Rare! African Tribal Mask Ceremonial Senufo FIRESPITTER

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Vintage Fire Spitter mask with 2 human faces atop and a bowl or cuplike place on top for secret substance called wa, which guarantees the success of the ritual . A great piece of workmanship and artistic carving. Very, very old! For more on firespitter masks see : /Senufo_firespitter_reference_examples.html (1 more large "hat mask" & then we move on to the fetishes and icons and the framed and mounted antique maps and the vintage books & other records and paraphenalia from this same estate. It has been a great experience selling to professional collectors, galleries and private collectors these unique and exotic masks!) This is the only firespitter we found of the collection. Approximate dimensions are 11½" long x 5½" wide x 6¼" tall. Sturdy & can be handled without concern of damage. 1 "tooth" of this piece is broken off. See below for background info on item and previous owner. Of hollowed form, with two large animal faces, each with open mouth baring pointed teeth and sharing a raised pointed ear on either side, Very mysterious raised carving around 1 ear. Heavily aged greyish brown patina. P erceived by the Senufo as violent masks whose powers are employed either on behalf of the Poro initiation society to maintain social order, or with more limited associations as part of anti-witchcraft practices.The cup carved on the crest of the mask helmet to contain the magic substances (wah) which confer its powers, identifies the piece as probably belonging to the wabele society, responsible for detecting and destroying sorcerers and evil spirits. This stuning ceremonial or ritual piece is from the lifelong collection of psychology professor Dr. Samuel Klayman. Professor Sam Klayman, whose lonely & tragic life ended a few months ago as a very old man, was a long time collector of authentic African ritual items and voodoo & witchcraft pieces. Even the furniture of his apartment was in the majority rough handcrafted collection pieces from Africa. Every wall in his home was covered from the cieling till midway to the floor with hundreds of ritual masks, icons and figures some with extreme erotic conotations. Along with these masks he collected an extensive amount of authoratative books on this subject as well as thousands of first print science fiction and horor novels. He had a great many ancient maps mounted in frames which we will be posting once we finish selling the many masks from his estate. All masks that we will now be selling are exclusively from Doctor Klayman's private collection. Doctor Klayman of Quentin Rd and Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn, NY spent a large amount of his life in this final residence of his and given his lifelong handicap and reclusive manner he persued his hobby with great passion and we are perpetuating his love for these artifacts by selling them in the hope that they will be preserved by new owners who value these items as he so lovingly did. We hope to add more of his collection to ebay in the next few weeks and will indicate that they are from this exclusive collection. Please note that we are in posession of the entire collection at this time and have exclusive access to the vast majority of the estate. Only one mask was held by another individual who sold it a while back on ebay without disclosing its origin. We will endeavor to give as much information as to the history of the masks as well as the owner's bios. The interior carving or hollowing is obviously indicative of exclusive hand carving & with perhaps primitive tools. While the doctor posessed a large collection of ancient coins and stamps the entire collection was stolen immediately after his demise and efforts to recover them were futile. Please be aware that due to the fact that we deal almost exclusively with prestigious estates with a variety of collections we cannot profess to being any type of authority on these items and cannot guarantee authenticity of estate's claims of age or origin though we have done substantial research in the matter. Likewise,... read more

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