Yombe / Kongo Nkisi Power Figure, Congo #179

$ 1,000.50 $ 2,100.00
Shipping calculated at checkout.
  • Yombe / Kongo Nkisi Power Figure, Congo #179
  • Fine Nkisi Power Figure from the Yombe / Kongo People of DR Congo.
  • Condition: The Figure has a powerful appearance with a good aged patina with traces of tribal use.
  • This figure exhibits a sensitive combination of expressionism and pathos. Kongo Power Figures, Nkisi, were used in cooperation with a Spiritual Healer, Nganga, to invoke positive and negative forces on behalf of a client seeking his services. The Power invested in the Figure could either relieve the family of a burden or, in turn, place a burden on one's enemies. The stance, with hand on hip, together with the upturned head, is a typical gesture displaying confrontation and confidence. The Nganga would Magically Charge the Figure with various effective materials, creating a series of accumulations over time. The bundle at the abdomen, for instance, incorporated 'a Mirror of Mystic Vision, indicating the Ritual Expert's Power to see "beyond the glassy surface of the river, or the sea [beneath which the underworld lies" to penetrate the Secrets of the Dead' (Thompson in Vogel 1981: 210). 
  • The right hand of the Nkondi is especially stylized. The circle formed by the fingers represents the World; the upraised thumb indicates the Realm of
    Heaven. Like the thumbs-down gesture of ancient Rome, it was a sign of doom for the convicted felon or the guilty party to a trial, meaning "Sky and
    World are now against you." The world of the convicted felon would soon be pierced, even as the fingers often circled round a lance or dagger. Equally interesting are the pinpoint pupils. These form what might be termed an Ocular Gesture, meaning Nkondi views the solutions, and the punishments adhering to the Trials from Afar, from Beyond the Forest, from Beneath the River.
  • As Nkondi thinks from this distant source of Ancestral Justice, the pupils of his eyes are said to become small dots, as if carried to a kind of vanishing point, on the horizon between this world and the next.
  • The small statues, the Nkisi, were less ambitious than the large Nkonde and were designed for the Individual or the Family.
    Never more than 40 centimeters tall and without nails, they often had a feathered hat on their head after they had been consecrated by the Nganga. The fabrics wrapped round them were covered with a crusting of red powder. As with the Nkonde, they had a cavity in their back or stomach which held "medicines" and magic substances placed there by the Nganga. These consisted essentially of white clay from the marshes, red clay used for ancestor worship, and tukula (sawdust from red wood).
  • These Nkisi were supposed to protect their owner's health and transmit to him the vital strength with which they were endowed. The owner could give them offerings to escape from difficult situations. From "Black Africa" by Laurie Meyer.
    •
    View details