The Guro (or Gouro) are a southern Mande-language group in the central part of Côte d’Ivoire. They are known for their rich masquerade traditions. The Guro distinguish between “forest” or sacred masks endowed with powers, and profane “amusement” masks. Nevertheless, all Guro masks are designated by the generic term yu, power. Women are allowed to see only the amusement masks. Among the Guro amusement masks is the Zamble family, which includes the mythical antelope-leopard male Zamble, his beautiful wife Gú and Zàùlì, the wild and grotesque brother of Zamble.

Zàùlì masquerades are common at funerals. The best-known form of the Zàùlì mask is Flali, ‘village woman’, a woman’s face ornamented with a bird representing a beloved woman who has died too young, and whose inconsolable widowed husband wants to see her reproduced in image and dance. Flali used to be danced by women in certain villages but is now danced by men. (PS)

Source: Claudie Haxaire, “The Power of Ambiguity: the Nature and Efficacy of the Zamble Masks Revealed by ‘Disease Masks’ Among the Gouro People (Côte d’Ivoire),” Journal of the International African Institute 79, no. 4 (2009): 543-569,