Illness masks are used within several African tribes. All of them aim to fight the ghost behind the evil. At the Ibibio there are differing mask showing the levels of a malady called "Frambosie".
This old one belongs to the Collection of Kegel-Konietzko and is part of a group of such masks Miss Lore Kegel gave to Hans Himmelheber in the 1950s in order to support his book "Negro-Art and Negro-Artists" (Link to these pages further below), falsely named as Ibo-Masks.
The item has nice signs of usage and the mouth-stick shows real bites. Soft patina and fragments of sacrificial patina on the top.
Original Catalogue-Number of the owner: 184-80 (Etiquette inside)
you find the referring page in specialist book
und Negro-Artists" from Hans Himmelheber, 1960.
Info-Link:
Boris Kegel-Konietzko 
