Gagon (Mask)

The Dan people live in semi-autonomous villages along the northeastern border of Liberia and the west central border of Cote D’Ivoire. Though ethnically referred to as “Dan” these people are really a pastiche of related peoples who share a common Mande ancestry and language. When speaking of the “Dan” style of carving, most people actually mean the ethnic sub-groups of the Gio, Kran, Kono, or Mano. This particular example comes from the Kono/Mano Gio people at the Guinean frontier in Liberia, near Saniquelle.

Masks are used by the Kono/Mano people for a number of sacred and profane performances – public dances may be preformed in the village for all to see and enjoy and usually are of a didactic nature, enforcing social mores and good behavior. The sacred masks however, fall under the domain of the Poro secret society, which is in charge of the initiation of boys and men.

It is however extremely difficult from simply examining a mask to determine what role it may have played in Dan culture. This is due in large part to the fact that Dan masks are quite multivalent, and for that reason a mask may have several potential uses, within a larger framework; the specific role being related to rank of the dancer who owns or has possession of the mask. As the dancer rises in rank in the secret Poro society, the mask too, would rise in rank and take a new name and new roles in performance – in some cases without any change to the carving, costume or decoration of the mask itself.

For this reason, Himmelhaber and Fischer created a system of classification for Dan masks that breaks them into twelve types, based on morphological variants. Within each of these types of masks, individual masks may have many layers of additional functions or abilities when performing.

This particular mask is of the type known as Gagon, which is a beaked mask that acts as an agent of social control. Masks of this type, represent important bush spirits that often appear with assistant masks that interpret their messages. Among the Kono proper, these are among the most important and high-ranking masks known.