Enya chief leading joint canoeing to the fish-traps in the cataracts, near Kisangani, Congo (Democratic Republic)

"Historically the Wagenia of Kisangani represent an amalgamation of three kin groups, the Bina Nsoko, the Bina Nkulu and, the Bina Lombe. The Wagenia have been characterized by a segmented structure from the beginning. they lack a central authority. Tshesé is mostly used to refer to the entire tribe, while Tshebanda refer to kin group comprising only a few extended family. Despite the existence of chefs or village heads, the norm is for decisions to be made by mutual consultation among all adult males. As a result, long palavers may take place. In pre-colonial times, a kalondoli would try to appease conflicts in his own tshebanda. He nevertheless fulfilled no religious function, as well as no ancestor cult. In the Arabic period the kalondoli became a mokota, a modern term for chief. The whites continued the innovation of the office of mokota. They moreover introduced the new rule in the late 1920s that one mokota had to be chosen from among those of the various bebanda as all-Wagenia representative. The supreme chief took charge especially of external relations, thereby meeting the requirements of the newly arisen situation. Within the tribe, however, he was the first among his equals, like the kalondoli in the tshebanda. A chief in full array used to wear a bark loin-cloth, a shoulder-belt with a sheathed knife, a hemispherical leopard-skin hat fitting the head, a chain of leopard teeth, and neck-, arm- and leg-bands." [Droogers A., 1980: The Dangerous Journey, Symbolic Aspects of Boys' Initiation among the Wagenia of Kisangani, Zaire. Mouton Publishers, The Hague]. During his trip to Congo (now Democratic Republic of Congo), Elisofon visited the Boyoma Falls near Kisangani. This photograph was taken when Eliot Elisofon was on assignment for Life magazine and traveled to Africa from August 18, 1959 to December 20, 1959.