Big headdress "sukuru" ("old woman")

wood, red paint, white pigment, metal tacks, crack (neck), base

This mask was first known as a shoulder mask.

Marla Berns coined the term "vertical masks" in 2011, citing that these masks were worn on the head. The dancer could see through a cut-out in the plank-like extension to the front. Larger specimens are said to have been worn by several men, concealed under a luxuriant hanging of raffia or cloth.

Formerly these masks would be taken out in times of war, but nowadays they are only seen at a biannual ceremony, the "ushavuko". They are also sometimes used in certain rainmaking rites and in healing ceremonies.