Pumbu a mfumu (the chief's executioner mask-spirit)

Pumbu a mfumu is the second of the two great chiefly masks of the Pende of the Kasai, the masked spirit of the chief's executioner (ngunza ya fumu). Where Gipogo embodies the protective, life-giving face of chiefship, Pumbu embodies its lethal, executive face: by fusing with the chief it represents the branch of his office that must deal with war and execution. Ownership was the prerogative of paramount chiefs alone, and the mask was brought into play in response to social crises, when the chief needed to assert control. Its performance is the kuhala kua ngunza, the executioner's dance, in which the masker advances with a halting backward stutter-step, flourishing a blade, building dread as the executioner nears his victim. Among the Central Pende, Strother notes, Pumbu has been developed almost into a village character, his dance interwoven with songs recalling the folkloric execution of a stranger at a chief's investiture. He was studied alongside Gipogo by de Sousberghe and documented in detail by Strother.

Domains

• execution and war
• chiefly sovereignty

Powers

• to carry out the chief's executions and to wage his wars
• to instill dread and assert the chief's control in times of crisis

Epithets

• Pumbu a mfumu (the chief's executioner)Zoë S. Strother, Inventing Masks: Agency and History in the Art of the Central Pende (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). (secondary)

Relations

• counterpart: Gipogo (the chiefly mask-spirit)Pumbu and Gipogo are the paired chiefly masks of the Kasai Pende analysed together by de Sousberghe: Pumbu embodies the lethal, executive face of the chief's authority, Gipogo its nurturing, protective 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

• Pumbu a mfumu is the Pende masked spirit of the chief's executioner (ngunza ya fumu), reserved to paramount chiefs and embodying the lethal, executive arm of sovereign power, displayed in the executioner's dance.: Zoë S. Strother, Inventing Masks: Agency and History in the Art of the Central Pende (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). (secondary); 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)