Mask - Pende - Congo - Mask Mbuya

African initiation mask, Mbuya, with broad slit-like eyelids, a rounded-tipped nose and a mouth in a pout. Matte ochre-red patina.
Height excluding base: 32 cm.
The western Pende live on the banks of the Kwilu, while the eastern Pende have settled on the banks of the Kasaï downstream from Tshikapa. The influence of neighboring ethnic groups, Mbla, Suku, Wongo, Leele, Kuba and Salempasu, has left its mark on their large sculpture of tribal art. Within this diversity, the Mbuya masks, realistic and produced every ten years, serve a festive function and embody different characters that are difficult to distinguish without their costume, including the fumu or ufumu chief, the diviner and his wife, the prostitute, the fool, tundu, the possessed, etc...
The Mbuya initiation masks linked to the mukanda initiation and those of power, the minganji, represent the ancestors and are presented successively during the same ceremonies, agricultural festivals, initiation rites and mukanda circumcisions, as well as the enthronement of the chief.
(Art and Life in Africa, C.D. Roy; "Pende" Strother).

Provenance: former collection of Professor Jacques LAFFONT, from the graduating class of the École de Santé Navale de Bordeaux. Between 1949 and 1966, he spent a long period in Africa, where he practiced and taught, notably as holder of the chair of anatomy and operative medicine at the French Faculty of Medicine in Dakar.