About this object

The Lega are a Bantu-speaking group who inhabit the forest region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. All Lega art was once owned and used within the structure of the Bwami society, a voluntary association for men and women. Bwami itself means “king.” The Bwami is a type of society that can be found from the DRC to Sierra Leone; these societies are usually especially strong in cultures, like the Lega, which lack centralized authority. The Lega people are unified not by chiefs but by Bwami, which cuts across clans and territories. Each region and even some villages have their own varieties of Bwami, and non-Lega are admitted into the cult as true equals, despite the usual Lega suspicion of outsiders. The society safeguards the moral and social code necessary for the Lega to live together in harmony. The highest ranking members of the Bwami commission, own, use, and interpret all Lega sculpture. Many categories of object are used in connection with the society’s activities, including anthropomorphic figurines of various kinds. The Lega call most anthropomorphic figurines iginga, which they define as ‘objects that sustain the teachings and precepts of Bwami’. Each figurine symbolically represents a named personage with particular moral qualities or defects that are expressed through songs and dances during the initiations. Iginga figurines are the most coveted of all initiation objects.