Anthropos
96.2001: 3-28
Chokwe Masks and Franciscan Missionaries
in Sandoa, Belgian Congo, ca. 1948
Constantine Petridis
Abstract. - It is not widely known that, in the first half of
tlle 20th century, Belgian missionaries of the Order of Saint
rancis gathered important data on Chokwe peoples, in what
Is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This article
discusses a selection of mostly unpublished field photographs
Chokwe masks, made by Father Marchal in the village of
andoa, Katanga Province, in 1948. After a brief history of
ranciscan missionary activity in the former Belgian Congo, an
attempt is made to identify the different mask characters shown
In Marchal’s photographs. The central section of the article
famines a detailed report by Marchal’s fellow missionary
ather Borgonjon on a Chokwe initiation ritual for adolescent
°ys, which constitutes an important context for masking. The
conclusion addresses some methodological questions in relation
° { he use of missionary photographs as anthropological and
r! ^ st ° r ical documents. [Democratic Republic of the Congo,
°kwe, masks, missionaries, photography]
Constantine Petridis, Ph. D. in art history (Ghent 1997), is
a P° s tdoctoral fellow of the Fund for Scientific Research
landers, Belgium (F.W.O.-Vlaanderen), and a lecturer
Ghent University; he spent two academic years at the
etropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on fellowships
J° m the Jane and Morgan Whitney Fund (1997-98) and the
^ e gian American Educational Foundation (1998-99). - He
ds conducted library, archival, museum, and field research
n the art of the Luluwa and neighboring peoples of the
ernocratic Republic of the Congo; he is currently researching
e life and work of Frans M. Olbrechts and the history of
rican art studies. - His most recent publications include
lc es in African Arts, Baessler-Archiv, and Museum Studies.
Introduction
The art of the Chokwe, a matrilineal Bantu-
s Peaking people who live in a vast area throughout
northeastern Angola, northwestern Zambia, and
southern (Democratic Republic of the) Congo, is
often published in surveys of African art and is
well represented in museums and private collec
tions. 1 Belgian missionaries belonging to the Friars
Minor - or Minderbroeders, as they are called in
Dutch - of the Order of Saint Francis have provid
ed us with important textual and visual documen
tation on the art and culture of the Chokwe and
a number of related peoples in southern Congo.
Although the writings of the Fathers Ambroos
Delille and Johannes-Franciscus Borgonjon have
been referred to by such scholars as Hermann
Baumann, Merran McCulloch, and Victor Turner,
these sources remain largely unknown. 1 2 *
1 As demonstrated here by the titles listed under the Re
ferences Cited, the ethnonym Chokwe is spelled in many
ways. The same is true for the spelling of the name of
their language, which, in Katanga, is called Chichokwe.
Following the African phonetic alphabet, the ethnonym
should be spelled Cokwe, and the people refer to themselves
as Tucokwe (sing. Kacokwe). In this article the common
Anglicized spelling Chokwe is retained. However, in
accordance with the African phonetic alphabet, the sound
“ch” is transcribed as “c” in italicized vernacular terms.
2 Franciscan missionaries are perhaps better remembered
for their anthropological and linguistic work among the
southern Luba of Katanga. Among the best known of
these missionary anthropologists are Placied Tempels, au
thor of the influential “La philosophie bantoue” (1948;
originally published in Dutch in 1946), Theodoor (Jacques)
Theuws, who also published a number of novels under the
pseudonym Antoon Bergeyck, and Servaas Peeraer, who
collected a significant number of Luba objects for both the
Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale in Tervuren and the
Ethnographic Collections of Ghent University.