Dan tribal art: festivities and initiations

The Dan ethnic group, also known earlier as Yacuba, live in a forested area straddling the border between Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia. They are renowned for their festivals and initiations during which a wide variety of traditional masks emerged.

The African Dan masks present stylistic variations according to the regional sub-groups from which they come but especially from the type of masks in question: deangle, tankagle, bagle, gagon,... representing the spirits of the bush. We also know female statues lü me, and spoon-like anthropomorphic objects called wa ke mia.