African Arts Gallery

This unusual mask is different from the salampasu with its bulbous forehead. The face is long, with a widely circled gaze, sunken cheeks in the center of which emerges a blunt nose, and a wide toothed mouth.

Oiled black patina, underlying light wood. Cracks of desiccation and abrasions. Height on base: 48 cm.
Living from hunting and agriculture, a warlike people,the Salampasu form a tribe of the Lulua group and are settled between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, east of the Kasai River. They are surrounded to the west and south by the Tschokwe and Lunda, and to the north and east by the Kete and Lwalwa. A hierarchy of masks, simple wooden masks kasangu and copper-covered masks mukinka , was associated with the warrior society mungongo (pl. bangongo ). The wearing of these masks depended on a large contribution of livestock, drink, or other material goods from the aspirant who was initiated into esoteric knowledge from other mask wearers. (Africa, Prestel)