HOW WAS THIS OBJECT USED

MASKS ...HOW WAS THIS OBJECT USED? WHAT PURPOSE DID IT SERVE

This is a photograph of an African masking ceremony, or masquerade, among the Baule people of Côte d'Ivoire. Notice how this Baule mask is very different from the Dan mask that you look at next.

We call the person who wears the mask and the costume a masker. Although masks can depict both males and females, maskers are usually men.

The costume of the masker is just as important as his wooden mask. The long fibre is called raffia. Raffia are fibres from the raffia palm. Often raffia is used to symbolize the power of the bush and the wild things that live in the bush. The costume covers all of the masker's body because the identity of the masker is meant to be hidden from the audience

This one of the Songye masks. They are expressive, strongly geometric (almost cubist in form), with bright polychrome decoration accentuating the lines of the carving. . It was believed by the users that the mask embodied supernatural forces to ward off disasters or any threat. They also believed that it had the capacity to heal through its supernatural power. Substances rubbed on the masks were believed to activate forces that would transform the wearer into something that was neither human nor spirit.
These masks appeared at the installation and death of chiefs, at the initiation rites of young men, when they represent the spirits of the ancestors, and at other initiation rites and also a whole range of occasions including punishments, warfare and public works. After 1905 they were also used at receptions for dignitaries. There is great variety and symbolic meanings of masks; more than thirty different mask names have been recorded. Several have animal names while other masks have names of illnesses like leprosy or names denoting natural phenomena like the rainbow ("nkongolo")."

from: (vast amount of information! )

http://www.vub.ac.be/BIBLIO/nieuwenhuysen/african-art/african-art-collection-masks.htm