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FEATURE Range of Denominations Doctor Jean-Claude Andrault arrived in Gabon in the beginning 98 of the 1960s and lived there for some thirty years. He was the director of the hospital at Mounana in the Upper Ogooue area and collected a number of Vuvi objects, including several masks, statues, house doors, and a zither, all attributed to the Puvi (the term used in the catalog for the exhibition La rencontre du ciel et de la terre at the Musée de Castre in Cannes, France). Rigobert N’zenguet-Lola, author of Bitola: épopée bantu (Bitola: A Bantu Epic) (2005) which addresses the Bantu creation myth, states in his work, “Au coeur des mots bantu. La dénomination chez les Pové,” essentially “At the heart of Bantu words is the designation Pove.” Here the ethnonym pove indicates “population, community of individuals” (2009: 103). While the terms Pove, Puvi, and Pubi are certainly cultural designations that have been used in the historical literature from the nineteenth century to the current day, the term Vuvi is what is more often used in the artistic vocabulary. This has been the case since the publication of Afrique Noire, la Création Plastique by Michel Leiris and Jacqueline Delange (1967: 329). It is often followed by the ethnonym Muhunzu in Gabon, notably in Les chefs d’oeuvre de l’art gabonais au musée des arts et traditions de Libreville published by Perrois in 1986. In the catalog for an exhibition on Gabonese masks that was held in Mantes-la-Jolie in northern France, it is stated that “In the Pove language, the term Muhunzu designates the first man, the progenitor ancestor of the group” (Dubreuil, 2008: 36). THE MASK: PREROGATIVE OF THE INITIATION SOCIETIES The Bwete Disumba Bwete is a widespread belief system based on the cult of the ancestors and practiced by all of Gabon’s traditional cultural groups. The Babongo, or Pygmies, are credited with bringing bwete to the Apindji and the Tsogo. The word bwete is a generic term used to designate a complex practice with a folkloric aspect, which includes dance events, and a mythical aspect, which relates to the religious ceremonies of the eponymous secret society (Swiderski, 1965: 544). It has several branches (disumba, ndea, misoko) as well as sub-branches, and it features a “quadruple function of coordination: disciplinary, religious, educational, and cultural” (Swiderski, 1975: 123). It involves the instruction of young people by experienced adults over a period of six months by the means of “a series of lessons on the ethical, religious, and disciplinary principles of the tribe,” along with physical exercises and moral tests designed to help perpetuate tradition. The bwete takes place partly in the ebandza, a ritual temple in the village, and partly in the nzimbe, a place for secret meetings in the forest. The first compulsory rite of passage, called the bwete disumba, or the classic bwete, consists of the mastication of the grated bark of the roots of the eboga bush (Tabernanthe iboga), called “sacred wood” or “bitter wood,” resulting in temporary alteration of consciousness and hallucination that enables contact with the Great Beyond, with the first ancestors, and with the cosmic triad (Kombe the sun, Ngonde the moon, and Minanga the stars). In the temple, the banzi, or bwete candidates, are seated on a mat and hear the sound of stringed instruments and sistrums, as well as the voice of Kombe, which is manifest by means of a reed pipe. One after the other calls for the FIG. 11 (above): “Masques du Haut-Ogooué,” Fernand Grébert, 1913–1932. © Musée d’ethnographie de Genève. The mask with the red beard in the center and the one with the fiber and the blue feathers at the lower right are Vuvi. FIG. 12 (right): Mask. Vuvi, Gabon. Before 1930. H: 32 cm. Jean-Claude L’Herbette Collection. Photo © Hughes Dubois.


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