In contrast to the arts of western and central Africa, objects that have had attention for a long time, those of east Africa are still not well known. The bad habit of researchers neglecting regions apparently poor in sculptural production and the dispersion of extremely rare documents in different museums and their placement in storage have greatly contributed to this imbalance in our knowledge.
Few masks are known in the lake regions besides those of the Konde and related peoples. Attributed to the inhabitants of the Bukoba region in the Kibiza kingdom situated on the western shore of Lake Victoria-Nyanza is a style of mask relating to this example.
This mask, which resembles some Zande masks in style, was worn by the clowns of the court of the Hima shepherd princes. A similar mask is held in the collection of the Musee de L'Homme, Paris.
The darkened wood with ovoid eyes prominently incised eyebrows, long aquiline nose, gentle cheeks, frowning open mouth and protruding chin seem at first threatening then comical.