Exhibition - Ceci n'est pas un masque - Le Wanyugo des Senufo de Côte d'Ivoire

At the beginning of the story, the Wanyugo is one of 42 Senufo pieces from Burkina, Mali and Côte d'Ivoire held at the Natural History Museum in La Rochelle, France, one of 2,500 African-produced objects brought into the collection between 1880 and 1959. For all its enigmatic, succinct description, the Wanyugo is officially identified in the collection as a "fire-breathing mask, brought back in the 1960s by art dealer Henri Kamer"... with no further details on its form, provenance or function. Ethnologist Marie Lorillard, a specialist in the Sénoufo, led the investigation. She enlisted the help of Kiali Soro, a craftsman from Fonikaha in northern Côte d'Ivoire, and Jean-Claude Faboly Djamouténé, a linguist from Mali, both of whom had been initiated into Poro, a rite linked to Wanyugo. The museum team embarked on an extensive and time-consuming archival and bibliographical project. Objects, pieces loaned by private collectors and the museums of Angoulême and Bourges, specimens, videos, ethnographic testimonies, drawings and artistic performances are associated with the Wanyugo, shedding new light on the subject without desacralizing the ritual mask. The Wanyugo continues to exude a certain mystery, a secrecy that surrounds it and seems to testify to its living, sacred character.