The Mambila live in villages in the hilly country on the Mambila Plateau. They speak one language with several dialects and worship the Sun. They carve wooden figures which represent ancestors and fierce animal heads with wide open jaws, called suah dua (a cow) and suah buah (a dog). The masks are worn for agricultural rituals connected with sowing and harvesting and for the welfare of the community, which is dependent on the benediction of the ancestors. They have traditionaly also been worn twice a month – at the waning and waxing of the moon.