Gipogo (the chiefly mask-spirit)
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.
Domains
- chiefly sovereignty
- mediation living and dead
Powers
- to protect the village from sorcery and to purify sickness and sterility
- to mediate between the chief, the living, and the ancestral dead
Epithets
- gipogo (sword-wielder)Zoë S. Strother, Inventing Masks: Agency and History in the Art of the Central Pende (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). (secondary)
Relations
- counterpart: Pumbu a mfumu (the chief's executioner mask-spirit)Gipogo and Pumbu are the paired chiefly masks of the Kasai Pende analysed together by de Sousberghe: Gipogo embodies the nurturing, protective face of the chief's authority, Pumbu its lethal, executive face.Léon de Sousberghe, 'Gipogo et Pumbu a mfumu: Masques du pouvoir cheffal chez les Pende du Kasai,' Revista do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia 2 (1992). (secondary)
Sources
- Gipogo (Giphogo/Kipoko) is the Eastern Pende chiefly helmet-mask spirit, exclusive to chiefs, embodying the chief's benevolent, protective authority and his mediation between the living and the ancestral dead.: Léon de Sousberghe, 'Gipogo et Pumbu a mfumu: Masques du pouvoir cheffal chez les Pende du Kasai,' Revista do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia 2 (1992). (secondary); Zoë S. Strother, Inventing Masks: Agency and History in the Art of the Central Pende (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). (secondary)