Detail View: Museum and the Online Archive of California: Luba (Zaire) mask
|
Collection:
|
Museum and the Online Archive of California
|
|
Creation Place:
|
Africa
|
|
Creation Place:
|
Maloba
|
|
Creation Place:
|
Shaba province?
|
|
Creation Place:
|
Zaire
|
|
Title:
|
Luba (Zaire) mask
|
|
Date:
|
1900
|
|
Materials:
|
wood
|
|
Materials:
|
pigment
|
|
Dimensions:
|
Height 45 cm
|
|
Current Location:
|
Fowler Museum of Cultural History. University of California, Los Angeles.
|
|
Address:
|
Los Angeles, California 90095-1549
|
|
Object ID:
|
UCLA FMCH 382.71
|
|
Subject:
|
- carved
|
|
Heading:
|
Content/Description
|
|
Notes:
|
DOCUMENTATION FROM COLLECTOR JEAN PIERRE HALLET: ^ The dance is "Makaye". A Kifwebe (dance of Kifwebe) is a general name for a spheric object related to the "Kukaya" (spirits genie, female or male). The dancer is always a man. He wears the mask as a helmet symbolizing the female genie. Besides the mask, the dancer wears a bark-cloth on the arms and legs, a skirt of skins, and carries in his left hand (Mukono ya mwanamuke - woman hand) a long bludgeon or club in light wood of Ambach (lighter than cork). Generally the dancers representing the genie (female and male) dance together and act as they fence with their clubs. The Kifwebe mask (female) is carried by women to the storage place which is a special and fine little hut in a secret place. The symmetrical, concentric and curvilinear pattern is filled with "pembe" (white lines) and "ngula" (orange). The semi-hemispherical body of the mask is covered with a mixture of palm oil, plantain tree juice, charcoal powder and special ashes. The holes at the base of the mask were supposed to hold a long fine fiber-rope beard.
|
|
Collection Description:
|
|
|
METS ID:
|
ark:/13030/ft9k4009fn
|