Lega mask
Collected
in situ in 1945 by Baudouin de Malmaut
High:
20.2
cm
. 9
inch
Provenance:
Collected by Baudouin
de Malmaut in 1945.
Then private collection
Michel Boulanger, Liège
Belgium.
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In contrast
with most other African masks, which hide the wearer's face, Lega masks can
be worn on the side or the back of the head, hung from a beard or carried in
the hands. They can also be piled up or grouped on the ground, or suspended
from a fence or a pole.
The most
common type of Lega mask is the small lukwakongo mask, which often has a
fibre beard, symbolizing old age. The name is associated with death and the
dead. These masks are the personal possessions of the bwami members who have
reached yananio, the penultimate level.
Although they
are not portraits and do not represent a specific ancestor, the masks are
heirlooms from former initiates and so evoke happy memories. Most important
is the idea that the deceased are not really dead, but go on living through
the masks they have left behind, thus allowing their descendants to carry on
their traditions. The aphorisms recited as an accompaniment during the
rituals refer to the philosophical and moral principles of
the
bwami.
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Lega
Mask, Zaire
The
Lega mask "lukwakongo"
was used in the rites leading to membership in the "lutombwo lwa yananio"
grade of the "bwami" society. Small masks do not represent specific
personalities but generalized human faces, such as the father's, donor of
life and center of authority. If used in dance, they serve as memory of the
great virtues the fathers strove for and the vices they rejected. These
virtues must be cultivated generation after generation to maintain "bwami"
and preserve the social order. Thus, the cold, stern, passionless faces of
the masks signify the ever-present ancestral sanctions of virtues.
Literature:
Cameron, Elisabeth Lynn, Art
of the Lega
, Los Angeles 2001, p. 192, ill. 9.28
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This beautiful Idumu Lega mask, Museum quality has a very high quality of
carving. Heart shaped and a second pear of eyes looking towards the
future and the past on the checks. This type of mask was only used during the
last grade of the Bwami, and is very rare on the market . It has a honey patina
you'll also find on Bembe statues.
Of oval form, a protruding forehead with a heart-shaped facial plane
underneath, divided by an elongated triangular nose with a bridge accentuated by
dark brown patina, big, almond-shaped, open worked eyes, two circular ornaments
on the cheeks, beneath a raphia beard, pierced around the rim, slight damages on
base Lega masks, and crack in the wood around the eye. Worn during bwami
initiations. Heart-shaped, concave face.
This mask has
a very strong carving and was already in a private collection since the early
sixties where Michel Boulanger bought it, it was collected around 1945.
This
is not a "cheap " mask, so only request information if you are
serious.
 During rituals, a larger type of Lega mask was attached
to a fence and surrounded by the smaller lukwakongo masks. The Idimu (or Idumu)
mask represented "the Master of the Land surrounded by his children,"
and symbolized the unity and cohesion of the communities that gathered around it
in present, past and future.
This
mask was published in the catalog from the Portugal Lisboa Antiques Biennal, and
also in Casa Jardim Portugal from March 2006 .
Add
Lega Mask to Cart - NOT
AVAILABLE
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