FEATURE 94 Masks of the GALWA with Black, Red, and White Markings By Charlotte Grand-Dufay FIG. 1 (left): Woodblock engraving by Louis Breton after photos and sketches by the Marquis de Compiègne titled “Idoles des Pahouins, des Gallois et de Ivéia, rapportées par M. M. Marche et de Compiègne.” From Marquis de Compiègne, L’Afrique Equatoriale, Okanda, Bangouents-Osyéba, Paris, E. Plon and Cie, 1875. FIG. 2 (below): Map of the Galwa region in 1907. From Annales Apostoliques de la Congrégation du Saint-Esprit, August 1907, “Échos de nos oeuvres. Mission du Gabon,” p. 173. Since the seventeenth century, the Galwa (frequently rendered Galoa) have inhabited the part of the Middle Ogooué River that extends from Lambaréné to Aschouka and includes Onangue, Ezanga, and Oguemoue lakes. Their history is connected with historical migrations from the Upper Ivindo (a tributary of the Ogooué) and with that of the peoples of Central Gabon (the Tsogho, Vuvi, Massango) and of the Lower Ogooué (the Mpongwe, Orungu, Nkomi). They belong to the so-called Omyene linguistic group (from the word myene, meaning “I say that,” a phrase with which people generally begin a speech).1 The Myene tribes are the Mpongwe, the Orungu, the Nkomi, the Enenga, and the Adjumba, which comprise a linguistic unit, have a closely related culture, and share the same secret societies (the bwiti, the okuji or okukwe, the mwiri, and the njembe). The geographic location of the Galwa long gave them a privileged position in the ivory, rubber, and slave trades, since they functioned as intermediaries between peoples further up the Ogooué (the Okande and the Aduma) and peoples closer to the coast (the Nkomi and the Orungu). The Galwa used to be called the Edôngô, a Galwa ethnonym meaning “those who have changed.” The fi rst Galwa mask was brought to Europe in 1830, and others were displayed at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, in 1901, and the international and colonial expositions in Paris in 1931 and 1937 and in Chicago in 1933. Today, although these masks are exhibited in various museums, including the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac (Paris), the Musée de l’Areuse (Boudry, Switzerland), the Musée Barbier-Mueller (Geneva), the Penn Museum (Philadelphia), the de
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