Issuu

Table of Contents

Editorial Coordination Elena Carotti

Acknowledgements The publisher would especially like to thank Marc Ghysels for his invaluable assistance.

Translation Timothy Stroud Editing Emily Ligniti Art Director Fayçal Zaouali Layout Camelia Bezzola

Main Abbreviations CFHC = Compagnie française du Haut Congo MAAO = Musée des Arts Africains et Océaniens MRAC = Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale (as from 2018, AfricaMuseum) Analysis of the wood types Didier Normand, Alstonia congensis : pl. 1, 3, 5, 15, 22, 27, 29, 31, 32 Ricinodendron heudelotii : pl. 10

Map (pp.22-3) Sandor Breznay

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. © 2021 by 5 Continents Editions, Milan ISBN 978-88-7439-915-4 First published in September 2021 by 5 Continents Editions Piazza Caiazzo, 1 20124 Milan, Italy www.fivecontinentseditions.com Distributed by ACC Art Books throughout the world, excluding Italy. Distributed in Italy and Switzerland by Messaggerie Libri S.p.A

Cover Triple head on a conical base (pl. 18). Wood. Well preserved pigments. H.: 36 cm. Collected by Aristide Courtois. Former collections of Madeleine Rousseau, Hélène Kamer, and Daniel Cordier. Private collection. © Sotheby’s / Art Digital Studio Back Cover Adokande Bruno, chief of Bua. All rights reserved. Page 2 Enthronement ceremony of Mgr Georges Singha, bishop of Owando. Left, Antoinette Ehouli, chief of Kouyougandza. All rights reserved.

Foreword

Different Stages of Kuyu Art

11 11 12 27 64

Who Are the Kuyu? Introduction History Objects and Their Styles Conclusion

Plates

103

Plate Entries

111

Annotated Bibliography

119

Acknowledgements

120

Biography

121

Captions

123

Photo Credits

Table of Contents

Editorial Coordination Elena Carotti

Acknowledgements The publisher would especially like to thank Marc Ghysels for his invaluable assistance.

Translation Timothy Stroud Editing Emily Ligniti Art Director Fayçal Zaouali Layout Camelia Bezzola

Map (pp.22-3) Sandor Breznay

Foreword

Different Stages of Kuyu Art

11 11 12 27 64

Who Are the Kuyu? Introduction History Objects and Their Styles Conclusion

Plates

103

Plate Entries

111

Annotated Bibliography

119

Acknowledgements

120

Biography

121

Captions

123

Photo Credits

a Bokib

MBOKO

ri Gi

bili

Odzala National Park

Who Are the Kuyu?

x-herbes Likouala-au

Mam

gui

b an

ssak

MAKOUA

Le ko li

MBETI

-Mo

Manga

Ku yu

LIKOUALA

Fort NGARE Voulangoulou Rousset Linnégué Boua KUYU Oyomi Kouyougandza A B ma IO I Wu Loboko CH ko Ewo DJ BO go N M N BU IM

Okounda

Loukolela

Makotimpoko

go on

LIKOUBA

MBOCHI

ima

Ngombe

ba ou

Lik

Mbundji

Lake Tumba

Mossaka

MBOCHI

i ken

WESTERN KASAI

TEKE (TÉKÉ)

Lake Mai Ndombe

oou

TEGUE

Lukenie

Lefi

Bolobo Kwa

Con go

Bandundu

Brazzaville

Stanley Pool

Kinshasa

Towns and villages Rivers and lakes

Mbandaka

o ong

Bonga

Ali

BOUB

uala

Makoua

Sangha

Liko

Etoumbi

a ual Lik

Lebango

Abolo

Ntokou

ANGU I

Picounda

MBETI

TEKE

Name of ethnic groups Border between the Congo and Gabon

This map relates to the historic discussion in the text. • The Congo and the Oubangui Rivers mark the border between the two Congos. • The location of the Mbochi and Boubangui sub-groups at the time of colonisation. • The major commercial centres and crossing places between one bank and the other.

Kasai

Introduction The Kuyu live along the Kuyu River in the northern part of Congo-Brazzaville in the “Cuvette congolaise”. Due to their small population, the French colonial administration assimilated them early on into the Mbochi group, whereupon they found themselves in a balance of power that did not evolve in their favour, either demographically and politically. Great sculptors, they carved pieces in three very different styles. Two were developed while they still lived on the left bank of the Congo River, and are referred to as “memorial” styles. The third was developed once they had crossed the river and settled on the right bank. When the colonialists arrived at the start of the twentieth century, they immediately discovered objects carved in the third style, the famous kebe-kebe, colourful heads that rose above a large raffia robe that concealed a dancer who span round with increasing speed. However, the statues and ornately carved heads that have won their sculptors their reputation were only discovered sparingly, as two leading art dealers of the twentieth century, Charles Ratton and Pierre Vérité, bought them up and stashed them away while waiting for the market’s opinion of them to evolve, as the scarified and colourful presentation did not match the taste of the time. Yet these objects that had been so little known were nonetheless over-represented in the famous film Les statues meurent aussi (1953) as Charles Ratton was involved in its creation and appreciated them greatly. In 1951, only ten or so had been published, and it was necessary to wait until the first exhibition held by the Fondation Olfert Dapper at the musée des Arts décoratifs (1986), three years after the death of Mr Ratton, to see them regularly, some sixty years after the dealer had purchased them. At the exhibition Forms and Colours of 1993, the musée Dapper displayed a dozen Kuyu sculptures, most of which were unknown, in a ring in the main room. However, the public made no reference to them in the comments book. The journalists too disregarded these attention-grabbing objects, despite the fact that a Kuyu head was shown on the cover of the catalogue. It was necessary to wait for the sales of “The Vérité Collection” in 2006 for the last memorial piece brought back to France by the colonial administrator Aristide Courtois to be seen by the public.

a Bokib

MBOKO

ri Gi

bili

Odzala National Park

Who Are the Kuyu?

x-herbes Likouala-au

Mam

gui

b an

ssak

MAKOUA

Le ko li

MBETI

-Mo

Manga

Ku yu

LIKOUALA

Fort NGARE Voulangoulou Rousset Linnégué Boua KUYU Oyomi Kouyougandza A B ma IO I Wu Loboko CH ko Ewo DJ BO go N M N BU IM

Okounda

Loukolela

Makotimpoko

go on

LIKOUBA

MBOCHI

ima

Ngombe

ba ou

Lik

Mbundji

Lake Tumba

Mossaka

MBOCHI

i ken

WESTERN KASAI

TEKE (TÉKÉ)

Lake Mai Ndombe

oou

TEGUE

Lukenie

Lefi

Bolobo Kwa

Con go

Bandundu

Brazzaville

Stanley Pool

Kinshasa

Towns and villages Rivers and lakes

Mbandaka

o ong

Bonga

Ali

BOUB

uala

Makoua

Sangha

Liko

Etoumbi

a ual Lik

Lebango

Abolo

Ntokou

ANGU I

Picounda

MBETI

TEKE

Name of ethnic groups Border between the Congo and Gabon

Kasai

History

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

Northern region. List of the peoples mentioned according to their scarifications: V on the forehead: Kuyu, region of the Likouala-auxherbes, Benge, Lokele, Turumbu, Topoke. Scarified beard: Kuyu, region of the Likouala-auxherbes, Benge, So, Turumbu, Topoke. Beaded eyebrows: Kuyu, Ngombe, Ngbaka, Kundu, Bati, Boa, Mbudja, Lokele, So, Mitoko.

U e le

CAMEROON

BATI

BOA

gui

SO Ouban

BENGE C on go

LIKOUALA

NGOMBE L op or i

Sa ng

NGOMBE

Mari

o ng

a– ssak

Tchu

Lake Tumba

GABON

BOKALA

Lua

nie

LOCAL MOTIFS

NDENGESE Lukén

BUSIRA

YAELIMA o ng

laba

MITOKO Luké

TEKE (TÉKÉ )

Kinshasa

Kas

LULUWA

KUBA

PENDE

LOKELE

TUMBA

Bolobo

Stanley Pool

nga

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

KUYU

Brazzaville

Salo

IYEMBE

Lake Mai Ndombe

Makotimpoko

REPUBLIC OF CONGO

KUNDU

apa

TURUMBU

nga

Lomami

KUYU

MBUDJA

Likoua

Lik

MBETI (AMBETE)

TOPOKE

LELE

MBEENGI NGONGO

Southern region (grey section). List of the peoples mentioned according to their scarifications: Concentric circles: Kuyu, Tumba, Yaelima, Busira Territory, Ndengese, Kuba, Lele, Pende, Wongo, Luluwa. Keloid buttons: Kuyu, Yaelima, Kuba. Caracoles: Kuyu, Lake Mai Ndombe region, Yaelima, Iyembe, Nkutschu, Bokala, Ndengese, Lukenie region.

History

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

U e le

CAMEROON

BATI

BOA

gui

SO Ouban

BENGE C on go

LIKOUALA

NGOMBE L op or i

Sa ng

NGOMBE

Mari

o ng

a– ssak

Tchu

Lake Tumba

GABON

BOKALA

Lua

nie

LOCAL MOTIFS

NDENGESE Lukén

BUSIRA

YAELIMA o ng

laba

MITOKO Luké

TEKE (TÉKÉ )

Kinshasa

Kas

LULUWA

KUBA

PENDE

LOKELE

TUMBA

Bolobo

Stanley Pool

nga

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

KUYU

Brazzaville

Salo

IYEMBE

Lake Mai Ndombe

Makotimpoko

REPUBLIC OF CONGO

KUNDU

apa

TURUMBU

nga

Lomami

KUYU

MBUDJA

Likoua

Lik

MBETI (AMBETE)

TOPOKE

LELE

MBEENGI NGONGO

Objects and Their Styles

Pls. 31, 32

Fig. 1. Mbochi okamba representing the legislative candidates of 1956. The rooster at the centre represents Jacques Opangault, the panther on the left Félix Tchikaya, and the crocodile on the right Abbé Fulbert Youlou, mayor of Brazzaville. This head is called Sosso ameli ngando, meaning that the rooster has swallowed the crocodile. Formerly in the collection of Pierre Harter. Anne-Marie Bénézech archive.

The Djo Ceremony When, at the age of twenty-five, Alfred Poupon arrived in the Congo to be the district chief of Fort Rousset, a schism had already occurred in the Kuyu population, where, in the west of the country, the rites of the Panther had taken the place of those of the Serpent. “Although the people of the East acknowledge that they have only ever celebrated the serpent and that the panther ceremonies are foreign to them, it is not the same for the people of the West, who lay claim to both the serpent and the panther. However, they admit that gradually the serpent rites would have fallen into disuse among them and that only a few old people would still know them. All that remains is a dance called the Kebe-Kebe and a few traditions”. Poupon goes on to say that, for the young people, the ceremony had been reduced to a competition of prowess. Who was the Djo, and what did the ceremony celebrate? Djo is the original Serpent, the “horned” viper of the flood zones, the ibiri or Bitis nasicornis, from which the Kuyu descend. The ceremony was performed to reactivate the link between the Kuyu’s identity and their myth of origins. The commemoration was practised at each new initiation ceremony of young boys or in relation to the death of a chief or important figure. It was held in a clearing in the forest, where only initiates were present, away from prying eyes and the presence of women. All participants had a precise role in accordance with their rank. Using mime, music, songs, dances, handclapping, cries and sudden silences, skilful “staging” recalled how “The serpent created Ebongo, Ebongo created Eouya”. The explanation followed: “Ebongo came out of the snake. He is still a serpent, but he gave birth to Eouya who is a man”.This very complex ceremony included interludes danced by the chiefs to affirm their extraordinary nature, but above all that they are the foundation on which the world is returned to order, at the meeting point of the visible and the invisible. Three dances took place, one after the other. The first traced the origin of Homo kuyu from the Djo parent of the chiefs to the presentation of extraordinary intermediary entities: Djokou “the husband” and Ebotita, the producer of children, who were both in the process of moulting their snake skins when they appeared in the dance, though already human. The raffia robe worn by each, the eboula, which represented the snake’s skin, was much longer than the robe worn by other entities called the “ordinary Eouya” (figs. 25 to 35). It trailed behind them as their much larger heads took on a human size. In the second dance, the Serpent performs alone, wearing a much smaller head, and “mystically” increases to a height of 5 or 6 metres before the astounded eyes of the participants. In the last dance, a specialist, who does not wear a “body mask”, as Léo Frobenius would have called it, mimed the killing of the Serpent that definitively separated the animal from the human. At the end of this third dance, the first human Kuyu couple was revealed, a man and a woman 40 cm tall, with “the face, hairstyle and scars of the Kuyu” (fig. 2).

Objects and Their Styles

Pls. 31, 32

Objects and Their Styles

Fig. 3. A whirling Eouya. Anne-Marie Bénézech archive.

Fig. 2. Female statue of Ebongo. ETHAF 0443945. Gift of Emile Chambon 1981. Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève. Photo: J. Watts.

Next to be presented were all the ancestors of the Ebongo down to himself, then his descendants, the sixteen Eouya: eight females and eight males. Last came the “spectres of the dead” of the chief, those who form the direct chain of descent from the Djo to himself: “an enormous man and woman, roughly hewn and sitting down”. In the first dance, figures appeared who were also covered with a robe made from raffia (eboula) above which protruded a brightly coloured wooden head called

okamba, which represented in turn the original Serpent and later the eight female Eouya, the daughters of the Djo (entities from the mystical world). These entities from the invisible world were taller than men. Between the main character’s numerous retreats into the bush to take refuge, several scenes were enacted, notably a fight between the man and the Serpent. In this, the Serpent would then advance towards the chiefs seated in the first row, then lean down, stretching ever further over them. It would then leap back into the bush and return the same way, jumping increasingly energetically, then all at once it would crouch on the ground and start whirling like a top. The raffia robe swelled with the rotation, skimming the ground until, turning faster and faster, the dancer fell to the ground exhausted. It is from this phase of the performance that the Kebe-Kebe dance is taken, at least among the Kuyu of the west. When the episode from the Eouya dance became the Kebe-Kebe, the dancers were applauded for their endurance at the expense of the accuracy of the steps. From this time on, the chiefs would get up to congratulate the “dancers”. Spinning has become “a game like football, you meet real Kebe-Kebe fans” (Tsamas 1957). For a better understanding of this dance, you have to know its genesis. Since Poupon, the circumstances in which it occurred have only been described by European witnesses in Mbochi country or by the Mbochi themselves. The idea has gained ground that it was the Mbochi who invented the dance. In point of fact, its origin is an element of dispute between the Mbochi and the Kuyu. Three accounts attribute the origin of the dance or the okamba (the object) to the Kuyu village of

Objects and Their Styles

Fig. 3. A whirling Eouya. Anne-Marie Bénézech archive.

Fig. 2. Female statue of Ebongo. ETHAF 0443945. Gift of Emile Chambon 1981. Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève. Photo: J. Watts.

Objects and Their Styles

Fig. 22: Style II statue? Wood and pigments. H.: 48 cm. Formerly in the collections of Aristide Courtois and Charles Ratton. © Archives Fondation Dapper, Paris, inv. 3541.

In the opinion of Bernard Mambéké-Boucher and Jean-Paul Lebeuf (1964), rather than the start of a development, the ovoid form of the body of the female statues (even though covered with Style I attributes) was probably instigated by the cosmogony of the Likouala and the Likouba, for whom the world was born from an

Objects and Their Styles

Fig. 23. Statue of the Oba Queen? Wood: Alstonia congensis. Pigments. Formerly in the collections of Aristide Courtois, Charles Ratton, and Charles-François Ratton, by inheritance. Private collection, New York. Photographies: Vincent Girier-Dufournier.

egg. While the combination of the egg and Style II goes hand-in-hand with beaded eyebrows, it is especially notable that a single statue can suggest three transitions at the same time: the shift in power from the Serpent to the Panther, the transition

Objects and Their Styles

Fig. 22: Style II statue? Wood and pigments. H.: 48 cm. Formerly in the collections of Aristide Courtois and Charles Ratton. © Archives Fondation Dapper, Paris, inv. 3541.

Objects and Their Styles

1-2

4 | 5-6

In the same series: Baga by Marie Yvonne Curtis Bamana by Jean-Paul Colleyn Bamum by Christraud M. Geary Baule by Alain-Michel Boyer Benin by Barbara Plankensteiner Chokwe by Boris Wastiau Fang by Louis Perrois Guro by Anne-Marie Bouttiaux Igbo by Herbert M. Cole Kota by Louis Perrois Kuba by David A. Binkley and Patricia Darish Lobi by Daniela Bognolo Luba by Mary Nooter Roberts and Allen F. Roberts Mossi by Christopher D. Roy Pende by Z. S. Strother Punu by Louis Perrois and Charlotte Grand-Dufay We by Alain-Michel Boyer Yaka by Arthur P. Bourgeois Yoruba by Babatunde Lawal

Colour Separation Maurizio Brivio, Milan, Italy Printed in Italy in September 2021 by Tecnostampa - Pigini Group Printing Division Loreto - Trevi, Italy for 5 Continents Editions, Milan