Performing history

While Europeans may open a history book to learn about their past, in the Luba Kingdom of the Democratic Republic of Congo, history was traditionally performed—not read. In fact, Luba royal history is not chronological and static as Westerners learn it. Rather, it is a dynamic oral narrative which reinforces the foundations upon which Luba kingship is established and supports the current leadership. This history is also used to interpret and judge contemporary situations.

Special objects known as lukasa (memory boards) are used by experts in the oral retelling of history in Luba culture. The recounting of the past is performative and includes dance and song. The master who has the skill and knowledge to read the lukasa will utilize it as a mnemonic device, touching and feeling the beads, shells, and pegs to recount history and solve current problems.

Luba Kingdom

The Luba Kingdom of the Democratic Republic of Congo was a very powerful and influential presence from the sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries in central Africa. Their art highlights the roles that objects played in granting the holders the authority of kingship and royal power.

The Luba people are one of the Bantu peoples of Central Africa and the largest ethnic group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Kingdom of the Luba arose in the Upemba Depression (a large marshy area comprising some fifty lakes) in what is now the southern Democratic Republic of Congo. The Luba had access to a wealth of natural resources, including gold, ivory, and copper, but they also produced and traded a variety of goods, such as pottery and wooden sculpture.

Lukasa

Lukasa (memory board), Mbudye Society, Luba peoples (Democratic Republic of the Congo), c. 19th–20th century, wood, beads, and metal (private collection)

For the Luba people, kingship is sacred, and the elite Mbudye Society (whose members are considered “men of memory,” and who have extensive religious training) use the lukasa to recount history in the context of spiritual rituals. Diviners (who have the power to predict the future) can also read the lukasa.

Each lukasa is different but small enough to hold in the left hand. The board is “read” by touching its surface with the right forefinger. The tactile qualities are apparent. The lukasa illustrated here is one of the oldest known examples, with carved geometric designs on the back and sides, and complex clusters of beads of various sizes whose colors have faded over time. The board is narrower at the center making it easy to hold.

The lukasa is typically arranged with large beads surrounded by smaller beads or a line of beads, the configuration of which dictates certain kinds of information. This information can be interpreted in a variety of ways and the expert might change his manner of delivery and his reading based upon his audience and assignment. The most important function of the lukasa was to serve as a memory aid that describes the myths surrounding the origins of the Luba empire, including recitation of the names of the royal Luba line.

Additional resources

Read more about the arts of Africa, c. 18th–20th century in a Reframing Art History chapter.

Ways of Recording African History on The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.

Luba People from Art and Life in Africa (University of Iowa).

Lukasa from learner.org.

Mary Nooter Roberts, “The King is a Woman: Shaping Power in Luba Royal Arts,” African Arts 46, no. 3 (2013): pp. 68–81.

Art and Oracle: African Art and Rituals of Divination.

Lukasa in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Lukasa (memory board) in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum.

Source: Juliet Moss, “Lukasa (Memory Board) (Luba peoples),” in Smarthistory, November 28, 2015, accessed August 23, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/lukasa-memory-board-luba-peoples/.

What comes to mind when you think of masks? For some of you, a first thought might be of the masks that many people donned during the COVID-19 pandemic. Others might think of health professionals who wear masks while caring for patients in a hospital or dentist office, or other professionals who wear them while working with hazardous chemicals or construction materials. Some likely associate masks as part of costumes people wear for holidays like Halloween or Mardi Gras. Others perhaps connect masks with comic book characters or superheroes, such as Batman and Spider-Man. Lastly, some might associate masks with drama and theater, or with the titular character in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, The Phantom of the Opera. In all these examples, masks usually refer to some sort of facial covering.

In African contexts however, the terms “masquerade” and “mask” are generally more inclusive and have various, yet interrelated meanings, and refer to much more than a facial covering. Firstly, masquerades are private or public performances that are not just visual in nature; they are multi-sensory experiences that consist of dance, music, and audience participation. Art historian Suzanne Preston Blier points out that “in African art, as with so many other forms, Westerners have historically privileged visual attributes, which encouraged a rather limited appreciation of the experiential power that these works hold.” [1]

Secondly, masquerades refer to the masquerade characters that appear in the performances. These masquerade characters are called masks, and they are animated by individuals (often referred to as masqueraders, maskers, performers, or dancers) that represent, portray, or embody a variety of entities, including but not limited to deities, spirits or other supernatural forces, ancestors, living humans, personalities, and animals (such as antelopes and elephants). It is important to note that not everyone can perform as a mask.

In most documented African masquerade performances, only men who have been trained or initiated into a certain society can perform as masks. The sowei mask is the most-well known documented instance in which initiated women of the Sande society perform as masks.

In many masquerade performances, the identities of the mask performers are concealed with facial coverings or headpieces and costumes. In some instances, these do not completely cover the mask performers, so their identities are not entirely concealed from the audiences. In other cases, masks might not even have a facial covering or headpiece. So as you can see, unlike the examples in the opening paragraph, the term “mask” in an African context does not simply mean a facial covering or headpiece; it also includes the costume and accessories. Although masks are performed by people, audiences generally will not regard or treat masks the same way that they would treat other people. While audiences might interact with masks through dance, song, and speech (praises or taunts), audiences usually will not touch masks because they are seen as dangerous. Touching masks is believed to cause illness, injury, or other misfortunes. For example, if the mask, Mwana Pwo, touches a person, it is believed among the Chokwe people that the individual can become sick, infertile, or suffer some mishap.

Masquerade performances and characters are prevalent throughout Africa, and they are diverse and unique to their social, cultural, historical, and geographical contexts. Masks can have a wide range of meanings and functions, usually appearing during certain events, including but not limited to festivals, carnivals, initiations, weddings, holidays, coronations or installations of leaders, funerals and burials, and political events, as well as for tourism. For instance, kanaga masks perform for a funerary rite for deceased men among the Dogon peoples. This rite, known as dama, helps the spirits of the deceased men make it to the world of the ancestors. While kanaga masks primarily appear at dama, they also perform during national holidays and for tourists.

Masquerade performances and characters do not remain the same over time. Rather, societies associated with masquerades, mask makers, and mask performers are dynamic and innovate to respond to communal or outside influences. For instance, the Sala Mpasu people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo developed a reputation for being savage and fierce “cannibals” to keep away neighboring peoples and Belgian colonists. This image was projected by the men’s society and their associated masquerades. While their reputation helped to ward off intruders for two centuries, it eventually became an obstacle to economic growth in the latter half of the 20th century, as people were afraid of the Sala Mpasu. To reinvent their image, the Sala Mpasu publicly announced that the men’s society and masquerading would come to an end. In reality, the men’s society and masquerades were re-shaped and associated with le Scouts, a “nationally recognized and government-sponsored organization similar to the Boy Scouts,” to become more widely accepted. [3]

Display of Masks in Museums

Typically, when a visitor sees an African mask in a museum or gallery setting, the visitor only sees a facial covering or headpiece. The absence of the accompanying costumes and accessories erroneously suggests that the facial covering or headpiece is the most valuable and significant component of a mask performer’s ensemble. Speaking of Lo Gue, which literally translates to “white masks,” art historian Lisa Homann reminds us that, “The headpiece, often privileged in art historical discourse, is not more important than the rest of the white mask’s body.” [3]

The display of the mask in the museum or gallery space often points to colonial collecting preferences and practices, and assumptions about the primacy of the facial covering or headpiece. However, the facial covering or headpiece cannot replicate the complexity and richness of masquerade performances and characters. Museums tend to isolate the facial covering or headpiece, divorcing it from its costumes, accessories, dances, music, performers, and audience. The drama, dynamism, and movement are missing. The mask in a museum or gallery setting is not performed by a dancer, giving a visitor only an incomplete and insufficient view of masquerades. As an Igbo proverb makes plain, “The world is like a mask dancing. If you want to see it well you do not stand in one place.” [4]

Additional Resources

African Masks and Masquerades: Learn the meanings behind the masks

Source  Dr. Kristen Laciste, “Masquerade basics,” in Smarthistory, March 28, 2023, accessed August 20, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/masquerade-basics/.

From 1625 to 1900, 12 kings succeeded one another at the head of the powerful Kingdom of Abomey (in Benin). With the exception of King Akaba, who had his own separate enclosure, they all had their palaces built within the same cob-wall area, in keeping with previous palaces as regards the use of space and materials. The royal palaces of Abomey are a unique reminder of this vanished kingdom.   URL:  https://youtu.be/XinLxUEcYbU

Source: UNESCO, “Royal palaces of Abomey,” in Smarthistory, May 26, 2021, accessed August 23, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/royal-palaces-abomey/.

Western trade with Africa was not limited to material goods such as copper, cloth, and beads. By the sixteenth century, the transatlantic slave trade had already begun, forcibly bringing Africans to the newly discovered Americas. Slavery had existed in Africa (as it did elsewhere in the world) for centuries prior to the sixteenth, and many socially stratified African societies kept slaves for domestic work. The sheer number of slaves traded across the Atlantic, however, was unprecedented, as over 11 million Africans were brought to the Americas and the Caribbean over a period of four centuries. Driven by commercial interests, the slave trade peaked in the eighteenth century with the expansion of American plantation production, and continued until the mid-nineteenth century. While Europeans primarily profited from the slave trade, certain West African kingdoms, like Dahomey, also grew wealthy and powerful by selling captives of war. By the late eighteenth century, the slave trade began to wane as the abolitionist movement grew. Those who survived the forced migration and the notorious Middle Passage brought their beliefs and cultural practices to the New World.

Within this far-flung diaspora, certain cultures—such as the Yoruba and Igbo of today’s Nigeria, and the Kongo from present-day Democratic Republic of Congo—were especially well represented. African slaves brought few, if any, personal items with them, although recent archaeological investigations have yielded early African artifacts, like the beads and shells found at the African burial grounds in New York’s lower Manhattan, which date to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The influence of Africans in the Americas is perhaps best seen in diverse forms of cultural expression that have enriched our society tremendously. Architectural elements such as open-front porches and sloped hip-roofs reflect African influence in the Americas. The religious practices of Haitian Vodou have roots in the spiritual beliefs of Dahomean, Yoruba, and Kongo peoples. Some elements of cuisine in the American South, such as gumbo and jambalaya, derive from African food traditions. Certain musical forms, such as jazz and the blues, reflect the convergence of African musical practices and European-based traditions.

Although the slave trade was banned entirely by the late nineteenth century, European involvement in Africa did not end. Instead, the desire for greater control over Africa’s resources resulted in the colonization of the majority of the continent by seven European countries. The Berlin Conference of 1884–85, attended by representatives of fourteen different European powers, resulted in the regulation of European colonization and trade in Africa. Over the next twenty years, the continent was occupied by France, Belgium, Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy, and Portugal. By 1914, the entire continent, with the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia, was colonized by European nations.

The colonial period in Africa brought radical changes, disrupting local political institutions, patterns of trade, and religious and social beliefs. The colonial era also impacted cultural practices in Africa, as artists responded to new forms of patronage and the introduction of new technologies as well as to their changing social and political situations. In some cases, European patronage of local artists resulted in stylistic change (for example the harp, left) or new forms of expression. At the same time, many artistic traditions were characterized as “primitive” by Westerners and discouraged or even banned.

Although African artifacts were brought to Europe as early as the sixteenth century, it was during the colonial period that such works entered Western collections in significant quantities, forming the basis of many museum collections today. African artifacts were collected as personal souvenirs or ethnographic specimens by military officers, colonial administrators, missionaries, scientists, merchants, and other visitors to the continent. In many of these instances of collecting, objects were gathered through voluntary trade.

In one extreme instance, an act of war initiated by Britain against one of its colonies, thousands of royal art objects were removed from the kingdom of Benin following its defeat by a British military expedition in 1897 (image below). European nations with colonies in Africa established ethnographic museums with extensive collections, such as the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, the Völkerkunde museums in Germany, the British Museum in London, and the Musée de l’Homme in Paris (now housed at the Musée du Quai Branly). In the United States, which had no colonial ties to Africa, the nascent study of ethnography motivated the formation of collections at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Field Museum in Chicago. In 1923, the Brooklyn Museum became the first American museum to present African works as art.

Independence movements in Africa began with the liberation of Ghana in 1957 and ended with the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa during the 1990s. The postcolonial period has been challenging, as many countries struggle to regain stability in the aftermath of colonialism. Yet while the media often focuses on political instability, civil unrest, and economic and health crises, these represent only part of the story of Africa today. From its many urban centers to more tradition-based rural villages, Africa is increasingly entering the global marketplace. The proliferation of systems of communication, such as computers and cell phones for which now you only have to hire one of the cheap phone plan dals, throughout Africa has facilitated increased interaction with other parts of the world. As Africa moves into the twenty-first century, hope lies in its natural and human resources and the commitment of many Africans to work toward a stable and prosperous future.

In spite of Africa’s political, economic, and environmental challenges, the postcolonial period has been a time of tremendous vigor in the realm of artistic production. Many tradition-based artistic practices continue to thrive or have been revitalized. In Guinea, the revival of D’mba performances in the 1990s, after decades of censorship by the Marxist government, is one example of cultural reinvention. Similarly, in recent years, Merina weavers in the highlands of Madagascar have begun to create brilliantly hued silk cloth known as akotofahana, a textile tradition abandoned a century ago.

Photography, introduced on the continent in the late nineteenth century, has become a popular medium, particularly in urban areas. Artists like Seydou Keïta, who operated a portrait studio in Bamako, Mali, in the colonial period, set the stage for later generations of photographers who captured the faces of newly independent African countries. It is also important to mention developments in modern and contemporary African art. During the colonial period, art schools were established that provided training, often based on Western models, to local artists. Many schools were initiated by Europeans, such as the Congolese Académie des Arts, established by Pierre Romain-Desfossé in 1944 in Elisabethville, whose program was based on those of art schools in Europe. Less frequently, the teaching of modern art was initiated by indigenous Africans, such as Chief Aina Onabolu, who is credited with introducing modern art in Nigeria beginning in the 1920s. Since the mid-twentieth century, increasing numbers of African artists have engaged local traditions in new ways or embraced a national identity through their visual expression.

Artists in today’s Africa are the products of diverse forms of artistic training, work in a variety of mediums, and engage local as well as global audiences with their work. In recent decades, contemporary artists from Africa, both self-taught and academically trained, have begun to receive international recognition. Many artists from Africa study, work, and/or live in Europe and the United States. Kenyan-born Magdalene Odundo, for example, was trained as an artist in schools in Kenya and in England, where she now lives. The burnished ceramic vessels she creates, which are purely artistic and not functional, embody her diverse sources, including traditional Nigerian and Kenyan vessels as well as Native American pottery traditions of New Mexico. The work of contemporary African artists like Odundo reveals the complex realities of artistic practice in today’s increasingly global society.

© 2006 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (by permission)

Additional resources:

The Transatlantic Slave Trade on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Trade Relations among European and African Nations on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

It took a miracle to bring this golden stool to Earth—and another one to keep it out of British hands.

Golden Stool (Sika dwa kofi), c. 1700 (Asante Peoples, Ghana), and Asante weights (Penn Museum). Speakers: Dr. Peri Klemm and Dr. Beth Harris    URL: https://youtu.be/6bsWW4Ke_Hs

Additional resources

History, significance and usage of Asante royal regalia from The British Museum

Source: Dr. Peri Klemm and Dr. Beth Harris, “Golden Stool (Sika dwa kofi), Asante peoples,” in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015, accessed August 23, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/sika-dwa-kofi-golden-stool/.

Royal history rendered in brass

This remarkable brass plaque, dated between 1550–1680, depicts an Oba (or king) and his attendants from the Benin Empire—a powerful kingdom located in present-day Nigeria. We know that the central figure is an Oba because of his distinctive coral beaded regalia. Also, attendants hold shields above his head, either to protect him from attack or possibly from the hot, tropical sun. This was a privilege only afforded to an Oba.

The figures around him range in size, not because of their actual height or distance from the Oba, but rather due to their level of importance within the court. This convention of sizing human figures based on status is known as “hierarchic scale” and is found in artwork from cultures around the world and across time. The Oba would have traveled with a large cohort of attendants, warriors, servants, diplomats, chieftains, and priests.

The plaque originally hung alongside many others on posts throughout the palace of the Oba. The order of their placement on these posts would have told the history of the royal lineage of Benin’s Obas, who traced their dynasty all the way back to Oranmiyan, whose son was the first Oba of Benin. However, the sequence of plaques is lost to us since they were long held in storage when found by westerners in the 19th century. You may notice that the Oba rides sidesaddle on horseback, which would seem to indicate a connection to Oba Esigie (who ruled c. 1504–1550), the first Oba to travel by horse. However, without knowing the original order of the plaques, we will never know for certain whether this was Esigie or a later Oba who emulated his brash new mode of travel.

Artists working in brass were organized under Esigie. Today, artists working in brass in Benin are part of a brass workers guild, and it was likely that previous generations would have also worked collectively. These artists created plaques and other sculptures using what is known as the “lost wax casting technique,” in which, first, a more malleable wax version of the final brass work is made. It is then covered in clay and fired to harden the clay, removing the wax, which melts away in the process (hence the term, “lost wax”). Hot, molten liquid brass is then poured into the clay mold. As the brass cools, it hardens, and the clay is removed, revealing the finished plaque.

Crossing cultures: a record of trade

Almost every detail in this work speaks to the Benin Kingdom’s mutually beneficial trade with Portugal, which first made contact with Benin in the late 15th century. The Portuguese received items like peppers, cloth, and stone beads from Benin, while Benin received—among other items—the coral that makes up the beads worn by the Oba, and even the brass that makes up this plaque in the form of manillas, or armbands, worn by the Portuguese, which would have been melted down as the raw material for this plaque.

The rosette shapes that adorn the background of the plaque were possibly derived from Christian crosses brought by these European traders. Even the horse that the Oba rides was originally introduced to West Africa from across the sea. There is nothing quite like these plaques in all of Africa or Europe from this period, and some scholars speculate that they were created as a way of reconciling traditional African brass sculptural forms with the illustrated books and prints that may have been in the possession of European travelers.

Troubled legacy

Trade began to decline with Portugal as the Portuguese empire waned in the 18th century. By the 19th century, Britain was seeking to make inroads with Benin as a new trading partner. However, this partnership was much less mutually beneficial and was marked with frequent tension. After increased aggression from both nations, the British launched the Punitive Expedition of 1897, seizing the Oba’s palace, burning down the city around it, killing many, and looting the royal court’s vast stores of art and treasure.

We know that this plaque was one of the artworks looted in the siege because Norman Burrows, a known trafficker in stolen Benin objects, owned it briefly during this time. This act of looting perpetrated by the British was later condemned as a criminal and violent act of British imperialism and colonialism. As such, there are many who believe that objects such as this plaque should be returned to the people of Benin, who remain deeply connected to their history and cultural traditions. However, there are others who feel that these remarkable objects are part of the world’s heritage, and thus should remain in museum collections around the world as testament to this artistically rich culture.

Backstory

A consortium of European museums called the “Benin Dialogue Group,” formed in 2007, has been meeting with representatives from Nigeria to discuss issues around repatriation. Their hope is to establish a system of rotating loans of artworks to Benin City, though the security and guaranteed return of the objects is a point of ongoing discussion, set to continue at a conference in 2018. The consortium includes representatives from the British Museum and Berlin’s Humboldtforum, two of the institutions that hold the largest collections of objects from Benin. Other members of the group include museums in Cambridge, Vienna, Stockholm, Leiden, Leipzig and Dresden, Oxford, Hamburg, and London. Museums in the United States and France, which also hold significant numbers of Benin artworks, have yet to become formally involved, though some, such as the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris, have been approached directly with restitution claims from Nigeria.

The ongoing dialogue between museums and nations from which important objects, like those from Benin, were forcibly removed, highlights the complexities of the current, post-colonial world. Should formerly colonized areas be repaid for the damage inflicted on them by colonial powers? Who is responsible for doing so, and how? Who has the ethical right to the ownership, display, and preservation of these important pieces of cultural heritage? The formation of consortia like the Benin Dialogue Group is a significant first step towards resolving some of these thorny and pressing questions.

Backstory by Dr. Naraelle Hohensee

Additional resources

More Benin Kingdom stories from the Dallas Museum of Art.

Alice Apley, “African lost-wax casting” on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.

Christa Clarke, The Art of Africa: A Resource for Educators (New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006).

Kate Ezra, Royal Art of Benin: The Perls Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992).

Emma George Ross, “Benin chronology” on The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.

Gareth Harris, “Looted Benin bronzes to be lent back to Nigeria,” The Art Newspaper, October 16, 2017.

Source: Greg Stuart, “Benin plaque: Equestrian Oba and Attendants,” in Smarthistory, December 22, 2015, accessed August 20, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/benin-plaque-equestrian-oba-and-attendants/.

When Portuguese explorers first arrived at the mouth of the Zaire River in 1483, the Kongo kingdom was thriving and prosperous, with extensive commercial networks between the coast, interior, and equatorial forests to the north. Portugal and Kongo soon established a strong trading partnership. In addition to material goods, the Portuguese also brought Christianity, which was rapidly adopted by Kongo rulers and established as the state religion in the early sixteenth century by King Afonso Mvemba a Nzinga. The adoption of Christianity allowed Kongo kings to foster international alliances not only with Portuguese leaders but also with the Vatican. In response to their new faith, Kongo craftsmen began to introduce Christian iconography into their artistic repertoire.

This crucifix demonstrates how Kongo artists adapted and transformed Western Christian prototypes.

Although the general depiction of the central Christ figure with arms extended follows Western conventions, the features of the face are African. The presence of four smaller figures with clasped hands—two seated on the top edges of the cross, one at the apex, and one at the base—is a departure from standard iconography. These figures are more abstract and remote, in contrast to the expressionistic treatment of Christ.

Western forms like the crucifix resonated profoundly with preexisting Kongo religious practices. In Kongo belief, the cross was already regarded as a powerful emblem of spirituality and a metaphor for the cosmos. An icon of a cross within a circle, referred to as the Four Moments of the Sun, represents the four parts of the day (dawn, noon, dusk, and night) that symbolize more broadly the cyclical journey of life.

Kongo kings, having adopted Christianity as the state religion, commissioned locally made crucifixes for use as emblems of leadership and power. These crucifixes were cast with copper alloys. The use of copper, a valued import from Europe, reinforced the association with wealth and power. Although Christianity was eventually rejected by the Kongo in the seventeenth century, such works continued to be made as symbols of indigenous cosmological concepts.

© 2006 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (by permission)

Additional resources

Read more about the arts of Africa, c. 18th–20th century in a Reframing Art History chapter.

Central Africa, c. 1600–1800 on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.

Cecile Fromont, “Kongo Triple Crucifix,” Object Narrative, in Conversations: An Online Journal of the Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion (2014), doi:10.22332/con.obj.2014.2

These fascinating spiritual figures became prime targets for the ire of Christian missionaries in the 19th century.

Power Figure: Male (Nkisi), 19th-mid 20th century, Kongo peoples, wood, pigment, nails, cloth, beads, shells, arrows, leather, nuts, and twine, 58.8 x 26 x 25.4 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art). Speakers: Dr. Peri Klemm and Dr. Beth Harris   URL: https://youtu.be/H9iy5TTALBQ

Divine protection

Sacred medicines and divine protection are central to the belief of the Kongo peoples (Democratic Republic of Congo). The Kongo believe that the great god, Ne Kongo, brought the first sacred medicine (or nkisi) down from heaven in an earthenware vessel set upon three stones or termite mounds.

A nkisi (plural: minkisi) is loosely translated as a “spirit,” yet it is represented as a container of sacred substances which are activated by supernatural forces that can be summoned into the physical world. Visually, these minkisi can be as simple as pottery or vessels containing medicinal herbs and other elements determined to be beneficial in curing physical illness or alleviating social ills. In other instances, minkisi can be represented as small bundles, shells, and carved wooden figures. Minkisi represent the ability to both ‘contain’ and ‘release’ spiritual forces, which can have both positive and negative consequences on the community.

Nkisi nkondi

A fascinating example of a nkisi can be found in a power figure called nkisi nkondi. A nkisi nkondi can act as an oath taking image which is used to resolve verbal disputes or lawsuits (mambu) as well as an avenger (the term nkondi means ‘hunter’) or guardian if sorcery or any form of evil has been committed.

These minkisi are wooden figures representing a human or animal, such as a dog (nkisi kozo) carved under the divine authority and in consultation with an nganga or spiritual specialist who activates these figures through chants, prayers, and the preparation of sacred substances which are aimed at ‘curing’ physical, social or spiritual ailments.

Insertions

Nkisi nkondi figures are highly recognizable through an accumulation of pegs, blades, nails, or other sharp objects inserted into its surface. Medicinal combinations called bilongo are sometimes stored in the head of the figure but frequently in the belly of the figure, which is shielded by a piece of glass, mirror, or other reflective surface. The glass represents the ‘other world’ inhabited by the spirits of the dead, who can peer through and see potential enemies. Elements with a variety of purposes are contained within the bilongo. Seeds may be inserted to tell a spirit to replicate itself; mpemba or white soil deposits found near cemeteries represent and enlist support from the spiritual realm. Claws may incite the spirits to grasp something, while stones may activate the spirits to pelt enemies or protect one from being pelted.

The insertions are driven into the figure by the nganga and represent the mambu and the type or degree of severity of an issue can be suggested through the material itself. A peg may refer to a matter being ‘settled’ whereas a nail, deeply inserted, may represent a more serious offense such as murder. Prior to insertion, opposing parties or clients often lick the blades or nails, to seal the function or purpose of the nkisi through their saliva. If an oath is broken by one of the parties or evil befalls one of them, the nkisi nkondi will become activated to carry out its mission of destruction or divine protection.

Migrations

Europeans may have encountered these objects during expeditions to the Congo as early as the 15th century. However, several of these “fetish” objects, as they were often termed, were confiscated by missionaries in the late 19th century and were destroyed as evidence of sorcery or heathenism. Nevertheless, several were collected as objects of fascination and even as an object of study of Kongo culture. Kongo traditions such as those of the nkisi nkondi have survived over the centuries and migrated to the Americas and the Caribbean via Afro-Atlantic religious practices such as vodun, Palo Monte, and macumba. In Hollywood, these figures have morphed into objects of superstition, such as New Orleans voodoo dolls covered with stick pins. Nonetheless, minkisi have left an indelible imprint as visually provocative figures of spiritual importance and protection.