African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

African Americans 1001
ruling elite and exercised social and political control through the use of powerful magic;
that is, the acquired techniques of sorcery (masende) and the inherited powers of
witchcraft (buchi). Certain visual indicators, as well as performance roles, distinguished
the gender and power of maskers. Male bifwebe among the eastern Songye in the late
1970s were characterized by red, white, and black striations and nose and forehead
extensions, while the female masks were predominantly white and devoid of crests. Male
masks carried out punitive and policing activities and exhibited erratic and spectacular
behavior based on their accumulation of masende and buchi, while female masks
engaged in dance, thus animating benevolent spirit forces and detecting the malevolent
ones. Symbolically, a single conceptualization of the supernatural kifwebe creature
existed, based on the male model, in which all parts of the mask and costume were
identified with references to nature, culture, and cosmology. The creature was also named
in an esoteric terminology, taught during initiation into the society (Hersak 1985, 37–40).
Kifwebe masking provides a particularly poignant example of an ongoing and dynamic
adaptation of folk traditions. Among the Luba, kifwebe masks of the 1970s, most of
which resemble those of the white Songye female type, were used in entirely opposing
contexts, that is, as agents of healers and antisorcerers (Mutimanwa 1974, 30–34; Hersak
1993, 156). At about the same time, on the eastern fringe of the Kalebwe, a workshop
was producing a particularly powerful kifwebe model, which was used concurrently in
bwadi practices, in popular dance performances, and as an article of commerce (Hersak
1985). For skeptics concerned with Western notions of authenticity and singular
development patterns, the reality of such phenomena is difficult to reconcile.
Though Songye proverbial lore largely emphasizes conservatism, moderation and
adherence to traditional values and lifestyles, the currents of change are recognized, even
if reluctantly. Two proverbs summarize this as follows:
Ngoma lubilu, maja lubibu
(The “tempo” of the dance must follow that of the
drum)
(author’s translation; Samain 1923, 147).
Bipwa byalulukanga, bakashi baamena myefu
(The years change, women are growing beards)
(Lumeka 1967, 42).
References
Bevel, Maurice-Louis. 1937. L’art de la decoration chez les Basonge. Le Conseiller Congolais 10,
no. 1.
Hersak, Dunja. 1985. Songye Masks and Figure Sculpture. London: Ethnographica.
——. 1993. The Kifwebe Masking Phenomenon. In Face of the Spirits: Masks from the Zaire
Basin, eds. Frank Herreman and Constantijn Petridis. Antwerp: Ethnographic Museum.