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31. Komo Helmet Mask (Komokunw)
Bamana, Mali
Wood, quills, tusks, bird skull, organic material; 25.4 x 85 x 23.2 cm (10 x 33 1/2 x 9 1/8 in.)
19th–20th century
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Morton Lipkin, 1961
1978.412.426

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31. Komo Helmet Mask (Komokunw)

n Mande culture, Komo headdresses such as this helmet mask (komokunw) are repositories of great ritual power generated through prescribed combinations of elemental matter. When worn in performance, these works have the potential to transform their owners into omniscient social commentators.1

For the Bamana, a people of Mande heritage, the basic form of energy animating the universe and fueling all activities, whether natural or mystical, is known as nyama. The ability to control, direct, and channel nyama toward specific ends requires a command of the most potent knowledge conceivable.2 Those who possess this knowledge, which is referred to as "sorcery," are regarded with ambivalence, since they have the potential to greatly benefit others or do them great harm.3 Anyone motivated to do so may pursue the acquisition of this knowledge by devoting the time, effort, and resources necessary to learn from a master. Most people, however, rely on the services of experts (donnikelaw, literally "persons who know") to direct nyama on their behalf by diagnosing the cause of their problems. Through divination, and by fortifying them against danger with protective amulets, these specialists assist the people they advise to live up to their full potential.4

Within societies of Mande origin, members of nyamakala groups—families of specialized professionals, such as blacksmiths—are innately endowed with such abilities, which they further refine over the course of their extensive apprenticeships.5 Blacksmiths (numuw), as individuals who master the technically demanding process of ironworking, manage enormous quantities of nyama by transforming iron ore into implements and artifacts.6 Thus, their abilities may be directed beyond overseeing metallurgical processes to include mediating endeavors that require the same profound insight into managing power, such as healing and divination. The association between blacksmiths and divination is alluded to in a Bamana oral narrative concerning a smith named Fa Sine Dyara, who served as the valued counselor to the leader Sousan through his ability to interpret the "language of the birds."7 Smiths may practice a variety of divination techniques, interpreting signs such as the movements of snakes, configurations of thrown cowrie shells (kolonw), and designs drawn in the sand (cenda).8 They often confirm their findings in one method by verifying it through a second one. Ultimately, they may be able to visualize definitive answers to the inquiries of community members while participating in a Komo society performance.

Komo is an initiation association led by blacksmiths, whose mandate is to promote the general well-being of the community and to protect society from harm. Teenage boys, after they are circumcised, are eligible to join Komo and become participants in its secret affairs.9 During meetings restricted to members, high-ranking officials (komotigiw) perform dances while wearing wooden helmet masks (komokunw).10 These dances respond to petitions from the community for various kinds of help, ranging from divining the cause of a family's crop failure to correcting a problem of infertility. Individuals are called to positions of Komo leadership by a spirit with whom they enter into a relationship; they will subsequently create or inherit a mask that is also invested with spiritual power. In order to divine while dancing, the performer concentrates on combining his nyama with the nyama of this spirit and that of his own mask.11 Through a sort of free association, answers to the problems that have been presented to him come into his mind, and during a performance he reveals these solutions to his audience through the medium of song.

The Komo mask is an artifact that portrays wisdom and erudition through its complex arrangement of materials and serves as a deterrent to antisocial acts through its monstrous ferocity.12 The juxtaposition of dissonant organic elements creates a wild, inscrutable appearance that defies Bamana aesthetic ideals.13 New Komo masks are assembled by their owners in a process that takes four to six weeks.14 Once the proper wood is selected for the understructure, the carving takes place within an afternoon. The komotigiw must subsequently gather the work's herbal contents and hunt for its animal components, and then prepare them, following a series of recipes (daliluw) that will empower the work to accomplish specific actions.15 Knowledge of the various daliluw that define the composition of an individual Komo mask is necessary to control the work—knowledge that is available only to the mask's maker or owner.16 The unrestrained, raw power projected by the design of such works correlates with the intensely intellectual exercise in applied engineering that went into making it.

The work shown here is in the classic form of a horizontal sculpture of a saurian beast, with a dome-shaped forehead and with horizontal ears carved on either side. Additions of animal elements extend this sculptural form at both ends. At the left, horns that curve upward, attached to the tips of the ears, refer to the power of the bush and evoke the strength and endurance of the animal world. They suggest danger and aggression and are associated with knowledge through their use as medicinal containers.17 At the right, the mouth is depicted with jaws open, exposing serrated rims of sharp teeth and terminating in a snoutlike form, on top of which a bird skull with a long, narrow, pointed beak has been attached. In Mande culture, speech is considered a potent form of nyama, and the enormous maw represents a reservoir for vast quantities of powerful oratory.18 Patrick McNaughton has suggested that they are modeled after the jaws of the hyena, a creature perceived to be keenly intelligent and immensely knowledgeable about the natural landscape.19

The bird skull that juts from these jaws evokes several metaphorical associations. Birds are linked with the notion of wisdom.20 In their airborne position, they mediate between humans and the sky, thus making accessible the omniscience of the heavens, which they communicate through a special divinatory technique. Their representation in Komo masks, whether through bundles of vulture feathers or through a skull, as in this example, makes specific reference to the mask's oracular powers. The skull has been covered with quills from a porcupine, another animal that is a symbol of wisdom and the preservation of knowledge.21 The quills themselves refer to weaponry such as darts, arrows, and bullets used by Bamana hunters, suggesting their power to combat sorcery. The skull's surface is a crusty layer of sacrificial matter combined with earth of uneven and crackled consistency. Continually added to over the course of the work's lifetime, this incrustation has gradually obscured the mask's features while enhancing its power to dispense clarity and anticipate future events.22

1. McNaughton 1988.

2. Ibid., p. 15.

3. Ibid., p. 12.

4. Ibid., pp. 13, 51.

5. Ibid., p. 12.

6. Ibid., pp. 7, 16.

7. Ibid., p. 52.

8. Ibid., pp. 52–56.

9. Ibid., p. 131.

10. Ibid., p. 129.

11. Ibid., pp. 135, 141.

12. Ibid., p. 130.

13. Ibid., p. 138.

14. Ibid., p. 133–34.

15. Ibid., p. 43.

16. Ibid., p. 134.

17. Ibid., p. 136.

18. Ibid., p. 137.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid., p. 136.

22. Ibid., p. 138.