LEGA KATANDA

H : 35cm/13.78 inch

Katanda : figure in the form of a sleeping mat. Bad women who is unstable and adulterous, the opposite of what the kanyamwa wife of a Kindi is.
 In Lega thought, sleeping mats (katanda) can imply laziness and sexual laxity. It is also a metaphor for a dispersal of red ants (katanda ke ibazi)  « a mat of ants ». Further, a sexually promiscuous person (also understood metaphorically as a mat) spreads disorder in a community in the same way that red ants can besiege a town (Defour n.d.:169). The holes in the katanda  represent the destruction caused by ants. The holes are also interpreted as the ants in the "mat of ants" (Biebuyck 1973: pl. 63). The saying most often used with the mat is "I used to love you; fondling(illicit love) destroys good ones; it has destroyed Katanda" (Biebuyck 2002, p. 121 ).

SOLD