FEATURE 104 power events where justice was done. Like the yassi, the okuji instilled terror in the village and could mete out punishments as draconian as poisoning. The bwiti, a “religion” based on knowledge of the world, poetry, theater, and dance, appeared in the Galwa area in the middle of the nineteenth century when the slave trade was rampant. It was also a spirit, based on the worship of ancestors, and interacted with the gods on man’s behalf through a small wooden fi gure painted red and white. The initiation characteristically involved the chewing of iboga, a sacred wood, which brought on visions and contact with the world of the primal ancestors. The bwiti never became durably established in Galwa territory.24 Father Léon Lejeune mentions a war fetish, the ntilo, which protected from arrows, spears, and bullets. It was made in the forest with the blood, fl esh, or bones of an enemy slain in war and placed at the entrance to the village in an antelope, gazelle, or bovine horn, a monkey skull, or a snail shell.25 THE CORPUS OF GALWA MASKS Pastor Fernand Grébert (1886–1956) was in Gabon from 1913 to 1931, fi rst stationed at Samkita and then at Talagouga on the Ogooué River. A capable artist, he faithfully rendered four Galwa masks, both male and female, frontally and in profi le, with chalk and colored crayon (fi g. 4).26 He shows that they were surrounded by raffi a to hide the dancer’s head and shoulders. These four masks are colored red, black, and white and have symmetrical designs on them that vary from triangular to oval. The triangle on the forehead is red or black for male and white for female. The eyes are colored a more or less deep red. The female mask has a coiffure composed of small, lateral bundles arranged across the top of the face like a diadem as in fi gure 22, which can also be seen in a drawing by Emile Bayard. One female mask in the Grébert sketch has earrings, and one male mask has a raffi a beard extending down from its chin. A photo illustration in a brochure produced in 1907 by the evangelical missions established on the Ogooué shows a dancer wearing a raffi a costume and a Galwa mask, accompanied by a drummer and a musician holding two palm fronds (fi g. 12). COLORS AND DIMENSIONS Polychrome Galwa masks characteristically vary in size from 24 to 38 cm and display three colors. The FIG. 21 (left): Mask. Galwa, Gabon. Wood, vegetable fi ber, kaolin, red ocher, charcoal. H: 33 cm. Ex Pierre Robin; Chantal Dandrieu and Fabrizio Giovagnoni. © Galerie Dandrieu-Giovagnoni archives. Photo: Hughes Dubois. the yassi is the mwiri, a male initiation society of Tsogho or Ivea origin that Mary Kingsley described as “an entity completely apart.” It was also present among the Mpongwe and related groups.23 The njembe was the quintessential female secret society, the “women’s yassi.” Its origin was apparently Eshira. The okuji, or okukwe, is a legendary spirit that manifests itself in a dance performed in honor of the spirit of a venerated deceased individual. It is perceived as the village’s protector or “patron.” The dancer wore a mask, generally made of a soft wood called kombo-kombo, a textile hood made of vegetal fi bers on his head, and a genet pelt attached to the mask or to a belt. He held a whip or fl y whisk in one hand and a clump of leaves in the other. He sometimes danced on long stilts accompanied by men and women singing in chorus to the rhythm of slit drums. Each village had its own okuji, and they were in competition with one another. These ceremonies were this initiation society’s public facet and were
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