LAUSR

The depiction of diseases and physical deformities in African masks has been observed and documented by scholars and others over many years. Within the scholarly world of African art historians, there has long existed a lively discussion about the true meanings of the deformities depicted in these face masks. As Herbert M. Cole, Emeritus Professor of Art History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, notes in his Preface, titled, Disease or Invention? Riffs on Beauty and the Beast, not all deformities in African masks represent disease. Rather, he states that face masks may “... evoke or materialize unseen spirits, often of the bush or wilderness, ghosts or souls of ... criminals and other socially detestable villains....” In essence, he proposes that while a number of masks suggest sickness or malformation, others depict “... distortions outside of identifiable disease symptoms.” This beauty/beast paradigm is evidenced in the masks of several groups in southern Nigeria, where beautiful masks co-exist with ugly ones, respectively referencing women and men. This beauty and the beast theme was previously explored in an exhibition and its catalogue, Beauty and the Beast, authored by Suzanne Preston Blier, and published by Tribal Arts Gallery in 1976. Allowing for the fact that distortions on some facial masks represent concepts as discussed by Cole, and not specific disease manifestations, there are clearly others that depict disease states. It is this theme that is the focus of this volume. In her chapter, Influence of Disease in African Carving, Ann Goerdt discusses eleven diseases or deformities that appear to be present in face masks or statues. These are from several ethnic groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mozambique/Tanzania, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Her discussion includes smallpox, yaws, leprosy, polio, venereal syphilis, cutaneous leishmaniasis, onchocerciasis, facial paralysis, cleft lip and palate, goiter, limb reduction, and limb loss. She has illustrated her chapter with masks and statues depicting these conditions as well as with photographs of people who were once afflicted with them. In clinical medical practice, the process of ascribing a definitive diagnosis to a patient involves evaluating a chief complaint, eliciting a history of the present illness, reviewing all physiological systems with the patient, a thorough physical examination, and finally a battery of laboratory tests and imaging studies. The first step in establishing a diagnosis is the creation of a list of possibilities. This is known as the differential diagnosis; that is, a list of possible conditions that are either later ruled in or out, often based on focused laboratory and/or imaging studies. Ascribing a definitive diagnosis to a given mask or statue based on visual inspection alone can, in some instances, be very challenging and fraught with possible interpretation errors. This stems from the fact that other illnesses may visually present with the same or similar signs. An example of this are those ancient Djenné-Jeno terracotta statues from Mali, whose surfaces are covered to varying degrees with what appear to be papules. While suggestive of smallpox (variola), these might also stylistically represent chickenpox * Pascal James Imperato [email protected]