A kifwebe or bwadi bwa kifwebe is a mask of the

Songye The Songye people, sometimes written Songe, are a Bantu ethnic group from the central Democratic Republic of the Congo. They inhabit a vast territory between the Sankuru and Lubilash rivers in the west and the Lualaba River in the east. Many Songy ...

Luba Luba may refer to: Geography *Kingdom of Luba, a pre-colonial Central African empire *Ľubá, a village and municipality in the Nitra region of south-west Slovakia *Luba, Abra, a municipality in the Philippines *Luba, Equatorial Guinea, a town o ...

of the Congo. Kifwebe

Uses

These masks almost always have streaks (incised or painted) on their surface and they are sometimes round shaped (especially among the Luba). They were used in ceremonies of the Kifwebe secret societies where dances of the same name were performed, and the masks were then dressed with beards of long plant fibres attached to holes on the edges of the mask (Figure A). When these beards were absent (lack of fixing holes on the border of the mask) they were called Kabemba (that means "hawks").Julien Volper, ''Autour des Songye'', Annales des Arts africains, 2012, p.91

Gallery

File:Kifwebe mask DMA.jpg, Figure A : Kifwebe with fibres beard File:British Museum Room 25 Kifwebe mask Songye people 17022019 5008.jpg, Kifwebe of the Songye File:5735 8 Songye Kifwebe Mask DRC (3767111227).jpg, Painted kifwebe File:Brooklyn Museum 76.165 Kifwebe Mask.jpg, Painted mask File:Masque kifwebe luba-Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale.JPG, Rounded kifwebe with incised streaks of the Luba

References

Bibliography

* Julien Volper, ''Under the influence of the Songye'', Annales des Arts africains, 2012 *

Alan P. Merriam Alan Parkhurst Merriam (1 November 1923 – 14 March 1980) was an American ethnomusicologist known for his studies of music in Native America and Africa.Bruno Nettl, "Merriam, Alan P." in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (Londo ...

, ''Kifwebe and other masked and unmasked societies among the Basongye'', Africa-Tervuren, Tervuren, vol. 24, no 3, 1978 * François Neyt, ''Kifwebe: Un siècle de masques songye et luba'', Cinq continents éditions, 2019 Masks African art Masks in Africa {{Africa-stub