Early 20th Century Bozo Animal Mask Mali

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The Bozo are a Mande ethnic group located predominantly along the Niger River in Mali. The name Bozo is thought … Read more The Bozo are a Mande ethnic group located predominantly along the Niger River in Mali. The name Bozo is thought to derive from Bambara bo-so "straw house"; the people accept it as referring to the whole of the ethnic group but use more specific clan names such as Sorogoye, Hain, and Tieye, themselves. They are famous for their fishing and are occasionally referred to as the "masters of the river". The Bozo language, which belongs to the Soninke-Bozo subgroup of Northwestern Mande, has traditionally been considered a dialect of one language, though there are at least four distinct varieties.
Bozo comes from the Bambara term for straw house; it's a reference to dwellings in temporary fishing camps. People use this term for an entire ethnic group. "Bozo" is three distinct people groups speaking four varieties of the so-called Bozo language. One of these is Jenaama, the language of the Sorogoye Bozo people. The Bozo tribes live mostly in the Mopti region in the interior delta but also live in other parts of Mali and other West-African countries where there are rivers and dams. These people are migrating to Bamako in significant numbers.








Height (In): 12.0Width (In): 8.0Depth (In): 4.5








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