African Arts Gallery

Ex-French collection of African art Among the Luluwa, Lulua, or even Béna Lulua, various types of African statues presenting multiple scarifications, glorify local chiefs, motherhood, fertility and the female figure. This interesting version with a magical charge was also sculpted among the Luba of Kasai. This type of statuette depends on the Buanga bua cibola cult with the aim of protecting children and pregnant women. The subject has an umbilical hernia, the abdomen being the center of the body and "object of all concerns" (The power of the sacred, M. Faïk-Nzuji) Very slightly abraded dark brown patina.
It is in the south of the Democratic Republic of Congo that the Lulua, or Béna Lulua, from West Africa, settled . Their social structure, based on castes, is similar to that of the Luba. They produced few masks, but mainly statues of ancestors representing the ideal warrior, mulalenga wa nkashaama, as well as the leader of the Leopard society and mbulenga statuettes. linked to the spirits of nature.