The Bobo Mask symbolize animals or spirits and are worn during ceremonies associated with new crops, initiations and funerals. When used in funeral ceremonies they are intended to make natural spirits visible to the community. The wearer performs a complex dance designed to imitate the movements of the creature represented by the mask.
Among the Bobo, the sacredness of the mask derives from the fact that the divinity is considered to be present in the mask and, through it to be acting. The wearer is depersonalized to the advantage of the mask that he animates. To be a “mask”, man had to erase himself, that is to say, cease to be himself, shed his individuality.
