Mask Pende Orientale

Boyo / Mboyo

A strong male ancestor figure with elaborate markings on the head and face as well as on the torso and belly. The standing figure is wearing carved bracelets on each arm.

This elaborately carved figure comes from the region between the Luluaba River and lake Tanganyika an area of great historical, religious and artistic complexity. Reflecting this cultural complexity the Boyo are compromised of six distinct but related clans that share similar shapes but retain individual styles of art. This figure is attributed to the greater Buyu (or Basumba) style but can have an origin within a clan as yet undefined, perhaps from either the Hanga or Sumba (Basumba). This large and highly detailed carving shows an ancestor in a semi-crouched position with squared shoulders and elaborate marking of the body.These figures were honored and left offerings of food and drink. As an ancestor the figure served as a point of contact with the heroic chiefs of the past to comfort and direct a supplicant s life. The scarification patterns on the face and abdomen are those of an ancestor that the figure represented.

H: 11,3 cm

Les Boyo ou Mboyo font partie du groupe ethnique appelé pré-Bembé, tout comme les Basikongo, Bahutshwe, Babwari... et se situent géographiquement autour du lac Tanganiyka.

Leur art se situe à mi-chemin entre le style Luba et Lega et a souvent été attribué à tort aux Bembé qui n'ont jamais fabriqué et utilisé de statues.

References: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1978.412.424

Lega

15.5cm x 5.3cm


Iginga figures are individually owned by the highest ranking society members, are the most coveted of all initiation objects. Some anthropomorphic figures are called kalimbangoma. Each member of Musagi wa Kindi, a sublevel of the highest Bwami rank, owns a bone or ivory human kalimbangoma figure as a sign of his status.

References: Art of the Lega

Friction oracle: Croc-headed animal (Itombwa), Kuba peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo
30cm long x 6cm tall (to top of figure)
wood, plant fiber, pigment
mid 20th century


"Regarded as infallible divinatory instruments, friction oracles (itombwa) were used to mediate between diviners and omniscient nature spirits in order to determine the cause of illnesses and appropriate courses of treatment and to expose dishonesty. They performed this role in the guise of an animal form, favored by nature spirits, designed to register their insights in response to human manipulation." - Metropolitan Museum of Art