Lipiko (Makonde helmet mask)
Makonde helmet mask carved from soft *ntene* wood, worn atop the dancer's skull in *mapiko* masquerade at male initiation and funerals; a ritual object, not a commercial carving.
Lipiko (plural mapiko) is the Makonde helmet mask, carved from soft ntene (wild kapok) wood and worn atop the dancer's skull during the mapiko masquerade at male initiation and funerals. The mask channels an ancestral spirit — the dancer is understood to become the spirit, not merely to impersonate it — and its existence is traditionally kept secret from women and the uninitiated.
Old ritual lipiko often incorporate real human hair pressed into the soft wood with black beeswax, naturalistic lichumba scarification in shallow relief, and a raised ndonya lip-plug disc on female masks. The term names both the object and the entire ceremonial genre (mapiko); confusing it with the modern commercial shetani form is the single most common misattribution in the market (Kingdon 2002; Bortolot 2007).