The use of masks is universal although there may be no word for mask in the culture using them. As transformative objects, they conceal the wearer’s identity but also reveal the meaning of the mask and what it represents. They are used for such diverse aims for it is mind-boggling: as a familiar historical or mythical person or gods or goddess taken from religions, plays, books, folk tales, dramas or mask dances; as priests, shamans, monks and local clerics performing religious or spiritual rituals; as one executing secret rituals known only to those who “get” the emblematic meaning known only to the group; or other “rites of passage” including initiations, creation myths, burials, agricultural events, feasts, dances and dramas where mythological beings, plants, animals, birds or other animate, inanimate or natural objects are in play. In some traditions as in Bali, masks of clowns, village idiots and even those with deformities provide slapstick humor and commentary to amuse the crowd, provide breaks in serious dramas and share public gossip about village denizens. Masks were used in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome for different purposes and throughout Europe for carnivals, magic practices, pagan celebrations, fertility rituals and other festivities.
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This antique Nuo Opera mask is Tudi Gong, benevolent Earth god with smiling animated face, long eyebrows, hemp beard and high decorative hat. With an honest gentle disposition, he symbolizing the power of good to defeat evil. Nuo popular in Ming/ Qing dynasties, there are few remaining troupes.
Chinese Noa opera mask is likely a female zhengshen – a benevolent gods with kind and honest nature and gentle disposition -symbolizing the power of good to defeat evil. Age and heavy use
Similar to Balinese masks, this rare carving is a king’s mask (topeng dalem) with an intricately carved crown. Its white color symbolizes the king’s purity, refinement, and morality. Made from a heavier, dense wood, it requires more effort and skill to carve. Old authentic, traditional Lombok masks are scarce.
This very masterful and unusual Jauk mask carved by the Balinese community on Lombok has a sweet smile and moustache and eyebrows of animal hide and hair. The dancer wear gloves with very long fingernails moving his hands back and forth to generate anxiety in onlookers.
Timor masks are rare, intense, characterized by large roughly cut eyes and sometimes have no teeth. This one is not completely black from being stored in house rafters and also has no animal hide with hair attached to it. Its surface has darkened unevenly and there are white bits of white especially on the front. Threatening due to its lack of teeth, asymmetrical eyes and their lack of balance, ancestral masks are used in offering rituals designed to drive off malevolent spirits, scare enemies and perform ritual ceremonies and war celebrations.
Dayu mask of Balinese high-caste female Hindu Brahman, beautiful decorative piece on a museum quality metal stand.
Authentic Chinese Nuo regional folk art mask representing a magistrate portrayed as an elite bureaucrat with civic authority. Finely carved with decorative official’s head headpiece. Indications it was used in ritual dances during 20th century.
In Dayak tradition, this vintage authentic hudoq mask has a white face paint around the eyes and forehead.and carved outlines with traditional upward curling moustache arabesques. Mounted on a museum quality metal stand.
Balinese monkey masks (topeng bojog) are used in dance-dramas based on the ancient Indian moral epic the Ramayana. In Balinese Hinduism, monkeys as sacred guardians and protectors of temples where their auspicious presence brings good luck.
Authentic vintage mask of a king (topeng dalem) carved in the Balinese community on Lombok Island. Honoring historical kings, it was also an offering to please the gods. It exhibits the king’s qualities: a refined, cultured, idealized, model leader. Mounted on museum quality stand.
Used in ritual Cham Dances, this whimsical and colorful mask emphasizes the horses playful character, alertness and strength with large eyes, painted lashes, wide raised lids, flaring nostrils, open mouth and pointed ears framed by beautifully carved rows of black hair.
Deeply set cut-out eyes and mouths are traditional for West Timor ancestor masks as are few, none or menacing teeth. They are rare and often have hair on animal hides on the upper lip, brows and head. Often looking threatening with stark features, their black color, teeth and often lack of balance scare off malevolent and evil spirits. Storing them in the rafters above the house hearth accounts for their smokey black color. Timor Ancestor masks have an earthy expressive presence and a raw spirit.
Timor’s religion has been described by Barbier as ritual exchanges between persons and social groups with their ancestors and fertility spirits. Timorese believe they can be upset by wicked forces, sickness, infertility and other forces, but particularly by the failure of the living to make suitable sacrifices to ancestral spirits. The departed protect and bring prosperity to the living as long as they are honored properly, so there is a close reciprocal link between the deceased and the secular world. Ancestors mediate between the living and the unseen world for living relatives. Their masks are used in animist veneration rituals, protective ceremonies and ritual dances or ceremonies tied to fertility, harvest, or funerary rites Besides masks, the living s are obliged to carve ancestor effigies to honor departed souls for them to occupy and rest in during their village visits. Many ceremonies usually occur in a house room known as “the womb” where a pillar supports beams rising up to the roof struts. This functions symbolically as an axis mundi (the center of the world or cosmic axis) that connects heaven and supports a simple altar above the floor to hold religious artifacts, protective fetishes and charms to ward off evil. So masks, effigies and fetish objects are protective and magic objects used throughout Indonesian islands in. Timor masks were rarely seen in the west until the mid-1970s.
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