African Arts Gallery

Modest dimensions for this flat and circular mask, abstract, haloed with fibers and feathers, named Gitenga, which was held on the face thanks to the fish net attached to the posterior contours. It is a police mask of the circumcision camp, representing the sun at sunrise and sunset. Leon de Sousberghe has identified two types of masks, minganji plant fibers, associated with male society and mbuya wooden masks generally related to the village, with some exceptions however.
The seed live on the banks of the Kwilu, while the have settled on the banks of the Kasai river downstream of Tshikapa. The influences of the neighbouring ethnic groups, Mbla, Suku, Wongo, Leele, Kuba and Salempasu, were imprinted on their large tribal art sculpture. Within this diversity the masks Mbuya, realistic, produced every ten years, have a festive function, and embody different characters, including the chef, the soothsayer and his wife, the prostitute, the possessed, etc. The masks of initiation and those of power, the minganji represent the ancestors and occur successively during the same ceremonies, agricultural festivals, initiation rituals and circumcision mukanda, induction of the chief.

Source: Kerchache; Inventing masks Strother.