“Idiok Ekpo” Mask
Ibibio people, Nigeria, 2nd quar. 20th c.
Wood, pigments, cowries
11” h x 7.5” w x 5” d (27.9 x 19.1 x 12.7 cm)
Price: $1,500.00
Ibibio masks of the ekpo society depicting beneficent ancestor spirits (mfon ekpo) were carved to be beautiful and were typically associated with fertility, whereas masks representing malevolent spirits (idiok ekpo) were designed to be unsightly and evoke horror—being commonly painted in dark tones, featuring misshapen teeth, and manifesting various skin ailments, particularly gangosa—the ghastly and irremediable disfigurement resulting from late-stage yaws disease, which wreaks havoc upon the soft tissue, bone, and cartilage of the nose and mouth (Simmons 1957; Hook 2015). The mfon ekpo–idiok ekpo dichotomy gave potent plastic expression to the antithetical principles of good and evil as understood by the Ibibio, with persons esteemed in life for their moral rectitude and those thought to have led a dissipated existence respectively portrayed in death with mfon ekpo and idiok ekpo masks (Elsas 1984: 8).
