'Elvis' Mask for Nyau Society

ca. 1977

ART OF SATIRE

Masks are particularly useful for expressing disapproval and thus reinforcing communal values. These two masks performed instructional and critical messages about proper behavior and political discontent.

Male Yoruba dancers wear gelede masks at festivals honoring the women of the community. Gelede often serves as a showcase for artistic innovation, with its masks depicting motifs that are both entertaining and critical. This mask depicts a French gendarme, a colonial soldier, and was most likely performed as a critique of French personal and political behavior during the colonial period.

The mask depicting Elvis Presley belonged to the Nyau society (to which all Chewa men belong), an institution that governs the spiritual realm of death and the ancestors. The society’s masks always represent the spirits of the deceased, but they may also represent wild bush spirits or caricature personalities from the wider community. Outsiders—including Swahili slave traders, British officials, the Virgin Mary, and other iconic foreigners such as Elvis Presley— have been considered representative of antisocial traits and undesirable values.