The Vuvi and Their Masks A LITTLE-KNOWN GABONESE CULTURE 93 FIG. 1 (left): Mask. Vuvi, Gabon. Wood, pigment, kaolin. H: 42.5 cm. The Bridgeman Art Library, Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. 81.913. Donated by Mr. and Mrs. Max J. Pincus. Photo © Bridgeman/Detroit Institute of Arts. Published: Rubin, 1987, p. 364; Arts d’Afrique noire, 1993, no. 86, p. 30; Nooter, 1993, p. 150, cat. 70; Penney, Kan, and Sieber, 1995, pp. 118–119, no. 54. FIG. 2: Mask. Vuvi, Gabon. H: 30 cm. Ex Isaac Païlès. Present location unknown. Image from Arts d’Afrique noire, October 1971, no. 1, p. 46. Reproduced with the kind permission of Raoul Lehuard. By Charlotte Grand-Dufay Between the banks of the Ngounie and the Chaillu Mountains, traditions of a concave “white mask” with clean and refined lines have been in contact with other more realist mask styles, produced along the Atlantic coast among the Eshira and the Kongo. The continuity from the concave and clean-lined masks of the forested areas to the more realist forms is a constant among the population groups and the kingdoms of the sub-equatorial savanna from west to east. François Neyt (2010: 295) The Gabonese coast has been relatively well described by Portuguese and Dutch voyagers since the sixteenth century, but it was not until the nineteenth century that European accounts of the populations in the interior began to form (Akélaguélo, 1984: 5). The Vuvi, also known as the Pubi or Pove, are one of the cultures of the central Gabonese forest. They are located in Ogooue-Lolo province, which includes the Offoue and Lolo Basin areas, west of Koulamoutou. They may be seen as transitional between the coastal peoples, such as the Lumbu and the Punu, and the more centrally located peoples like the Tsogo and the Masango, as well as the Kota groups to the east. Their neighbors are the Banzebi. According to François Gaulme (1999: 168), this interesting but little-documented people resisted French colonization between 1908 and 1912, armed with rifles and poisoned spears (Histoire générale de l’AEF, 1908: 21). A century later, the Vuvi are now best known for their leanlined white, red, or black masks, very unlike those of the realist Punu-Lumbu style of the savanna: “The human features are summarized with a few lines on a white oval surface: a double arc superimposed on a triangle becomes the eyebrows, the eyes, and the nose. The image portrait thus becomes a pictogram, and reality becomes a sign” (Perrois and Grand-Dufay, 2005: 124–125). Vuvi masks have never been the subject of a comprehensive study. Collected after the First World War and especially in the 1930s, examples have been in several major international collections, including those of Emile Chambon, Josef Mueller, Hans Himmelheber, Han Coray, and Hubert Goldet. In the 1960s, like most white masks from Gabon, they were attributed to the M’pongwe and then to the Fang or the Tsogo. Masks do not always adhere to strict tribal borders and “most of the time, associations and secret societies, of which masks are one form of expression, spill over from the group from which they originate into neighboring areas. The Bwiti of the Mitsogo are an example” (Perrois, 1979: 268). The Vuvi and the Tsogo are both Bantu peoples of the interior Chaillu mountain range who do not need interpreters to understand one another. The Vuvi language was associated with the Tsogo language group by French linguist André Jacquot (1978: 495). They share a common culture that has been maintained due to the isolation imposed by the mountainous and almost inaccessible area in which they live. They practice the same initiation rituals, the bwete (bwiti) and mweli for men, and the nyembe (ndjembe) for women.
I-IVCoverE_CoverF Vuvi
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