Bozo Wood Marionette Headdress

Yellow body, black head, and a pointed little smile at the very tip.

This marionette headdress is Bozo, from Mali, West Africa, and is contemporary, in wood and pigment. Fish are among the most familiar characters in Bozo puppet masquerades, which generally celebrate the river and the communities that live from it. This one is long and slender, its body painted yellow and carved in a grid of square scales. The head is black with a ringed white and blue eye and pale blue and white gill lines, and a dark dorsal fin runs along the back. The tail is black edged in red. It is 39.5 inches long, 6.5 high and 6 wide.

Dressed for the festival, and ready to swim through it.