Antique Nepalese wooden mask

Masks such as this beautiful example are used by animist tribes all over Nepal and parts of Tibet. 

Masks like this are used for protection; they are hung in houses near doors or windows to protect the house and family against malevolent spirits and diseases. They are the houses of benevolent spirits such as the family's ancestors and are regularly fed with offerings of ghee or wodka and the smoke of incense. Sometimes they are worn by village shamans during ritual or healing ceremonies.

This item is in very good condition. It is made from wood which has been treated with natural pigments to attain a beautiful dark color, which has deepened over the years with the patina of ageing. The mask is decorated with a crown and moustache from blackened peacock-feathers and dark rudraksha beads.

This mask has an amazing smell of fire, smoke and tar, due to treatments both on a practical (making it weatherproof) and animist level (smoke offerings to the spirit).

This handcarved mask is approximately 16 centimeters wide and 43 centimeters high (measured including the feather-crown). 

The exact age of this mask is hard to say, but it can roughly be determined somewhere around the middle of the 20th century, or maybe even a little bit earlier.

Unique item, only one available.