Mukanda (Chokwe male initiation)
The Chokwe male circumcision and initiation institution — a multi-month residential school for which the full range of Chokwe masks and figurative carving is made and activated.
Mukanda is the male circumcision and initiation institution that structures Chokwe social, political and artistic life. It is not a single ceremony but a multi-month residential school in which boys are secluded, circumcised, instructed and reintegrated as adult men.
The full range of Chokwe masking — mwana pwo, cihongo and subsidiary masks — together with figurative carving and body decoration is produced for and activated within mukanda. Virtually every category of Chokwe collectible object has a defined role inside the mukanda system; understanding that system is the prerequisite for understanding why an object was made, who could use it and what it meant. Without this frame, ritual instruments are reduced to decorative objects (Jordán 1998).