Where is the songye tribe located?

Where is the songye tribe located?

central Democratic Republic of the Congo
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.

Where is the Songye mask from?

the DRC
The Songye came from the Shaba region of the DRC and settled along the Lualaba River in the middle of the savannah and forests. They are governed by the yakitengé and by local leaders….Songye Mask (N° 16351)

What is a Kifwebe mask?

Striated face masks known as kifwebe was historically created by sculptors in an area of the Zaire River Basin inhabited by both Songye and Luba communities. Significant departures in the role and formal interpretation of this sculptural genre subsequently developed in each culture.

What does the Songye mask represent?

Specifically the Kifwebe masks, the most well known of Songye masks, are used to ward off disaster and threats to the tribe.

What are Songye masks used for?

In the Songye language, a mask is a kifwebe: this term has been given to masks representing spirits and characterized by striations. The kifwebe masks embodied supernatural forces. The kifwebe society used them to ward off disaster or any threat.

What does the Luba mask represent?

Among the Luba, the hemispherical masks represent the female spirits, while the elongated masks represent the male spirits.

What is the Luba mask used for?

Their masks share a similar characteristic as that of the Songye tribe and are also known as the Kifwebe. They used the masks for dances, lunar ceremonies or plays as artists hold a special place in the Luba tribe.

What does Luba mean?

Definition of Luba 1a : an African people of southern Democratic Republic of the Congo. b : a member of such people. 2 : any of numerous Bantu languages spoken in Democratic Republic of the Congo especially : tshiluba.

What did Luba people eat?

The Luba are savanna and forest dwellers who practice hunting, food gathering, and agriculture (cassava, corn [maize]), keep small livestock, and live in villages of a single street, with rectangular thatched-roof huts along either side. They fish the Congo River and its main tributaries intensively.

When was the Dan mask created?

Dan mask, wood, pigment, late 19th–early 20th century; in the Brooklyn Museum, New York. The roughly 1,500–4,000-foot- (450–1,200-metre-) high Dang (Dans) and Toura mountains are hot and humid and covered with lush vegetation. The area is isolated, and even the most general lines of history are unknown.

What is the old name of Zaire?

Zaire ( / zɑːˈɪər /, also UK: / zaɪˈɪər / ), officially the Republic of Zaire (French: République du Zaïre, [ʁepyblik dy zaiʁ] ), was the name of a sovereign state between 1971 and 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

What was Zaire like in the 1980s?

During the 1980s, Zaire remained a one-party state. Although Mobutu successfully maintained control during this period, opposition parties, most notably the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social—UDPS), were active.

What’s happening in Zaire?

There is an ongoing traffic in stolen copper, cobalt, electrical wires and pylons, tires, water pumps, and gasoline. Gecamines is being looted down to the ground. Soldiers, the police, workers, company guards, expatriate Greeks, Lebanese, and South Africans—all are collaborating to ransack Zaire’s biggest economic asset.

Who’s at the center of Zaire’s border racket?

According to company officials, legal authorities, diplomats, and townspeople alike, at the center of the racket is Governor Kyungu. He is said to be getting a $10,000 kickback for each export license granted to truck goods across the border. It is an old story in Zaire. “Who’s using who?” a clergyman asked.