Chikuza
The mukanda is practiced by Chokwe and related peoples in Angola,
DRC - Congo and Western Zambia. A bush camp is built. The contents found therein are
the property of the organizers.
Parents pay fees for their children's participation. The mukanda serves nearby initiates,
as well as others who may travel from afar, the later necessitated by
the tradition falling away in their areas.
The aim of mukanda is to transform young
boys to manhood. It begins with their circumcision and continues for a
period of 3 - 5 months, sometimes longer. The boys learn discipline,
hunting skills and how to make costumes and masks.
Ancestral personalities
are represented in costume and danced. From the experience, boys grow into men,
while custom is re-enacted and passed on. At the end of the mukanda,
most reed, fibre and resin masks are destroyed by fire, together with
the camp.
The mukanda
initiation begins after harvest and continues until the end
of the dry season, sometimes longer.
A mukanda camp near Lupali village.
Grass figures seen above the enclosure.
Entrance to the mukanda
camp.
Protective medicines inside
the enclosure.
Rigid, compartmentalized sleeping
quarters.
Masks as kept within one mukanda
enclosure.
Ndeke with others.
Masks found inside a mukanda
enclosure.
Recently circumcised boys singing a welcome
tune.
Boys singing their
traditional welcome.
Boys sitting
motionless outside the enclosure
They may sit for hours and
hours...
From this they learn
discipline and self restraint.
Boys are taught aspects of
survival.
Boys appearing after the kuliachiza / shimba ritual bath at the river.
Boy are allowed to dress after the kuliachiza /
shimba
ritual bath.
They are allowed to eat with
men.
Making sisal cord for costumes.
Stripping sisal leafs.
Completed stained
sisal cord.
An elder make a weaves a costume from sisal
cord.
Samasengo and
Pwevo
Mwana Pwevo,
Chiwigi, Katotola
Chikuza
\
Munguli
Ndeke?
Kaluwe,
Chikuza, Kalelwa and Mwana Pwevo
Kaluwe,
Chikuza, Kalelwa and Mwana Pwevo
Kalelwa with
a representation of Chikuza above.
______________________________________________
Visit our mask
page to purchase Chokwe related masks.
Or visit the exhibition:
F
ACES
-
Art
of
Angola -
and
surrounds
Click thumbs below to view alternative mask.
masks
of
the
departed
An exhibition of African masks assembled from important
collections.
*
and
through 