Basongye

The Songye occupy the Katanga region and the eastern Kasai region of former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They are related to the Luba, whose empire would have been founded by a Songye. The origin of both peoples, who faced each other in various wars, seems to come from the Lacustrian region of Shaba. Its organization is patriotic, based on a central power surrounded by officials and more or less secret societies. Their statues are not a symbol of power or representation of ancestors, they are oriented in a fetishist sense. In order for the statue to acquire its protection power and ensure the union and prosperity of the people it must be “charged” with the magical substances that are introduced into the ventral, cranial cavity or in the horns with which some of the most important fetishes are adorned. Their masks, usually carved in light wood, present within their multiple variants a graphic constants, linear scarifications, often in convergent opposite directions in the line that descends from the forehead to the chin; rectangular mouth and nose in triangle usually prominent. The stretch marks that cover the face do not pursue an aesthetic motive. They reproduce the paths taken by the founding spirits of Bukishi society. This society is responsible for providing its members with moral and social education, as it assumes responsibility for the political and social control of the village. His best known mask is the kifwébé along with its female variant kikashi which is distinguished from the male one by the absence of crest on the forehead. They are masks reserved for the societies of initiates. At other times, he served as a police officer and a law enforcement officer and was also involved in wars. the description goes