African Arts Gallery

Exceptional and old Salampasu knife with a carved motif of a head whose neck extends to a fingered foot. Leather straps connect the blade to its handle. Beautiful traces of oxidation. Erosions and desiccation cracks. Living by hunting and agriculture, a warrior 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 the Lunda, and to the north and east by the Kete and the Lwalwa. A hierarchy of masks, simple kasangu wooden masks and mukinka copper-covered masks, was associated with mungongo (pl. bangongo) warrior society. Masks are used during initiations as well as during meetings of different social classes.