Gabon Kwele People (Beete Cult) Mask - "Ekuk" Protection Mask

This is a Gabonian Kwele People animal mask, called "ekuk," used during ceremonies of the Beete cult, a social association among the Kwele peoples. The Kwele masks are used during initiation ceremonies and/or at the end of a mourning period. The masks represent the spirits of the forest. Maskers do not wear Kwele masks during ceremonies; instead they are shown to the audience.

This ram mask, called "bata," is distinguished by the curving horns that gently frame the face. The mask is relatively flat, and often has a whitened heart-shaped face, a triangular nose, coffee-bean eyes, wide arced eyebrows and small or non-existent mouth. The faces are usually painted in white kaolin earth, a pigment associated by the Kwele with light and clarity, the two essential factors in the fight against evil.

The Kwele believe that unexplained deaths, epidemics, and other mysterious threats are caused by witchcraft. The Beete ritual, which includes masked performances, tries to defeat witchcraft. The Beete cult reinforces unity and maintains social order.

The Beete ritual, which lasts for a week, would open with the departure of men into the forest to hunt antelope, whose flesh, seasoned with medicines, had to be eaten at a meal at the closing ceremony. 

The Kwele occupy a great forest region on the borders of Gabon, Cameroon and the Republic of Congo. Their village communities comprised a number of lineages and were governed in the usual way for "headless" equatorial societies, that is in a diffuse and more or less informal manner.

Source:
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/312180
https://art-africain-traditionnel.com/en/masks/1948-kwele-bata-mask.html