Investigation of a distinctive plant-based black paint on Bwa and Mossi polychrome wood masks from Burkina Faso

Abstract

A distinctive, thickly applied, plant-based black paint is used for raised designs on painted wood masks made by multiple cultural groups in Africa’s Western Sudan region, where the color black represents age, health, wisdom and well-being. Black, red and white masks are particularly characteristic of the Burkina Faso region. For this study, black paint was sampled from six wood Burkinabè masks in the University of Iowa’s Stanley Museum of Art collection (Iowa City, IA, USA). Christopher Roy (1947-2019), a specialist in Burkinabè material culture, described the procedure for making this black paint by laborious processing of Acacia nilotica seed pods. The process was recreated in the lab, and the newly created samples compared with paint from the objects. The application of analytical techniques to corroborate Roy’s field descriptions of the black paint’s manufacture and cultural use will be discussed.