Lega

The Lega are a Bantu people of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, holding the forested hills between Kivu and the Lomami and Ulindi rivers. They trace their origin to the country that is now Uganda, and in the 1500s migrated southward, subduing peoples already settled in their new lands and imposing their customs.

Lega villages had no kings: authority rested with clan and village heads and, above all, with the Bwami, a graded initiation society whose teaching joined song and dance to the handling of sculpted objects. Bwami masks and figures, carved in wood or ivory, show the characteristic concave heart-shaped face with slit eyes.

Masks were rubbed with white clay at each use. The Lega lived mainly by forest hunting and gathering, and because objects could be seen or owned only by the proper grades, art, knowledge and rank formed a single moral order.