This essay aims to clear up the confusion surrounding the West African masks with cylinder-shaped eyes and cube-shaped mouths which in the West mainly have been identified as Grebo and/or Kru masks. Therefore I investigate the geographical origin and the ethnic groups that originally commissioned, created and used the masks, how the masks came to the West, why the selection and knowledge of the masks is limited and finally the different styles and types of the masks, how they can be categorised and what their function is.

Two distinct styles depending on geographical origin can be identified and twelve different mask types with significant functions and songs, of which I manage to identify eight types. The masks are mainly made of the soft and light Capok wood that is also used for canoes. They are colored using both European synthetic colors and indigenous natural pigments, and are decorated with Sea Eagle feathers and shells from the Indian Ocean, but iron nails and other European materials are also used.

My conclusion is that the masks should be attributed geographically instead of ethnically where the eastern style should be called Sassandra and the western Cavalla – after the two rivers from which they can be derived – and that they largely came to Europe with the migrating Krumen diaspora and not with European field collectors, hence the lack on information on the masks origins. Incorrect discourses about the masks was created in Europe in the beginning of the 20th century due to a lack of academic knowledge, and lastly, the mask tradition has declined due to iconoclastic Christian prophetic movements in the 20th and 21st century.