GALWA MASKS 99 FIG. 9 (above): Mask. Galwa, Gabon. Before 1901. Wood, vegetable fi ber, kaolin, charcoal. H: 38 cm. Buffalo Museum of Science, inv. C2598 1385. FIG. 10 (left): Mask. Galwa, Gabon. Before 1901. Wood, vegetable fi ber, kaolin, charcoal. H: 38 cm. Buffalo Museum of Science, inv. C2647 1437. there and formed interclanic relations with them as well. The existence of the Buwanji clan among both the Vili and the Galwa attests to this encounter. It also demonstrates cohabitation with the powerful Buwanji metalworkers’ society that was fi rst established on the Loango coast around the fourteenth century. A Galwa song tells of the impossibility of creating plantations on the infertile Loango Plain and of how the people were saved from famine by nuts (inkula). When they left the Fernan-Vaz Lagoon, just north of Igela, the Galwa moved toward the interior and settled among the Eshira in a village called N’tomba Na Bule. While they feared and mistrusted the Eshira, they ultimately fell victim to wars fought primarily over women. This resulted in the last stage of the Galwa migration, during which they separated from the Onange. After fi rst having tried improvised rafts, they built FIG. 11 (above): Mask. Galwa, Gabon. Wood, vegetable fi ber, kaolin, charcoal. H: 30 cm. Penn Museum, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, inv. 29-12-188. canoes of okoume wood and settled on N’tomba Island in Lake Onange, where they were harassed by the Akele. At the battle of Mbure, the Akele struck the earth with banana tree trunks, fi red with their weapons, and took many captives, especially women. 16 Compelled to fl ee, the Galwa found refuge on the shores of Onangue, Ezanga, and Oguemoue lakes, and then discovered the Ogooué, a name that means “the path.” The Galwa spread out and settled, but remained under the domination of the powerful Enenga, who controlled the main route for the slave trade. Political and religious power became fragmented, and only the clan (mbuwe) played a central role in social life. THE CLAN The Galwa were made up of about twenty clans related to one another only by a sense of belonging to a same people with a common history, language, and
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