The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Wood serpent headdress rising up like a subtly winding serpent with a flat head. Black paint on the brown wood creates a triangular patter running up the serpent. Closer to the base are three rows of diamond patterns before the smooth surface of the snake transitions into a narrower, chipped away base with no clear traces of paint.

Serpent Headdress

late 1800s–early 1900s

Africa, West Africa, Guinea, possibly Baga-style maker

Wood (Nauclea pobeguinii) and paint
Overall: 148 cm (58 1/4 in.)
The Norweb Collection 1960.37
Location: 108A African

Did You Know?

In the context of boys' initiations, the serpent headdress was sometimes identified as the rainbow, which the Baga and their neighbors associate with beginnings and endings, life and death, and the continuation of lineages.

Description

Traditionally, Baga society was ruled by village councils of elders who derived their power from their direct contact with spirit entities through lifelong initiation rituals and the accumulation of secret knowledge. Two different religious orders controlled initiations, providing the context for much Baga art. One was identified as female, the other as male, though only men belonged to both groups. Initiations in each order followed three stages, culminating in the revelation of the highest spirit being. This type of Baga headdress embodied the serpent spirit Ninkinanka, honored for giving rain, bestowing riches, and bringing forth children. The serpent figure would be placed on top of a conical framework of palm branches carried on a male dancer’s head. It appeared at the end of the first level of the initiation for boys and girls or just before the circumcision at the beginning of the boys’ initiation.
  • ca.1954–1960
    Jacqueline (and Maurice?) Nicaud by purchase. Possibly village of Kanfrande [Kanfarandé], District of Boke, French Guinea.
    by 1960
    Mathias Komor, New York, NY
    1960
    Emery May Norweb (aka Mrs. R. Henry Norweb) by purchase
    1960–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art by gift
    Provenance Footnotes
    1 Location reported in letter February 24, 1960 between Sherman E. Lee and Emery May Norweb, curatorial files.However, in a July 17, 1994 letter between Jacqueline Nicaud and Thomas Wheelock, Madame Nicaud says that she cannot remember where she purchased the "bansonyi," even after reviewing her archives. She does note that she was buying them starting from 1954, "in the presence of the chief and his administrators." Curatorial files.
    2 Letter February 24, 1960 between Sherman E. Lee and Emery May Norweb, curatorial files.
    3 Letter February 24, 1960 between Sherman E. Lee and Emery May Norweb, curatorial files.
    4 Letter February 24, 1960 between Sherman E. Lee and Emery May Norweb, curatorial files. Press release, August 10, 1960 - https://archive.org/details/cmapr0592/mode/1up "Year in Review" December 1960 (catalogue #13). 
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, and Case Western Reserve University. 1975. Traditions and Revisions : Themes from the History of Sculpture. Cleveland, Kent, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art ; Distributed by the Kent State University Press, cat. 117.
    Cleveland Museum of Art, and Henry John Drewal. 1989. African Art : A Brief Guide to the Collection : The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Museum, fig. 28.
    The Visual Arts of Africa : Gender, Power, and Life Cycle Rituals. 2022 Second ed. New York: Oxford University Press, fig. 3.6, p. 83-84.
    Franklin, David, C. Griffith Mann, and Cleveland Museum of Art. 2012. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, p. 286-7.
    Cleveland Museum of Art, “Recent Acquisition Press Release,” August 10, 1960, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art, “Recent Acquisition Press Release,” October 25, 1960, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org
    Wixom, William. "Two African Tribal Sculptures." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 48, no. 3 (March 1961): 39-45. Reproduced: p. 38, fig 1-3; Mentioned: p. 40 www.jstor.org
    William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, and Ralph T. Coe. The Imagination of Primitive Man: A Survey of the Arts of the Non-Literate Peoples of the World. Kansas City, Mo: The Museum, 1962. Mentioned: p. 11, 17, cat. no. 18
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 302 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 302 archive.org
    Wixom, William D. “African Art in the Cleveland Museum of Art.” African Arts 10, no. 3 (1977): 16–88. Reproduced: p. 23, fig. 11; mentioned: p. 24 doi.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 410 archive.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art. Images of the Mind. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1987. Reproduced: [p. 22]
    Robbins, Warren M., and Nancy Ingram Nooter. African Art in American Collections, Survey 1989. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989. Reproduced: p. 143, fig. 247
    Petridis, Constantijn. South of the Sahara: selected works of African art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2003. Reproduced: cat. 12, p. 54 - 55
    Petridis, Constantine. “Spirit-Bringer-of-Riches: News on Cleveland's serpent headdress.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 56, no. 5 (September/October 2016): 14-15. Reproduced: p. 14; Mentioned: p. 14, 15 archive.org
    Petridis, Constantine. "Not Just a Snake: New Light on the Serpent Headdress at the Cleveland Museum of Art." Tribal Art 21, no. 1 (Winter 2016): 122-127. Reproduced: p. 122, fig. 1a & b; p. 127, fig. 9
    Curtis, Marie Yvonne. Baga. Milan, Italy : 5 Continents Editions, 2018. Reproduced: p. 77, pl. 12; mentioned: pp. 39, 123
    Smith, Fred T., Judith Perani, Joseph L. Underwood, and Martha J. Ehrlich. The Visual Arts of Africa : Gender, Power, and Life Cycle Rituals. Second edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 90, no. 4.4
  • Images of the Mind. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 7-August 30, 1987).
    CMA 1987: Images of the Mind, July 7-August 23, 1987, repr. p. 22,
    Traditions and Revisions: Themes from the History of Sculpture. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 24-November 16, 1975).
    CMA 1975: Traditions and Revisions, no. 117.
    The Imagination of Primitive Man. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO (organizer) (January 18-February 25, 1962).
    Landscape. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 9-April 22, 1962).
    Kansas City, MO: The Imagination of Primitive Man, January 3-March 14, 1962, no. 18.
    CMA 1960: "Year in Review," Bulletin XLVII (December 1960), p. 250, no. 13, repr. p. 234.
    Year in Review - Nineteen Hundred Sixty. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 30, 1960-January 1, 1961).
  • {{cite web|title=Serpent Headdress|url=false|author=|year=late 1800s–early 1900s|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1960.37