Yelmo Alunga

Belongs to society Alunga and participates in his ceremonies, mainly in the pre-hunting ceremonies and in the cult of the ancestors. It is a large helmet mask, often janiform and abstract shapes, with large ovals painted with cooli that stand out on a dark background.It is also known as Echwakaba. This mask participates and identifies with everything mysterious, especially the world of the jungle and the spirits of nature, both of the forests and of the waters. They have a great influence on initiation rites, Kalunga or Butende, as they transmit their values to neophytes and occupy a prominent place in bembe society as they are mediators between the invisible world and that of the living. It is kept in the sacred forest.

In this anthropomorphic helmet stand out its large eye orbits, painted with kaolin, in the shape of a rounded heart at the bottom. On the head is raised, like a headdress, a double crest formed by two symbolic horns, whose tuning points are joined in the eyebrow. Round ears, tubular eyes in coffee bean and long mouth with a bulky and elongated lower lip and simulated teeth. They dominate the brown and white colres with a few touches of Tukula red. Its bearer is certainly a hunter.