Agbogho mmwo mask (Front View)

These white-colored masks (kaolin) with slender features and elaborate hairstyles are incarnations of maiden spirits, meant to celebrate their beauty, youth, and benevolence. They stand as symbolic and aesthetic counterparts to black masks, associated with old age, male power, nighttime, and death. Yet, since white is also the color of the deceased, the two mask types are like extremes of the same continuum, rather than total opposites.