cosmogonic. In the Baule language the word Nda (twins) is used in numerous expressions related to anything that works as a double (waka nda, forked wood; atin nda, bifurcating tracks, etc.). Spiritually, what Christians call "soul" is referred to as  Wawè  ; it attaches itself to the fetus in the third month and, after death, it leaves the body to rejoin the ancestors. In reality Wawè literally means "shadow" or "double", and this term designates both the shadow looming on the ground while walking in the sun, and the reflection of the face when bending over a puddle of water or when looking in a mirror - all extensions of the individual, inseparable companions, like the faces associated within this mask. Even on the religious plane opposition and conjunction are central, with a founding myth that stems from a dual organization of the universe: chaos contains the male and female principles, both united and divided. It then falls to sculpture to try and restore and solemnize this cosmogonic alliance, which is a source of dynamism.