KUYU KEBEKEBE HEAD

Provenance: Missionaries Rédemptoristes, 1890-1910

The Kuyu initiation ceremony, which involved initiates from several villages, featured carvings of ancestral figures. Traditionally, the origin myth was enacted in a performance that included mimed sequences and dance. The Panther Clan was represented by seven drums, while the Snake Clan was embodied by a spinning dan- cer wearing a long raffia gown and carrying the aouya, the carved and painted wooden head, through a hole in the gown at the neck.
It was designed to serve both as a puppet and as a mask during a theater-dance celebrating a cult initiation.
Democratic Republic of Congo

Wood with natural pigments, 50 cm