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FEATURE 124 Top to bottom FIG. 9: Nlongo mask. Zombo, Kibokolo, Uíge Province, Angola. Before 1903. Wood, fiber, pigment. H: 50 cm. Collected by the Rev. Thomas Lewis. Purchased from Edward Gerrard & Sons. Collection of the British Museum, London, Af1905,0609.4. © The Trustees of the British Museum. FIG. 10: Nlongo mask. Zombo, Kibokolo, Uíge Province, Angola. Before 1903. Wood, fiber, pigment. H: 53 cm. Collected by the Rev. Thomas Lewis. Purchased from Edward Gerrard & Sons. Collection of the British Museum, London, Af1905,0609.7. © The Trustees of the British Museum. FIG. 11: Nlongo mask. Zombo, Kibokolo, Uíge Province, Angola. Before 1903. Wood, fiber, pigment. Collected by the Rev. Thomas Lewis. Purchased from Edward Gerrard & Sons. Collection of the British Museum, London, Af1905,0609.9. © The Trustees of the British Museum. golese peoples fabricated such a feathered type of mask. The neighbors of the Zombo accorded it various names: the kamatsala of the Kongo of Northern Angola; the nkoso of the Nkanu;23 or the mwe(e)lu/mwelo or mwilu (kazenga) of the Yaka and Suku. Kamatsala can be interpreted as meaning “lord (nka) with feathers or wings (nsala).” The feather crown refers to the power of flight. As a bird has the ability to fly and thus can easily traverse the symbolic boundaries between the different environments (the initiation camp/bush/savannah/village), so is the nkoso or mwelu, the leader who conducts the neophytes when they have to leave their isolated dwelling place to go to the river to wash their wounds after circumcision, to the cultivated fields to carry out obliged agricultural activities, to the village to steal food, etc. Normally there is only one such mask per nkanda. As I have discussed elsewhere,24 nkoso can be identified as the ruler of the former Mbata province, who enjoyed the privilege of marrying one of his daughters to the king.25 Recall that the mani Mbata was known to have been in a constant state of war with his “neighbors,” these being the Yaka (see footnote 4). The feather crown, part of the traditional outfit of a warrior, may also refer to this. To the eleven masks that appear in Lewis’ photos, two other masks, also brought to the West by members of the British Missionary Society, should be added. These are the two “dancing masks” (figs. 18 and 19) that Rev. Lewis refers to in his letter, which were procured in the same region around 1919. These are remarkable by their dimensions and their oversized human heads surmounted by a horned cap. Like the others, they also show a firm abstraction of the human facial traits. Two other Zombo masks, figs. 20 and 21,26 acquired by the BM in 1953 and 1954, respectively, are more vividly polychromatic but share the same appearance as those Lewis donated. Fig. 21 has a rather small face and has been carved and embellished by a sculptor with a fine eye for detail, although the ears are more summarily rendered than in other examples. Other Longo Objects Besides masks, the BM holds other examples of Zombo sculpture created to function within the ritual context of the longo before they were purchased by Rev. Lewis and transferred to the BM by Edward Gerrard.27 These include four wooden panels decorated with polychrome geometric symbols (figs. 22 and 23) and one specimen with a human figure sculpted in high relief (fig. 24). The latter depicts a young, nubile, and well-dressed woman with a three-lobed hairstyle, a necklace, and a skirt embellished


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