Snake Headdress (a-Mantsho-ña-Tshol or Inap)

Arts of Africa

Late 19th/early 20th century

Baga, Nalu, or Landuma
Guinea
Coastal West Africa

This snake headdress was worn in performances that required extraordinary strength and agility. With the headdress bound to a conical framework of palm branches, the male dancer balanced it on his head while performing sharp, quick movements. He dipped and rotated the sculpture by bending at the knees and turning at the waist. The snake is associated with the swamp-dwelling python spirit, who blesses humankind with rain, fertility, and wealth. Snake headdress performances were widespread until the mid-1950s, when Islamic revolutionaries led a campaign to consolidate the religious and national identity of the nascent Republic of Guinea.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of Africa

Culture: Baga
Title: Snake Headdress (a-Mantsho-ña-Tshol or Inap)
Place: Guinea (Object made in:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1875–1925
Medium: Wood and pigment
Dimensions: 237.5 × 31.2 × 52.1 cm (93 1/2 × 12 1/4 × 20 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Muriel Kallis Newman
Reference Number: 2007.572

Allen Wardwell, Primitive Art from Chicago Collections (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1960), cat. 102.
Allen Wardwell, “Primitive Art from Chicago Collections,” The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 54, no. 3 (Sept. 1960), pp. 8.
William S. Lieberman, An American Choice: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg/Newman Collection (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1981), pp. 147 (ill.).
Kathleen Bickford Berzock, “Snake Headdress (A-Mantsho-ña-Tshol or Inap),” Notable Acquisitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 35, 2 (2009), pp. 10-11, 92.
Richard F. Townsend and Kathleen Bickford Berzock, “The Art Institute of Chicago New Galleries for African Art and Indian Art of the Americas,” in Tribal Arts 16-1, no. 62 (Winter 2011), pp. 60 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, Primitive Art from Chicago Collections, Nov. 16, 1960-Jan. 2, 1961, cat. 102.
Art Institute of Chicago, Critical Fabulation, Oct. 10, 2025-Jan. 4, 2026, no cat.

Possibly John J. Klejman (died 1995), Klejman Gallery, New York, N.Y., before 1960 [correspondence documented in curatorial file]; sold to Muriel Kallis Newman (died 2008), Chicago, Ill., by 1960; given to the Art Institute, 2007.

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