LULUWA
113
FIG. 23 (left): Face mask, probably carved
by Ntumba Tshasuma of the village of
Tshibombi. Bakwa Kasaanzu subgroup,
Luluwa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Wood, pigment, fiber. H: 47 cm.
Field acquired by Paul Timmermans, Belgium, probably
1955–62.
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, Afrika Museum,
Congregatie van de Heilige Geest, Berg en Dal,
Netherlands, 1967, inv. 120-9.
Photo © Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen,
Netherlands.
A mask in this same style, possibly also carved by Ntumba
Tshasuma of Tshibombi, was photographed by Albert
Maesen in the village of Tshintela in 1954 dancing in the
company of a chief or other titleholder and a man wearing
a composite mask like the one I photographed in the
village of Kapinga-Kamba in the mid 1990s (see fig. 20).
FIG. 24 (above): Face mask, probably carved
by Jean Mandu or Mundilaayi Mushipu,
both of the village of Kalambayi. Bakwa
Kasaanzu subgroup, Luluwa, Democratic
Republic of the Congo.
Wood, pigment, animal pelt. H: 32 cm.
Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva, 1980, inv. 1026-63.
Photo: Studio Ferrazzini Bouchet, © Barbier-Mueller
Museum, Geneva.
Luluwa masks, generically called nkota, are understood as
incarnations of ancestral spirits, bakishi or bashangi, and
are danced within the context of the widespread boys’
puberty ritual known as mukanda.