Product Details
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- Pende Mbuya Mask, Democratic Republic of Congo #3
- A Pende Mask, Mbuya.Democratic Republic of Congo, Early to Mid 20th Century.
- Wood, blackened on front, with white Kaolin Clay pigments in the grooves on forehead, around eyes, and ears. Woven raffia collar and large headdress attached at top. In very good condition, appropriate for age, medium, and origin.
- Mbuya Masks are danced in Village Theatrical Performances that use parody and drama to explore Moral and Judicial Principles central to Pende Society.
- In addition to representing typical Village Personalities, Mbuya Masks personify a whole range of characters and their attributes, including the Chief and his Authority, and the Diviner and his knowledge of Occult Forces.
- Measurements:25×17×12 cm
- Condition:Excellent
- Custom Base included
- Literature: Z.S.Strother, Pende
- In the past when this Mask was carved, Pende masks were considered as Mahamba, or tools or transistors facilitating contact between the Living and the World of the Dead. They were worn in the contexts of the Healing Rituals called Mukanda, the period of seclusion in a "bush school" or forest encampment where pubescent boys were circumcised and initiated into adulthood, and in the public masquerades that celebrated the boys' achievement and their return to normal village life as full-fledged adults. Certain Masks were reserved exclusively for the Mukanda while Mbuya, or Village masks, appeared to the general population.
- Mbuya Masks appear in public masquerades and represent a variety of characters, such as the Clown, the Hunter, the Judge, the Chief, the Chief's Wife, the Diviner, and the "Woman Who Flirts", among others. Each character has a distinct costume and accessories and its own dance steps and drumming rhythms. Mbuya masquerades entertain while teaching the Pende which behaviors to emulate and which ones to avoid.
- Masking, especially in the context of the Mukanda, began to wane during the 1930s under Belgian colonial pressures and the substitution of Midwives for the traditional Circumcisers. Most of what is known about masking in the old days in found in the published research of Léon de Sousberghe, a Belgian Jesuit anthropologist, who studied Pende visual arts in the 1950s. Ze Strother, an American Art Historian, did field work on Pende masking during the 1980s and found that, although the traditional Mukanda was no longer held, masking was flourishing. Sculptors had invented new mask characters to be worn in masquerades that were for pure entertainment.
Adapted from Roslyn A. Walker, African Masks: The Art of Disguise, Label text, 2010.
Roslyn A. Walker, DMA unpublished material, 2007.
