The off-white color of those Gabonese masks reminds me of ancient Egyptian paintings showing women with yellowish skin in contrast to the darker brown men. The traditional Eurocentric interpretation is that those women are less tanned due to spending less time in the sun, but the thing is even wealthy Egyptian men like the pharaoh are shown as dark brown despite spending less time in the sun as well. Furthermore, there are exceptions to the trend (particularly during the New Kingdom's Amarna period) that show women with a brown skin tone like the men.
I wonder if the "yellow woman" convention in ancient Egyptian art stems from a similar color symbolism to the white-colored female masks you see in these Central African culture?
The off-white color of those Gabonese masks reminds me of ancient Egyptian paintings showing women with yellowish skin in contrast to the darker brown men. The traditional Eurocentric interpretation is that those women are less tanned due to spending less time in the sun, but the thing is even wealthy Egyptian men like the pharaoh are shown as dark brown despite spending less time in the sun as well. Furthermore, there are exceptions to the trend (particularly during the New Kingdom's Amarna period) that show women with a brown skin tone like the men.
I wonder if the "yellow woman" convention in ancient Egyptian art stems from a similar color symbolism to the white-colored female masks you see in these Central African culture?
In this case, both the men and women are shown with white and polychrome colors. (Some of the masks even have prominent beards)