Nearly five feet tall, this serpent headdress towered above crowds when danced. Its two faces seemed to look in all directions. Secured by a conical framework of palm branches on a costumed man’s head, it appeared at key points in initiation rites for both boys and girls. This multi-colored snake may be the serpent-spirit Ninkinanka. It can be likened to the rainbow, whose changing colors evoke how boys transform into men during initiation. A staged circa 1954 photograph depicts the serpent headdress now at the CMA. Serpent masquerades stopped in the mid-1950s when most Nalu and Baga people converted to Islam.