Kuba Mask, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Reportedly collected in situ by a Belgian Catholic missionary prior to 1950, and by descent
Marc Leo Felix, Brussels, acquired from the above
Myron Kunin, Minneapolis, acquired from the above on December 10, 1988

Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, extended loan, December 13, 1988 - May 8, 1990

According to David A. Binkley (2009: 7), "Kuba arts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have sparked the imagination of European and American observers for well over one hundred years.  Beginning in the late nineteenth century, missionaries, explorers, and ethnographers characterized the Kuba as an aristocratic and artistically creative people whose political, economic, cultural, and artistic development was the most advanced in Central Africa, comparing it to pharaonic Egypt, to Augustan Rome, and to imperial Japan as they collected Kuba arts for museums in Europe and America."

Discussing a closely related mask in the Menil Collection, Houston, Van Dyke (2008: 196) notes: "The Kuba form a confederation of nineteen ethnic groups living in the southern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo who recognize the authority of a nyim, or king, who hails from the Bushoong, the ethnic group that has held royal power since the seventeeth century.  The Bushoong creation myth is evoked by an ensemble of three masks: Woot, the founding ancestor; Ngaady a Mwaash, his sister with whom he procreates; and Bwoom, Woot's rival for the affections of Ngaady a Mwaash.  These masks, linking Kuba royalty with the founding of the Kingdom, appear at funerals and other ceremonies, including those related to initiation.  The mask representing Woot is worn at times by the nyim himself or those he deputizes to perform the role of royal founder."

She continues (ibid.) that the Menil mask, like the present mask, "represents Bwoom, who some think signifies a Pygmy from a neighboring population, a rival prince, or a nonroyal in the Kingdom.  Whichever is the case, Bwoom plays a subversive role in perfomances.  Jan Vansina (1978: 216), a scholar of Kuba history, suggests that the Bwoom form may date back to the eighteenth century and that all three types of foundational masks were known by the nineteenth century."