Karan-wemba (Mossi elder-woman mask)
Mossi mask surmounted by a carved standing female figure, used at the funeral of a senior woman (*wemba*) who has attained the status of living ancestress.
Karan-wemba is a Mòoré term for a mask type specific to the Mossi nyonyose: a wooden plank or face mask surmounted by a carved standing female figure. It is used at the funeral rites of a wemba — a senior woman who has married, borne children, been widowed and returned to her father's household, attaining the status of living ancestress.
The surmounting figure represents the woman in the idealised prime of young adulthood, identified by abdominal scarification marking childbirth. Karan-wemba is the single most art-historically distinctive Mossi object type, held by the Metropolitan Museum, the Saint Louis Art Museum and others, and it is misidentified or under-explained in the majority of secondary-market listings (Roy 1987, 2015).