‘Masked Devil Dancers of Sierra Leone’

This lantern was built by Supercombo Lantern Club. It includes puppet figures depicting two drummers and three debuls. In Sierra Leone debuls ('devils') are human masqueraders who embody and perform the spirits associated with various cult associations (‘societies’). There is no implication that these spirits are evil. Debuls were depicted in puppet form in lanterns purely for entertainment purposes and not as part of any society masquerade. In this photograph the puppet with the black face depicts gongoli (a lesser debul whose purpose is purely to entertain people by his comic behaviour). The puppet mounted on a pole depicts yamama and the puppet on the left depicts yavi, both of them debuls associated with the men’s Poro society. The puppet with crocodile features on the floor depicts landa, the principal debul of the Poro society among the Kisi and Gbandi peoples of Sierra Leone.