Lega

Lega, or Kilega, is a Bantu dialect cluster spoken by the Lega people in the forests and Mitumba mountains east of the Congo River. It splits into two main varieties, Shabunda Lega and Mwenga Lega, which are only partly mutually intelligible, and Gengele, a creole based on the Shabunda variety, is counted among its offshoots.

The Lega began migrating from the White Nile region, in what is now Uganda, to their present lands in the 1500s, conquering the forest peoples they found there. Their society is ordered by the Bwami association, a hierarchy of initiation grades whose moral teaching is expressed through ivory masks and small carved figures.