Lwalwa

The Lwalwa, also called Balwalwa or Lwalu, are a Bantu people of central Africa settled in the Luiza territory of the Kasai region in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They speak Lwalu, also known as Khongo, a Bantu language placed in the Luban group, and occupy the southern edge of the Lulua country.

During the 1700s the expansion of the Luba empire scattered small Luban-speaking farming and hunting groups through these Kasai borderlands, which remained a country of stateless village communities rather than kingdoms.

The Lwalwa are best known as carvers. Their wooden masks have elongated faces and half-closed rectangular eyes, with a hole drilled between mouth and nose to fasten the mask to the dancer's face, and these masks and carved figurines are kept for initiation and other ceremonial dances.