This Dogon mask represents the ancient ancestress named Yasigi. She cultivated the red hibiscus plant and used its fibers to make the first fiber skirts worn by Dogon masked dancers. Yasigi is known as the "sister" of the masks, and her mask is always present when other masks perform. The mask's name is Satimbe, which means "superimposed sister," and refers to Yasigi's position on top of the mask. She brandishes a beer ladle in her left hand in her role as beer maker for the first Sigi ceremony, a ritual held every sixty years to commemorate the making of the Great Mask of the dead. She holds a fly wisk in her right hand to show her status as the first dignitary of the Sigi. Dogon masks are box-shaped, and most represent wild animals of the bush. The masks appear at funerals to usher the spirits of the dead from the village to the bush where they belong, thus restoring the order of the world. According to the Dogon philospher, Ogotemmeli, "The masked dancers are the world; and when they dance in a public place, they are dancing the process of the world and the world order."


Among the Chokwe peoples, masked dancers perform in villages during the initiation period, when newly circumcised boys are secluded for instruction in the initiation lodges. The name of this mask means "young woman." It represents a female ancestor who died at a young age, and thus is a reminder of the theme of death which is part of the initiation experience of death and rebirth. The shape of the face is that of a deceased person, with sunken eye sockets and gaunt face. The "tears" carved under the eyes express the painful experience of loss through death. Pwo also idealizes feminine values; the dancer performs gracefully, and teaches good manners to the spectators. The power and elegance of the dancer's performance is supposed to bring fertility to the women of the village. The mask's filed teeth and decorative scarifications reproduce the appearance of initiated young women.

The Yaka make several distinctive masks for boys' initiation ceremonies. The mask shown here with the upturned phallic nose is called Ndeemba. It is a bell shaped mask with a human face surrounded by a large raffia coiffure, and crowned with a projecting disk and decorative extensions tied together at the top. Worn by the initiation leaders during the initiation rites, the mask represents the face of the Yaka ancestors who established the boys' initiation ceremonies. The Yaka say that the masked dancers transmit the generative vitality of the ancestors to their descendants and especially to the initiated youngsters who represent the new generation. The masks bring the newly circumcised boys face to face with the sexually explicit image of their forefathers, suggesting that male sexuality is an intergenerational bond. The mask also symbolizes solar, lunar, and earthly forces of fertility. The circle around the face depicts the course of the sun in the sky; the upturned nose signfies sun's fertilization of the earth; the projecting disk represents the lunar cycle; the bulging eyes signifie the new moon and the full moon.