Mask
date: label: Accession Date
content: 9 Mar 1859
name: label: Donor Name
content: Emperor Of Japan
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "4967 abc. A is the mask itself, B is the horned super-structure, C is the genet-skin fringe. Mask with braided human-hair beard; horned super-structure wired on top, genet skin fringe. 4/1961 Dr. Himmelheber identified the main part of this mask, but he said that the horned part on the top was not a part of the original and must have been added by someone afterward. Mask bore number 4979 on front for many years, but this is in error. Old exhibit label reads as follows: mask of wood, carved and blackened. The fringe hanging down from the back of the curving horns is of emmet (genet ?) Skin. Eyebrows and beard are plaits of human hair with bushy tassels, decorated with cowrie shells at the end of each plait. Bits of tin form the teeth, and the face is decorated also with strips of the same metal. The mask is bound with cloth on the edges where it fits the face. Worn in ceremonies in order to frighten persons. Commodore Perry calls it "mask of the grand devil." the tribal marks on the cheeks resemble those used by the Kioko negroes [sic] of interior Angola. This mask may really be mask #4969. The numbers for this section of the old ledger were originally off by 10. They were later corrected in the ledger but the objects had the wrong numbers on them for years. Since this mask was found with number 4979 on it, it very well could really have been # 4969."
label: Record Last Modified
content: 20 Apr 2020
label: Specimen Count
content: 3
place: label: Place
content: Liberia, Africa
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Kran
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 199043
label: USNM Number
content: E4967-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Mask