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FEATURE 122 FIG. 6 (below): The Nlongo Custom. Photo by the Rev. Thomas Lewis, Kibokolo, Angola, 1902/1903. From Weeks, 1911, plate facing p. 58. FIG. 7 (facing page top): “Nlongo” Masks. Photo by the Rev. Thomas Lewis, Kibokolo, Angola, 1902/1903. Courtesy of the British Baptist Missionary Society Archives. FIG. 8 (facing page bottom): Detail of British Museum accession ledger showing the group of eleven Zombo masks donated in 1905. Author’s photo. cumcision of the pubescent neophytes, which represents the symbolic death of the boys. Their subsequent life within a fenced and consecrated location in the bush (kimpasi or v(w)ela) lasting some months—in the past even several years—is meant to transform them into productive and responsible adults able to assure the continuity of society. During their stay there, they receive a different name, use an esoteric vocabulary, are instructed in ancestral rules and in sexual behavior, and are trained in a wide variety of practices, including dancing and singing. They demonstrate these latter skills during the final ceremonies, first within the enclosure and afterward in the neighboring villages. These performances allow the initiates to gain sufficient resources to compensate their leaders, circumcisers/healers, and the sculptors responsible for the creation of the power objects used during their seclusion. Very little information survives about the specifically Zombo variation of these puberty rites, the longo. Weeks (1914/1969: 172–175) concisely describes the circumcision practices around San Salvador and in the eastern vicinity of the former royal capital. He observes that the boys live in isolation for one year or longer in a large house or lodge (vela). Another detail he mentions is that the Zombo “observe many fetish ceremonies …; and on special occasions they put on masks of various forms and go dancing, into towns and market-places, and ask for money of the women who, when they find the yelling, screaming, grotesque figures gesticulating about them, are frightened into satisfying their demands.” Another source telling us something about the longo is a pair of photographs (figs. 6 and 7), taken in Kibokolo in the second half of 1902 or in 1903 by Rev. Lewis himself. In them, a group of masked individuals pose for the photographer. In contrast to what one might think, they do not record neophytes who went through the puberty rites. Accompanying text in The Juvenile Missionary Herald of the Baptist Missionary Society says that the masks “were left behind by the Kibokolo ‘Nlongo’ party when they fled from the towns. Our station boys wore them to be photographed.”18 Zombo Masks at the British Museum Eleven of the twelve masks that appear in Lewis’ photographs are housed today in the British Museum (BM). These make up the larger part of the BM’s notably fine collection of Zombo objects, which are quite rare in public and private collections. An old inventory sheet—a piece of art in its own right—shows these Zombo masks, drawn accurately and accompanied by some details on the longo custom (fig. 8). It mentions 1905 as the year in which the masks were accessioned, which is just two years after they were photographed in the field. In a letter of April 24, 1919, by the Rev. Lewis to “the Secutaer sic Ethnographical Dept. British Museum W.C.” (ethnographical document 200, mentioned in the BM stock list), he mentions two “sets of masks.” The first is the 1905 group and the second set is made up of two pieces he procured himself “from the same district of Congo as those you have from Zombo.” These two specimens, also in the BM collection, will be discussed below. Looking at Lewis’ photograph, what is striking is that the two horned masks almost in the middle have dimensions considerably exceeding those of the others in the group. Another prominent detail is the fact that several examples have feathers attached to the headpieces, while others have horns on top. It seems that at least two mask types are represented. From other traditions such as those of the Yaka or Nkanu, we know that masks were often recycled from previous nkanda/longo sessions to lead a new “life” within another initiation camp. This might account for the difference in carving style. The large animal mask (fig. 2) seems to represent a bush cow or buffalo, and indeed the museum inventory mentions “cow head.” Peoples like Yaka and Nkanu produced a similar mask known as mpakasa (buffalo), and the initiate wearing this mask imitates the behavior of the animal.19 Both of the large horned Zombo masks in the group (figs. 2 and 3) share similar physiognomic traits. For example, the basic eye form—half-closed and with a perforated pupil in the lower half—is almost identical. Such details suggest that both specimens were sculpted by the same carver. Similarly, it also seems that eight of the other masks shown in Lewis’ field photos were carved by a single hand, as attested by strong similarities in the rendering of the eyes and noses as well as the painted eyebrows (figs. 9–15 and the example second from the right in fig. 7, the whereabouts of which is unknown).20 These masks share typical Zombo style elements: dental mutilation that reflects the Zombo practice of removing the upper incisors during adolescence and the painted “decoration,” perhaps indicating scarification patterns, of an elongated inverted triangle covering the middle of the forehead and ending at the top of


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