Kuma Mask

This mask blends features of a hornbill bird, or kuma, with the horn of a buffalo, or tu, combining animals associated with great wisdom and danger. Men wearing such masks perform at the initiation rites to men’s societies, at the funerals of important male elders, and at annual harvest ceremonies. The fact that this mask has only one buffalo horn may indicate that its design was transferred between clans, in which case the original form, with two horns, would have been slightly altered.