Bwami (Lega initiation society)
Voluntary hierarchically graded initiation society of the Lega — the single institutional frame for all Lega visual art; banned by Belgian colonial authorities 1933 and 1948, revived from 1958.
Bwami is the voluntary, hierarchically graded initiation association of the Lega, structured in five to seven ascending grades depending on regional variation, culminating in kindi. The Lega have no chiefs; bwami elders govern. The society is simultaneously a political system, a moral-philosophical curriculum and the exclusive commissioning and custodial institution for virtually all Lega visual art.
Every object catalogued as "Lega art" is a bwami object — a figure, maskette, spoon or zoomorphic form attached to one or more specific proverbs delivered during initiation. Displaying a Lega iginga figure on a plinth as abstract sculpture is a category error. Bwami was banned by Belgian colonial authorities in 1933 and again in 1948 and revived from 1958. The standard reference is Daniel P. Biebuyck's Lega Culture: Art, Initiation, and Moral Philosophy among a Central African People (University of California Press, 1973).