A female Lega Mancho sculpture, Congo RDC; fine reddish patina, signs of age and ritual use. The Lega sculptures of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, particularly those associated with the Bwami society, occupy a singular position within Central African material culture. Carved primarily from indigenous hardwoods, these figures exemplify an aesthetic that privileges abstraction and symbolic resonance over naturalistic representation. The forms are typically characterized by elongated torsos, simplified limbs, and faces rendered with concave or heart-shaped profiles, narrow almond-shaped eyes, and subtly indicated mouths, features which recur across the corpus and serve as visual shorthand for moral and philosophical concepts. Their surfaces often bear a fine reddish-brown patina, the product of both prolonged ritual handling and the application of oils and clays during initiation ceremonies. This accumulation of material traces not only attests to the age of the objects but also encodes their function as active participants in the pedagogical and spiritual life of the society. Within Bwami, figures such as these are employed as mnemonic devices, each linked to aphorisms, proverbs, or ethical lessons that guide initiates through the hierarchies of the association. They are not merely decorative, but objects of social and spiritual authority, revealed selectively according to rank and context. The interplay between form, surface, and function reflects a sophisticated understanding of visual semiotics, where abstraction becomes a vehicle for ethical instruction, social cohesion, and ritual efficacy. In this light, the reddish patina and signs of repeated contact are as much a record of communal memory and ceremonial practice as they are indicators of antiquity, situating each sculpture within a continuum of performative and symbolic significance that extends beyond the material object into the moral and social fabric of Lega life. Imformant Wassiu MAZ09454