African Art and Architecture

B

Kongo

The Kongo people live in the narrow strip of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that stretches between the Republic of the Congo and Angola to the Atlantic coast, and overlap the borders into the neighbouring countries. Although a long period of Capuchin missionary activity followed the first Portuguese contacts with the Kongo kingdom in ad 1483, its impact on local religious practice and artistic expression was limited. A few cast-brass crucifixes dating from between the 17th and 19th centuries survive in museum collections. Local conceptions of spiritual power are exemplified by the well-known minkisi sculptures. A nkisi (the singular form of the word) was a composite ritual procedure designed to achieve a specific end, often but not always involving the use of objects including figurative sculpture along with assemblages of powerful medicines. A particularly potent form, the nkisi nkondi, bristled with the nails and iron blades driven into the wooden figure to provoke it into acts of revenge against wrongdoers. Dress and body decoration such as elaborate scarification patterns were important markers of status and beauty for Kongo women. Many of these are reproduced on the small finely carved images of nursing women, known as phemba. From the late 19th century to about 1920, the graves of wealthy Kongo traders were marked by carved soapstone figures in a wide variety of poses including maternity images and postures thought to be associated with chiefly status.

C

Kuba

“Kuba” is the name given to a kingdom that brings together a number of distinct peoples living in the area between the Kasai and Sankuru rivers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. An elaborate culture of court ceremonials and art developed around the king, to which all the 17 or so peoples contributed, although regional variations can be observed in details of their art. The ultimate royal art is the series of wooden ndop figures representing each of the Kuba kings who may be identified by the small emblem or attribute carved at the feet of the seated figure. When the king was absent from his capital, the king’s wives would invoke the necessary presence of royalty in the palace by rubbing the figure with oil. It is thought that most of the surviving king figures date from the mid-to-late 18th century. The court was the focus of an elaborate series of masquerades and dances for which a complex repertoire of costumes, carved and beaded wooden headdresses, and regalia was produced. An important feature of Kuba art was the elaboration of named patterns, best known on cut-pile embroidered raffia cloths, but also found in a variety of other objects, including carved wooden cups and boxes, metalwork, the woven mats used for housebuilding, and designs for women’s body decoration.

D

Reliquary Figures of Gabon

The Fang and Kota peoples of Gabon are the most prominent of a number of neighbouring peoples who used sculptures incorporating containers holding the relics of important ancestors. Among the Fang standing male or female figures, or in some cases heads alone, were placed on top of cylindrical bark boxes containing the skulls and other relics of lineage ancestors. Although the Fang took part in large-scale and complex migrations throughout the 19th century, a number of regional styles existed within what appears to have been a shared tradition of ancestral veneration. The figures protected the relics from strangers or the uninitiated, served as a focus for complaints or appeals directed to the ancestors, and were sometimes danced with or manipulated like puppets in the course of initiating young men into the ancestral byeri cult. A small number of masks that were associated with a judicial society known as ngil were collected from the Fang in the late 19th century. The reliquary figures of the Kota served a similar function to those of the Fang but were distinct in form, being flat-faced oval heads above lozenge-shaped bodies, the wooden figures sheathed in a thin layer of copper or brass. Juan Gris was so impressed with their form that he made a cardboard copy of one to hang on his studio wall.

E

Lega

The art of the Lega of the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is primarily associated with an organization called Bwami. All adults are initiated into the lowest level of the local society, but only those who can gather the necessary support, both in the form of personal wealth, and of backing from existing members and their own family, are able to progress to the more powerful and prestigious senior grades. Artefacts played a complex role in this process. Much of the vast body of lore and proverbs that a candidate had to recite is associated with specific initiation objects, which include small human and animal figures and masks of wood and ivory as well as collections of natural objects. The senior initiates, who are the custodians of these essential artefacts, have to be both convinced of the knowledge and suitability of the candidate and well rewarded with gifts before they bring them to the ceremony. Animal skins and regalia in the form of staffs, hats, and bead jewellery are important markers of status within the Bwami society.

F

Luba

Between the 17th and the late 19th centuries, the cultural influence of the Luba extended over a wide area of the south-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, although it seems likely that the region was never united in a single empire. Art was a key aspect in the unification of a number of chiefdoms that shared an epic myth of sacred kingship introduced by the legendary hunter Mbidi Kiluwe. The most important items associated with each Luba king included stools supported by a kneeling woman, the royal bow stands and spears, both usually carved with female figures on the shafts, and staffs of office. Many of these were considered too sacred for public display and were kept in carefully guarded rooms within the palace. An association of court historians used small rectangular carved boards called lukasa, with arrangements of beads stuck to the surface, as mnemonic devices for retelling Luba history. Diviners used an array of beaded and leather regalia and medicine-charged figures in the course of their work. Finely carved headrests reflect the importance of elaborate hairstyles as indicators of socially constructed beauty as well as personal status. A number of caryatid stools and bowl figures in a distinctive style from the Hemba subregion of the Luba have been attributed to a single workshop, named after the village of Buli, where some were collected.