Male ancestor figure "bashumbu"

wood, pigments, handwritten collection no. "A-149", base

The Sikasingo (Basi Kasingo) live in the eastern Congo region near Lake Tanganyika. They are a small group of the dispersed Buyu people who inhabited the area prior to the arrival of the Bembe.

These figures often appear in ensembles comprising several named and genealogically related ancestral personages (cf. Biebuyck, 1981, p. 36, fig. 21).

Throughout the territory, that is identified with the eastern Bembe ethnic group, cult for individually identified ancestors ("bashumbu") is practiced at different levels of the lineage structure and sometimes merged with various beliefs in nature spirits.

The figures were kept in small shrines under the authority and guardianship of a petty chief, village headmen or dominant lineage elder. In times of crisis, the senior in charge of the cult would sleep in the shrine, and with some helpers engage in invocations, praises and libations for his ancestors to obtain their benevolence and cooperation (according to Baeke, 1995, p. 372).