... Many African art dealers have miniature masks from the Dan country called «passport masks», but nothing seems more wrong....

Among the Dans, their most common name seems to be that of my, which means «small image».

These masks, small in size, are actually protective agents, endowed with supernatural power, attached to a male individual. Their function is to protect the wearer from any harmful aggression: sickness, theft, accident, enemy demons, sexual impotence, etc.Each of these masks is the miniaturized copy - or rather the symbolic representation - of a large traditional mask of lineage; but while the large mask has a collective function at the village level, the small «guardian» mask has a direct protective role at the level of the individual, member and part of this lineage.

This guardian-mask is constantly linked, by a mythical dependence, to the great mask from which it comes; it receives part of the supernatural power, from which will be irradiated, in turn, the individual holder of the small mask. It is not essential that the ma be the faithful reproduction of the great mask, because the notion of resemblance has no value here.

The sculpted work is exclusively the receptacle of supernatural forces that it is intended to collect and transmit.

.. this mask will be hidden from view, especially that of women and the uninitiated; to do this it is enclosed in a kind of leather or canvas case, worn either around the neck or on the belt; it accompanies the initiate in all his movements to ensure his protection. In serious cases, his owner takes him in hand, rubs him, converses with him... The ma is strictly individual, attached to a single possessor and should be called a mask-guard. You can only have one and you have to keep it all your life.