America

The American collection comprises 1,833 inventory items and contains our oldest pieces. Objects from Central and South America cover a vast period, stretching from 300 BC to the present day. Highlights of the collection include Mexican and Guatemalan masks, as well as a remarkable set of masks from Native American groups in the Amazon.

Contemporary masking practices in these regions are characterised by a form of syncretism between pre-Columbian, Western and Christian elements, derived from Spanish, Portuguese, French and, later, African traditions.

In North America, our oldest masks date from the 19th century and are used in practices linked to totemism, shamanism, and agrarian and propitiatory rites.

Although presented here according to their continent of origin, these pieces are displayed in our exhibition in a resolutely thematic manner, inviting new dialogues between cultures and a cross-cultural interpretation of masked practices around the world.

This mask represented a Christian or a Conquistador before being covered with a layer of brown pigments, thus transforming the Spaniard into a ‘Moor’ or an ‘Indian’. It may have been used in the ‘Dance of the Moors and Christians’, which served as a model for the ‘Dance of the Conquest’ and is often confused with it. The dance would therefore re-enact the victory of Christianity over the ‘heretics’, whether they were Spanish Muslims or indigenous Guatemalans, depending on the case.

The Ypé mask (‘enemy warrior’) represents a ‘big face’ and is made by men in their homes, hidden from the women. It is worn during a mock battle between the Tapirapé and their enemies and neighbours, the Karajà and Kaiapo. The Tapirapé always emerge victorious.

This performance takes place during one of the ceremonies (Tãwa) of the ‘Banana Festival’ cycle, on the eve of the full moon in June. The mask wearers, dressed in red cloth and palm leaf skirts and armed with ceremonial bows, run through the village shouting, accompanied by painted men whose thighs are covered with feathers.

This face mask from the Wild Potato Clan (a-ni-ga-to-gi-we) is an artistic mask acquired during a field mission in July 2024. The members of the Wild Potato Clan were known as excellent gatherers who roamed the forest in search of food sources such as nuts, berries and edible plants. They dug up the tubers of wild potato plants and ground them into flour to make bread.