mask
- Museum number
- Am1976,03.104
- Description
-
Wooden mask painted black with red and white decoration. With tufts of white horsehair pegged into eyebrows, cheeks and chin.
- Dimensions
-
Height: 21.50 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- This mask is worn by the ‘Pascola’ (pajkola) performer during traditional ceremonies that continue among Yaqui (Yoeme) communities living in Mexico and the United States. The Pascola is associated with the Deer Dancer and not only dances but humours and entertains audiences between songs. (Source: Selina Martínez, Yaqui architect, Arizona). This object featured in ‘Species of the River: Yaqui (Yoeme) communities in Mexico and the United States’, a project developed in 2023 with Selina Martínez, a Yaqui architect from Penjamo in Scottsdale, Arizona (US) and the Santo Domingo Centre of Excellence for Latin American Research (SDCELAR) at the British Museum. The project grows from fieldwork research in Sonora (Mexico) and Arizona (US), and collection research around the cultural and material heritage of Yaqui peoples in the British Museum and other UK institutions. This research informed a digital interactive exhibition, premised on multimedia storytelling with historical and contemporary audio recordings along 3D models of objects, including this mask, places and buildings scanned by Selina Martínez. For more information see https://www.sdcelarbritishmuseum.org/projects/mesoamerica/species-of-the-river-yaqui-yoeme-communities-in-mexico-and-the-united-states/.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1976
- Acquisition notes
- This object was purchased from Robert Bruce Inverarity in 1976. In his accompanying notes (Eth. Doc. 1225), he records that he purchased the object in 1950 from an anthropologist, who had collected it in Mexico.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Am1976,03.104
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: Item 77 (Inverarity collection number)
