Cherokee masks

With 13,000 inventory numbers, our museum has unique pieces from all five continents. However, North America is the geographical area most poorly represented in our institution, with only around twenty objects, or 0.1% of the total of our collections. This provides only a very limited insight into cultural traditions of the various populations settled in North America, an extremely vast territory.

Over and above the gaps that this creates at a scientific level, having so few objects does not make for ideal long-term conservation. The fact that they are unique within the collection means that they need to be displayed for longer periods, as it is difficult to rotate them, and there is therefore a greater risk that they will be damaged by light or climatic variations in the rooms.

To enhance this collection, we decided to acquire nine masks from the Cherokee community in North Carolina. By choosing this community, we ensured consistency and continuity in building up our collections, since we already owned two masks from this culture.

We commissioned the production of these nine masks from two artist-craftsmen renowned for their expertise, their respect for tradition and their involvement in local education and the transmission of traditional mask-making techniques.

It was at school that Billy learnt carpentry, discovered wood and became interested in masks. A true self-taught artist, he never stopped studying and learning, and made his first mask at the age of 18. He mainly made Booger masks, animal masks and masks representing the 7 Cherokee clans.

Today, he passes on his skills to the Robbinsville school. For Billy, it's vital that young Cherokees learn the techniques of their ancestors.

An artist and mask sculptor, Joshua is also a woodcarving teacher at the Cherokee Central Highschool, where he learned the art himself. There, carving is considered an art form in its own right.

The artist's masks are inspired by traditional Cherokee legends. The two pieces entrusted to the museum represent the 'Thunder Boys' from the legend of 'First Fire'.

Today, Joshua's masks travel all over the United States, but for the first time, they will be exhibited in Europe in June 2025, within our walls.

Museums today are faced with the need to develop acquisition policies that are both more ethical and more transparent, and to question their legitimacy in acquiring, conserving and exhibiting so-called "sensitive" objects. The word "sensitive" refers to objects considered sacred by the peoples who produced them, and whose handling, use or viewing are subject to strict rules. But also objects from funerary contexts or made from materials of human origin, or objects that can be linked to violent and traumatic historical events. Objects whose collection is sometimes more akin to looting or theft than to proper negotiation.

With the Cherokee project, MUMASK is asserting its desire to develop a more ethical protocol for acquiring ethnological objects, one that does not rely on the purchase of old pieces with dubious histories, and to promote the contemporary work of living craftsmen and artists who work with respect for ancestral techniques and know-how.

In line with this approach, it was essential to document the steps involved in making the masks, as well as collecting testimonies from Billy Welch, Joshua Adams and their students. Interviews were therefore carried out, enabling the intangible dimensions of these heritages to be recontextualised as well as the cultural and identity issues associated with them.

Finally, this trip also enabled the teams on site to shed light on the origin of the two Cherokee masks kept at the museum, donated by a private collector in 2018.





The Cherokee project, supported by our National Lottery, is part of the overhaul of our permanent exhibition "Masks from all over the world", which will be closed for renovation from 1 November 2024 to 13 June 2025, the date of the Museum's 50th anniversary. The masks acquired during the mission, as well as the images collected, will be on display in the renovated exhibition in 2025.