Photographer: Goldstein, Henri (1920-2014).
Title: untitled (Danse Bambuli).
Date: 1950-1957.
Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Medium: unmounted gelatin silver print.
Size: 18,1 x 24,1 cm.
Condition: very good.
Reference: HGIV1030/1
Provenance: collection family Carlo Lamote.
Extra: typed note with identification in French on verso. Congopresse 31.64/5.
A dance of the 'Bambuli' brotherhood. The serval skins that some dancers wear on their arms are symbols of their rank. This brotherhood has followers in several tribes of the Maniema region and extends as far as northern Katanga. Popular beliefs attribute magical powers to its most prominent members, including the ability to expel spears and arrows from their bodies without harm, through muscle contraction. Some, known as 'Mwamba,' lead a group of dancers, and during the dances, they demonstrate their immunity by performing small self-mutilations, which they instantly heal using a powder called 'Masisi'.
Location: Kibangula.
Territory: Kabambare.
Province: Maniema. 
Henri Goldstein (1920 – 2014) was an apprentice at the Belgian press agency Acta from the age of 14. Working in the Congo, he became a renowned photographer of equatorial wildlife. In this capacity, he accompanied American scientific expeditions and exhibited in New York. During the war he was a prisoner of war in Germany, notably in the fortress of Colditz in Saxony, then in the disciplinary camp 1446 Torfwerk in the Himmelmoor near Hamburg, and thus escaped the extermination camps, even though he was Jewish. He returned to Leopoldville in 1947 and became head of the photography department of the colonial information service until the colony unexpectedly gained its independence in 1960. At the end of 1992, he published his memories under the title "Les maillons de la chaîne" (Ed. Dricot).