Gipogo (Eastern Pende; also Giphogo or Kipoko) is the helmet mask of the chief, one of the two great masks of chiefly power among the Pende of the Kasai. Belonging exclusively to chiefs and kept within the chief's house, it may be danced only by his authority, on the occasion of initiations and rites of the ancestor cult. Gipogo embodies the nurturing and protective aspect of chiefship: in its Lukongo dance the masker mimics the daily labours of village women and sweeps the earth to drive off sorcerers and to cleanse the community of sickness and sterility. It appears at moments of communal weight — above all the investiture of a new chief — as the chief's link to the world of the dead, standing as intermediary between the living and the ancestors. De Sousberghe paired it with Pumbu a mfumu as the two complementary masks of chiefly sovereignty, and Strother documents its forms and meanings among the Central Pende.