In the Presence of Spirits: Selections from the National Museum of Ethnology, Lisbon by The Africa Center

AFRICAN

ART FROM THE NATIONAL MUSEUM

OF ETHNOLOGY, LISBON

MUSEUM FOR AFRICAN ART, NEW YORK SNOECK-DUCAJU

AFRICAN ART FROM THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ETHNOLOGY, LISBON

In the Presence of Spirits

In the Presence of Spirits AFRICAN ART FROM THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ETHNOLOGY. LISBON

Edited by Frank Herreman

with contributionsfrom Elze Bruyninx Elisabeth Cameron William Dewey Danielle Gallois-Duquette ManuelJordan Gerhard Kubik Frederick Lamp Wyatt McGaffey Mary Nooter Roberts Annemieke Van Damme Photography by Dick Beaulieux

Museum for African Art. New York Snoek-Ducaju & Zoon. Gent

In memory ofMarie-Louise Bastin

IN THE PRESENCE OF SPIRITS: African Art from the National Museum of Ethnology, Lisbon is published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same title organized by the Museum for African Art, New York in cooperation with the National Museum of Ethnology, Portuguese Institute of Museums, Ministry of Culture, Lisbon, Portugal, and presented in New York from September through December 2000. The exhibition will travel to Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan; National Museum of African Art, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; and the Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama. The exhibition has been made possible through the generous support of BP, with additional funding provided by the Institut° Portugues de Museus, Ministerio da Cultura, the Fundacao Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento, and the Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian. ASSOCIATE CURATOR:

Laurie Farrell COPY EDITOR, ENGLISH EDITION:

Gary Van VVyck COPY EDITOR, PORTUGUESE EDITION:

Rita SS Marques, Executive Coordinator, National Museum of Ethnology, Lisbon TRANSLATORS:

Gert Morreel, essays by Elze Bruyninx, and Annemieke Van Damme-Linseele from Dutch; Joachim Neugroschel, essay by Danielle Gallois Duquette from French; Marta Morals and Jose Luis Luna, translation from English to Portuguese; John Elliot, translation from Portuguese to English. Copyright September 2000 „ Museum for African Art, New York and Snoeck, Ducaju, & Zoon, Gent. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the Museum for African Art, 593 Broadway, New York, NY 10012. Copyright 20000Joachim Neugroschel. All rights reserved. English translation of essay and accompanying object captions by Danielle Gallois Duquette,"Introduction to the Bidjogo People." ENGLISH VERSION:

Library of Congress catalogue card no. 00-106199 Clothbound ISBN 0-945802-28-5 Paperbound ISBN 0-945802-27-7

Front cover: CAT. 26 (p. 48). Powerfigure: Nkisi. Yombe peoples, Zaire province, Angola. Wood, cloth, siting, leather, pigment, power substances. H. 28 cm. AL 050

PORTUGUESE VERSION:

Library of Congress catalogue card no. 00-106695 Clothbound ISBN 0-945802-30-7 Paperbound ISBN 0-945802-29-3

Back cover,from top, left to right: CAT.6(p. 27). Calyatide stool. Luba peoples, Katanga province, Democratic Republic of Congo. Wood, cloth, shells, glass beads. H. 92.5 cm. AO 062.

oEsiGN:Blommaert Annick Printed, and bound in Belgium by Snoeck, Ducaju & Zoon. Photo credits: All catalogue objects in color by Dick Beaulieux. Illustration photographs credited in accompanying captions.

CAT.59 (p. 83). Mask: Chipepa. Matapa, or Kongo-Dinga peoples, Canzar, Camena, Lunda Norte Province, Angola. Burlap cloth, twigframe feathers,fiber pigment. H. 70 cm. AM 280. CAT. 124 (p. 161). Mask: Vaca Bruto. Bidjogo peoples, Caduna, Ilha de Uno, Arguipilago dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau. Wood, horns,fiber cord, pigment, glass eyes. H. 46 cm. AK 837. CAT.93(p. 114). Snuffcontainer Ovimbundu peoples, Benguela or Cuanza Sulprovince, Angola. Wood. H. 10.5 cm. AB 041.

CONTENTS 6 7 9

Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction BY FRANK HERREMAN

Director's Statement BY JOAQUIM PAIS DE BRITO, MUSEU NACIONAL DE ETNOLOGIA, LISBON

Selections from Western, Central, and Southern Africa 20

Contributions by FREDERICK LAMP ELZE BRUYNINX FRANK HERREMAN MARY NOOTER ROBERTS WILLIAM DEWEY

Angola 35

The Kongo Peoples BY WYATT MACGAF FEY

The Initiation Arts of the Zombo, Nkanu, Yaka and Suku Peoples BY ANNEMIEKE VAN DAMME

The Matapa and Kongo Kasai or Kongo-Dinga Peoples BY MANUEL JORDAN

The Arts of the Chokwe and Related Peoples BY MANUEL JORDAN

123

Masks from the Lands of Dawn: The Ngangela Peoples BY GERHARD KUBIK

145

Embodied Futures: The Dolls of Southwestern Angola BY ELISABETH CAMERON

Guinea Bissau 155

The Bidjogo Peoples of Guinea Bissau BY DANIELLE GALLOIS-DUQUETTE

183 187 188

Bibliography Biographies of authors Staff and Contributors

Foreword BP is delighted to support In the Presence of Spirits: African Artfrom the National Museum of Ethnology, Lisbon. Organized by the Museum for African Art in New York, the exhibition offers American audiences the opportunity to see this superb collection ofethnographic material from Angola, Mozambique and Guinea Bissau. BP is one of the largest integrated energy companies in the world and one of the leading producers of both oil and gas in the United States. Nearly half of all our assets and of our staff are American. Here in the US and in all the places in which we operate around the world, our aim is to generate economic benefit and to be a source of progress for individuals and for the community as a whole. Our support for this fine exhibition is just one part of that effort. I hope you will find it enjoyable and inspiring. SirJohn Browne Group ChiefExecutive BP

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As early as the first half of the 15th century, Portuguese explorers sailed southward,circumnavigating the African continent. Pursuing economic and religious interests, as well as the quest for adventure and discovery, it was the Portuguese who thus brought sub-Saharan Africa into closer relations with the rest of the world than ever before in history. Five centuries later, through their magnificent collections of African art and artifacts, it is the Portuguese who can impart to the world some of the beauty, power and wonder of the Continent and its many cultures. The Museum for African Art is proud to present "In the Presence ofSpirits: African Art from the National Museum ofEthnology, Lisbon," and to make possible the sharing of its revelations to vast new audiences. Following its premiere at the Museum for African Art in New York, In the Presence of Spirits will travel to the Flint Institute of Arts in Flint, Michigan; the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C.; and, the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama, before returning to the newly refurbished galleries at the National Museum of Ethnology in Lisbon. This reinstallation will be a fitting and important finale to a long and gratifying collaboration between our institutions and we wish to thank Joaquim Pais de Brito, Director of the Museu de Etnologia, and Rita Si Marques, Executive Coordinator, for working so closely with us to realize the dream of this exhibition. Many other professionals and organizations on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean also deserve acknowledgment and gratitude for their roles in creating this beautiful exhibition and its important catalogue, published in both English and Portuguese language. We extend our admiration and appreciation to the Museum's own Director of Exhibitions, Frank Herreman; Associate Curator, Laurie Farrell; Registrar, Barbara Woytowicz; and Curatorial Assistant, Carol Braide. A special note of gratitude to Museum for African Art Trustee and friend Robert Rubin whose participation in the exhibition, from its conception to the selection of objects from the National Museum ofEthnology, was enormously helpful. And we thank each and every member of the Museum's Education and Program, Marketing, Finance and Security departments for all that they do every day to make the Museum an exciting and welcoming place for the exchange of beauty and knowledge. We would like to express our deep appreciation to exhibition sponsor BP and to our Portuguese supporters, Fundacio Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento (and especially to

6 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

Acknowledgments Luis dos Santos Ferro for his patient encouragement); to Fundacio Calouste Gulbenkian, and to the Instituto Portugues de Museus of the Ministerio da Cultura, for recognizing the importance of a transoceanic partnership for the funding of this exhibition as well. We thank you for your faith in the Museum for African Art and in your recognition of the importance of this project to audiences in the United States as well as Portugal. This exhibition is an opportunity to be lifted by the aweinspiring splendor of these artworks, spiritual and secular, that so articulately represent the richness of the cultures from which they come. We revel in the enjoyment that we know they will bring. Elsie McCabe President Anne Stark Deputy Director

Museu Nacional de

ETNOLOGIA

Ti InstitutÂ° Portugues de Museus

FUNDACAO CALOUSTE GULBENKIAN

FUNDAcA0

LUSO-AMERICANA

It is with great pleasure that I acknowledge the people involved in the production of the exhibition, In the Presence of Spirits: African Artfrom the National Museum ofEthnology, Lisbon, and its accompanying catalogue. First and foremost, I would like to thank Raquel Henriques da Silva, Director, the Portuguese Institute of Museums, Ministry of Culture, Lisbon,Portugal and the entire staff of the National Museum of Ethnology for their commitment to this exhibition. I am especially grateful to Joaquim Pais de Brito, Director of the National Museum of Ethnology and Rita SĂĄ Marques, Executive Coordinator for the exhibition, who has spent much of her precious time helping us during the development of this exhibition and its catalogue, providing information on the selected objects, and coordinating and editing the Portuguese version of the catalogue. I am also grateful to Joao Andre and Alexandre Raposo for their technical assistance, Marta Morais and Jose Luis Luna, English to Portuguese translation, and John Elliot, Portuguese to English translation. The publication of this book would not be possible without the contribution of the scholars who lent their expertise in the essays and object captions. My gratitude to Elze Bruyninx, Elisabeth Cameron, William Dewey, Danielle Gallois-Duquette, Manuel Jordan, Gerhard Kubik, Frederick Lamp, Wyatt MacGaffey, Mary Nooter Roberts, Annemieke Van Damme,and to Constantine Petridis whom I consulted in my search for the contributors. A special thanks goes to photographer, Dick Beaulieux, whose images help us so well to reveal the real beauty of the art works in this publication and to Ms. Annick Blommaert, responsible for the book design. Finally, I would like to thank the Board of Trustees of the Museum for African Art, Elsie Crum McCabe,President, and Anne Stark, Deputy Director, for their support through the development of this exhibition. My special thanks go to Laurie Farrell, Associate Curator, Barbara Woytowicz, Registrar, and Amy Johnson, Director of Membership Services who helped in the preparation of condition reports, and to all staff members, interns and volunteers. A very special thanks goes to Carol Braide, Curatorial Assistant and Publications Coordinator who, as always, demonstrated her great skills in the preparation of the text and images for this publication. Frank Herreman Curator and Director ofExhibitions

CAT.112 Mask: Lisala or Chitataveka Mbwela peoples, Sakatek, 25 km north ofCuito-Canavak, Cuando Cubango, Angola Bark cloth, twig frame, cloth, fiber, raffia, pigment. I-I. 56 cm. AD 434

In the presence of spirits African Art from the National Museum of Ethnology, Lisbon

FRANK HERREMAN

As a commitment to the display of the finest aesthetic examples of African artworks, the Museum for African Art has organized over the years exhibitions featuring selections of African masterpieces from European museum collections. Treasuresfrom the Musee ck l'Homme(1984) was the inaugural exhibition at the Museum, then called the Center for African Art, followed by African Masterpiecesfrom Munich: The Staatliches Museum fur Volkerkunde (1987) and Masterpiecesfrom Central Africa: The Tervuren Museum (1998). This exhibition, In the Presence ofSpirits: African Artfrom the National Museum ofEthnology, Lisbon, is another in the series. In 1994, I visited the exhibit, Angolan Sculpture, Memorial of Cultures, in Lisbon. The exhibit featured more than 250 works of art, including masks, sculptures, and symbols of authority and prestige. The host of the exhibit, the National Museum of Ethnology, was also the major lender to this exhibit. On this occasion, I had the opportunity to visit the permanent collections of the Museum.In addition to art from Angola,I found objects from the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), Ivory Coast, Gabon, and Mozambique. A surprising find was a unique collection of masks, figurines and other ritual objects from the Bidjogo peoples of the Bijagos Archipelago of Guinea-Bissau. Since then,I have always wished to organize an exhibition that would showcase the impressive range and quality of artworks in the collections of the National Museum of Ethnology. Like the other ethnological museums mentioned above, the strategy of the Lisbon Museum is aimed primarily at collecting objects which broadly represent the various cultural aspects of one or more peoples. The acquisition of objects that we would characterize as works of art is only part of this goal, not the core of the collecting philosophy. Still, the National Museum of Ethnology has organized or participated in several exhibits of African art, including Modernismo e Arte Negro-Africana (Modernism and African Art) in 1976, and Escultura Africana em Portugal(African Sculpture in Portugal) in 1985,followed by Escultura Angolana, Memorial de Culturas (Angolan Sculpture, Memorial of Cultures) in 1994. None of these exhibits traveled to the United States, and very few of the objects in the museum's collection have ever been on view this side of the Atlantic. Selecting objects for an exhibition is undoubtedly one of the most exciting aspects of the curatorial process. It was no less than a unique experience once again for this show. The administration of the National Museum of Ethnology generously allowed me to spend several days exploring their collections. As usual, I began by selecting objects of the highest aesthetic value. As do the collections at the Musee de l'Homme, Paris or the Africa Museum, Tervuren, I found that the National Museum of Ethnology has its own idiosyncratic strengths, among them, the existence of several collections of objects assembled for the museum in the field. This exhibition and the accompanying catalog are divided into sections based on objects culled from these collections. Several outstanding scholars were invited to lend their expertise on the art of the particular peoples represented. The exhibition opens with a few masks from West Africa, a Fang mask from Equatorial Guinea, a Luba caryatid stool from the Democratic Republic of 9 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

Congo, and several neckrests from Central and Southern Africa. Although these objects do not fit in with the themes of the larger sections to follow, their intrinsic qualities and superior aesthetics more than justify their inclusion. The first extensive section highlights the art of the Kongo peoples. In addition to several symbols of authority, some of which indicate early contact with Europeans, the ensemble includes several grave markers, power statues and pictographic pot lids. This is followed by a section showing a number of masks and pole sculptures by the Nkanu,Zombo,Yaka and Suku peoples. Although the Nkanu and Zombo peoples are included with the Eastern Kongo peoples, their cultures exhibit a strong Yaka influence. A smaller section shows the brightly colored initiation masks of the Matapa. The next and very important grouping includes objects of the Chokwe and related peoples. Like the Yaka, the Chokwe exerted an important influence on the art and culture of the neighboring peoples for several centuries. This influence is apparent in the sculpted Ovimbundu and Songo symbols of authority, including stools, chairs, chief's staffs and pipes. Together with the Ngangela initiation masks, those of the Chokwe, Matapa,Songo,Lwena and Ovimbundu are perhaps the strongest ensemble in the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology. While some masks are made of wood, most are very vulnerable due to their large dimensions and the perishable nature of the materials from which they are fashioned such as twigs, barkcloth and textiles painted after assembly. Although their finish is often less refined than that of the wooden masks, rendering them for a long time less attractive to collectors in the field, their ritual and artistic importance should not be underestimated. It was a real treat to have found such an important ensemble of these artworks in Lisbon. Another ensemble features dolls of the Ngangela, Kwanyama, Mwila, and Muchimba or Oncocua peoples from southwestern Angola who produce very few figural sculptures other than the dolls. They play an important part in the socialization process of young girls not merely as toys, but as fertility symbols that foreshadow the future role the girls will fulfill when they become mothers. While their design is mostly rudimentary, the dolls are often adorned with bead necklaces, coins and other precious items that also serve as amulets, an additional indication of the important spiritual value attributed to these dolls. The exhibit concludes with a selection of 23 objects from the Bidjogo people of the Bijagos Archipelago off the coast of Guinea Bissau. The ensemble brings together various types of masks, shrine figurines and other ritual objects. Spatulas, axes and adzes feature anthropomorphic decorations, and two shrine figurines are composed of cylinders topped with human head representations. The masks of various sea and land animals such as fish, hippopotamus, bird, pig, and buffalo are significant in Bidjogo beliefs as the animals are attributed a metaphorical role as media through which the community keeps in touch with the supernatural world,in order to help them to maintain their religious, social and economic structure. In the Presence of Spirits brings together well-known, little-known and even unknown types of masks, figures and other sculpted objects from Africa. The exhibit once again reveals the many different faces of Africa's artistic heritage, which never ceases to amaze and delight us. This, to me,is all the justification required for the creation of this exhibition. I hope that my enthusiasm for these artworks will be transmitted to the visitor of the exhibition and the reader of this book.

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11 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

Traveling objects

JOAQUIM PAIS DE BRITO Director ofthe National Museum ofEthnology

CAT. 113

Mask: Inambembe Ngangela peoples, Gangela, Huila province, Angola Open weave fiber, fabric, buttons, pigment. H. 38 cm. AL 705

It is extremely difficult either to present or represent a museum through a selection of some of its pieces, unless the choice has specifically been made with this purpose in mind. Any such selection is necessarily guided by the particular aims and criteria of the person making it and is also quite naturally conditioned by the disparate and frequently circumstantial origin of the objects chosen. On the other hand, a museum's activity necessarily involves a combination of various aspects: the setting up of collections, their study and dissemination, as well as different methods of questioning and the construction of problems that can be formulated or elucidated with these collections. And these aspects are frequently much more important for presenting the museum than the actual objects themselves. Furthermore, in selecting a museum's pieces in order to illustrate the importance of its collection, there is frequently a tendency to set great store by the singularity of objects and this process is somewhat contradictory if seen in relation to the overall aim of defining more systematic methodologies and programs geared towards gathering objects together, contextualizing them and constructing narratives that place them all at the same level of anthropological importance. How does this difficult negotiation take place between the prominence afforded to the excellence of one particular object presented as a work of art and the relative concealment of the common object that is itself also endowed with the characteristic traits that define a culture, a social group and their history? We were recently approached by the Museum for African Art, an institution whose already prestigious past is further enhanced by some extremely beautiful catalogues corresponding to the various exhibitions that it has organized, and,as a result ofthis contact,its representatives made a selection ofsome ofthe pieces from the Museu Nacional de Etnologia,just as they had already done with other great museums.The motivations behind this selection are expressed in the introductory text written by Frank Herreman and such a choice was clearly based not only on criteria ofa pre-eminently aesthetic nature but also on considerations ofa personal and subjective kind.In combination,such criteria fullyjustified the pieces being put together as a group of exhibits worthy of public display. Of course, they do not represent the National Museum of Ethnology, for the reasons that have been explained above,although they do make it possible to point out a number of possible avenues for reflection upon the ways in which this museum,and museums in general, tend to put together their collections. The Museum of Ethnology came into being somewhat belatedly, if we consider that a country such as Portugal had long maintained a colonial administration over vast tracts ofland inhabited by societies that enjoyed an extremely rich cultural diversity. Its appearance marked yet another stage in the development of the intellectual and scientific concerns of a group of anthropologists who,in Portugal, had begun to define new paths for their discipline, as well as develop new research fields and methodologies. This team, whose most illustrious figure was undoubtedlyJorge Dias, began its work in 1947,with research into mainland Portugal, later venturing into African territory in 1957 with the creation of the Mission for the Ethnic Minorities of Overseas Portugal and their research into the Makonde peoples of Mozambique. It was this research that led to the setting up of the first systematically formed collection of objects 13 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

gathered in the field byJorge and Margot Dias. The public exhibition of these same objects in Lisbon immediately resulted in the project for the creation of the museum, where these items were awarded the first numbers in the inventory of its collections. When the organizing mission was created in 1962, and later the museum itself in 1965, this team embarked upon a period of intense activity, beingjoined by Ernesto Veiga de Oliveira, Benjamim Pereira, Antonio Carreira, Fernando Galhano and other collaborators. Their aim was to gather together as many pieces of ethnographic and museological interest as possible from the widest possible variety ofsources. These pieces came from collections belonging to state bodies related with the overseas territories, both in mainland Portugal and the colonies. They were also obtained via colonial officers who,in some cases, had sufficient anthropological training and sensitivity to be able to identify and select the objects or follow the collection criteria established in Lisbon. In other cases, objects were collected via campaigns conducted by some members of the team and, in particular, by one of the most constant collaborators of the Museum of Ethnology and the man responsible for some of its most significant collections, Victor Bandeira. Many of the pieces selected by the Museum for African Art were collected by him, and it was after an exhibition held at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes in Oporto, in 1962, that this interpersonal knowledge was first developed, resulting in the acquisition of the whole collection put together by this collector. It was a period of feverish activity motivated by a sense of urgency in gathering together the widest possible range of objects testifying to different peoples and cultures, and it was in fact this very idea that was to give its name to the title of the first great exhibition held by this team and the museum, albeit at a borrowed pavilion (Povos e Culturas (Peoples and Cultures), 1972). The museum kept changing premises until it finally moved to its new purpose-built home,inaugurated in 1976 with the exhibition entitled Modernismo e Arte NegroAfricana(Modernism and Black-African Art), timed to coincide with the meeting of the International Association of Art Critics in Lisbon. In the words of Ernesto Veiga de Oliveira, and as later confirmed by Benjamim Pereira, those first years spent building up the museum's collection were marked by a special fondness for African objects. The successive catalogues for exhibitions held both inside and outside the museum clearly illustrate this fascination and demonstrate the team's learning process and the greater critical awareness being acquired in the museum's knowledge of these objects. And,for this very reason, they also reveal the various hesitations and corrections that were being produced by the members of the team in their gradual acquisition of this knowledge. We list below the main exhibitions held by the museum: Escultura Africana no Museu de Etnologia do Ultramar (African Art at the Overseas Ethnology Museum), Lisbon, 1968; Esculturas e Oectos Decorados da Guine Portuguesa no Museu deEtnologia do Ultramar(Sculptures and Decorated Objects from Portuguese Guinea at the Overseas Ethnology Museum), Lisbon, 1971; Povos e Culturas (Peoples and Cultures), Lisbon, 1972; Modernism° e Arte NegroAfricana (Modernism and Black-African Art), Lisbon, 1976; Escultura Africana (African Sculpture), Oporto,1977; Cultura e Tradiclio, Guild Bissau (Culture and Tradition, Guinea Bissau), Oporto,1984;Desenho Etnogreifico deFernando Gallia= (Ethnographic Drawings by Fernando Galhano), Vol. II (Africa), Lisbon, 1985; Escultura Africana em Portugal (African Sculpture in Portugal), Lisbon, 1985; Angola, Povos e Culturas (Angola, Peoples and Cultures), Lisbon, 1987; Nas Visperas do Mundo Modern° — Africa(On the Eve of the Modern World - Africa), Lisbon, 1992; Escultura Angolana, Memorial de Culturas (Angolan Sculpture Memorial to Cultures), Lisbon, 1994. The last two exhibitions expanded and intensified the dialogue with other specialists about the interpretation of African pieces and the contexts of their production and use, and included amongst these experts was Marie-Louise Bastin with her vast knowledge of the sculpture of the Angolan peoples. It is easy to understand how, in building up the museum's collection, this climate of great urgency inevitably led to the adoption of different solutionspurchases, donations, transfers between institutions, direct collections in the 14 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

field - and how, at the same time, it was frequently necessary to forego the documentation and information that would strengthen the museum's knowledge about different pieces and enhance their museological value. However, as far as mainland Portugal was concerned, the uninterrupted and systematic field research that was being undertaken made it possible to set up collections that were of extreme importance for the increased knowledge of the country as a whole and for the scientific solidity of a museological institution. In fact, it was these collections that came closest to meeting the strict methodological requirements of research, with objects being identified, surveyed and selected on the basis of a broad framework of representativeness, diversity and singularity, into which they were first inserted and thereafter revealed to the public both at exhibitions and in monographs and published catalogues. Thus, in some ways, it can be seen that the National Museum of Ethnology represented a break with the European tradition that distinguished between museums according to the geographical area which they covered (local ethnography, exotic ethnography). Instead, this particular museum was conceived of by the anthropologists responsible for sketching out the initial project as a space for representing the diversity of cultures and societies, a place where the distant would intermingle with the close at hand,so that objects collected in Portugal would rub shoulders with others from South East Asia, Amazonia or Africa. The African objects presented here are, therefore, drawn from different groups of pieces that originate from one particular continent and are normally housed in a museum where the most systematic collections come from elsewhere. There is, however, one exception that has already been mentioned: the pieces originating from amongst the Makonde peoples of Northern Mozambique, which were unable to make the journey to America, since they are currently being subjected to a preparatory study for an exhibition that is due to be inaugurated in the near future. But this exhibition has as its subtitle African Artfrom the National Museum of Ethnology, Lisbon and we should like now to recall a long-standing debate that has been somewhat heatedly revived over the last two years, particularly in France, with undeniable consequences for our reflections about museums and about their activity in general. I am referring to the project for the creation of the Musee de l'Homme, des Arts et des Civilisations, initially referred to as Musee des Arts Premiers and now simply entitled Musee du Quai Branly, in direct reference to the site in the center ofParis where it will be built. This project has fueled a wide-ranging discussion (although in view of the interdisciplinary frontiers that it crosses this has never actually been made explicit) about the identification of the ethnographic object and the artistic or aesthetic object, about anthropology and art. It is this discussion that has divided the scientific community of anthropologists most closely involved in the realities of museums and the study of objects. It is heavily represented in some of the most recent special issues of magazines in which there is either an overlapping or confrontation of the views of art historians, museologists and anthropologists, with either European or African origins and backgrounds: Cahiers d'Etud,es Africaines (Special: "Prelever, exhiber. La mise en musees"), XXXIX (3-4), 1999;Journal des Africanistes (Special: "Des objets et leurs musees"), Tome 69, Fasc. 1, 1999; Le Debat (Dossier: "Arts et civilisations: Un musee a define), n2 108,Jan-Feb 2000, pp. 74-114; Les Cahiers de lEcole nationale du patrimoine (Special:"Le musee et les cultures du monde"), n9 5, 1999. The complexity of the problems and their effect on the ways in which museums and museology are viewed, the reconsideration of the prospects for achieving a more profound knowledge of the societies from which these artifacts originate, the means of fruition and political affirmation in a sharing of values and tastes between the dominant and dominated continents, the status of the object of art and its author - these arejust a few of the areas into which this discussion leads. It involves long-standing feelings of guilt and new utopias that bring peoples and nations together, over and above the profound inequalities that divide them,giving rise to paradoxes and ambiguities that frequently act as a stimulus for the process ofreflection. And behind these different levels 15 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

of debate (as well as within them) there also remains clearly visible much ofthe great lack of knowledge that accompanies most of those objects that, in view of their exceptional qualities, are given great prominence in museums and travel around from one international exhibition to another, frequently without any more information than that which is generated by our own imaginations. For, more than anything else, these objects have probably been more important in terms of the part they have played in the refinement and construction of our identity (itself profoundly marked by our own emotional and aesthetic experiences) than in terms of the access they have provided to the sense ofotherness that has generally served as the justification for their exhibition to the public. And yet it is nonetheless possible to undertake important research work,as the texts in these catalogues allow us to see. These texts range from those that lead us to discover the objects in their concrete existence in their place of origin to those that, by adopting a greater distance from their singular condition, interpret the objects in the broader context of the cultures in which they were produced. This is what frequently happens when the actual collection of the objects is not accompanied by the sort of information that would help us to reveal them with another kind ofsplendor by showingjust how intimately they are linked to the men who produced them and invented their existence. And so the journey of these objects around the American continent has now begun, with there being no doubt that they will return to the National Museum ofEthnology much wiser, enriched by the questions that will be asked of them and the studious glances that will continue to report upon their construction.

16 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

IN THE PRESENCE OF SPIRITS

CAT. 1

Shrine Piece and Dance Headdress: a-Tshol

Selections from Western, Central, and Southern Africa The selection of artworks from the National Museum of Ethnology, Lisbon starts with a choice of objects from West Africa including two masks of the Baga, Nalu,Pukur, Buluriits, or Landuma peoples from Guinea; and two masks of the Dan peoples from Cote d'Ivoire. It is followed by a face mask of the Fang people from Equatorial Guinea, and a caryatide stool of the Luba people from the Democratic Republic of Congo. In addition, there are several neckrests from southern Africa. Most of these masks serve to incarnate supernatural beings. The Luba stool is linked to royalty, and the neckrests are symbols of personal prestige.

CAT. 1

Shrine piece and dance headdress: a-Tshol Baga, Nalu, Pukur, Buluiiits peoples, Guinea (Conakry) or Guinea Bissau Wood, brass nails, other metals. L. 97 cm. AO 335

A-Tshol is one of the most sacred objects of the Baga and the Nalu. The basic forms of this object are in a style usually attributed to the Baga of Guinea (Conakry), although the style of the decorative detail is unique. Registration records show that the object was donated in 1964 by the Museu da Guine, located in Guinea-Bissau, which suggests this object was collected in Guinea-Bissau, where its origin probably would have been the Nalu people. The Nalu span the border of French-speaking Guinea and Portuguese-speaking Guinea-Bissau, and share many cultural institutions and material culture with the Baga. Although the two languages are unrelated grammatically, some words are shared, especially in ritual contexts. The names recorded among the Nalu for this type of object include Matshioli Kuye, which means "a-Tshol society spirit" in the neighboring Susu language, and Ninte-Kamatshol, for which no meaning has been published. Both names incorporate the Baga term a-tshol, signifying "medicine," which refers to any spiritually-endowed substance or object capable of effecting change, and is also the term applied to the type of object seen here. This particular a-Tshol is carved in two pieces: a beaked head and neck joined to a cylindrical base by an adhesive substance. The head consists of a face with an elaborate coiffure and a long beak. At the crown of the coiffure is a smaller head facing downward (the rear hair crest of this small head has broken off). The cylindrical base is pierced to create two registers of diamond-shaped designs and the interior is hollowed. On the top surface of the base are four radiating 90-degree lines. The interior of the coiffure is also hollowed, probably for the insertion of a medicine-filled animal horn, which is found on some other examples. Heavy encrustation inside the hollow head, underneath the head, and

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inside the hollow base evidence ritual accretion. A-Tshol functions in a variety of ways. It is kept in a shrine belonging to a clan elder, where it is generally employed for the protection of the community and for healing the sick and injured. Baga consultants say that a-Tshol is the creator god, and in some cases they give it his name, Kanu. On rare occasions an a-Tshol figure on its base is balanced on the head of a dancer during an extremely sacred ritual in which the wooden headdress is said to guide the dancer's movements completely, while others dance in front of the a-Tshol dancer in a state of spiritual possession. The dancer, wearing no special costume, often carries knives and his sometimes menacing movements suggest a-Tshol's role in pursuing criminal offenders. During the initiation of boys and young men into adulthood, which ceased in the 1950s, the a-Tshol figure was moved from the elder's shrine and placed in the initiation grove to protect the initiates. Frederick Lamp

CAT. 2 Shrine piece, dance mask or headdress: Tonkongba Nalu, Baga, Landuma peoples, Guinea-Bissau or Guinea (Conakry) Wood, brass nails. H. 68 cm. AC 792

This object was collected before 1962 by Victor Bandeira among the Nalu in the village of Campeane, Cacine District, Guinea-Bissau. The Chief of Cacine, Tomaz Camara, told him that it was called Numbe, but this is certainly a variation of the word nimba, meaning "great spirit" in Manding, which is applied throughout Guinea to a great number of sacred objects. According to Bandeira's notes, Camara gave the following information: "The Numbe masks guard the home and combat bad fetishes. 'Whoever would use this mask would have great power and even be able to pass through fire'....These most important masks, which occasionally are kept in a special house next to the village, also protect the village." Confirming Bandeira's observation about the importance of this type of mask, consultants from the region are extremely circumspect about the significance, use, and even the name of this object, suggesting that it is one of the most sacred objects in this region. Although one of these masks was collected in 1900 for the Musee de l'Homme, the earliest publication of such a mask is apparently the 1957 catalogue Premiere Exposition Retrospective International des Arts d'Afrique et d'Oceanie, issued by the Palais Miramar in Cannes. Despite a total lack of published documentation until recently (Lamp 1996), many similar headdresses exist in Western collections, where they have been so routinely identified as Landuma that this attribution has become convention. The mask type is, however, common to the Nalu, Landuma, Buluriits, and the two northernmost dialect groups of the Baga, the Sitemu and Mandori. Tonkongba was usually kept on an altar either in a sacred house maintained by the elder of the clan or in a small outdoor shrine, but also appeared in other contexts wearing a long raffia costume. It could be seen at funerals, at sacrifices for the ancestors, inside the male initiation grove, and perhaps in other contexts. The object was always said to appear independently, without being worn by a human being. TOnktingba and a-Tshol (cat. 1, page 18) together were instrumental in pursuing and prosecuting malevolence, healing the sick and injured, and protecting the boys and young men during their initiation into manhood. Tonkongba was said to be omniscient, able to leap up on its own and attack any intruder who intended harm to the initiates, and able to travel independently around the village to confront people with their past deeds or those of their ancestors. Frederick Lamp

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CAT.3 Mask

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CAT. 3 (P.22) Mask: Sagbwe Dan peoples, Cote d'Ivoire Wood, hide with fur. H. 30 cm. AC 830

CAT.4 (P 23) Mask Dan peoples, Chit' d'Ivoire Wood. H. 23.5 cm. AC 846

The Dan are farmers who live in the region of the upper reaches of the Cavally River, spanning the border between Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia. The northern frontier of their territory lies near the Baling River, where the forest gives way to the savanna. The Dan living in Cote d'Ivoire believe that their Supreme Being, Zlan, created a mask creature called Ge in order to protect the community from all kinds of misfortune and ensure its continued existence. The mask is not an ancestral spirit but an independent being in which all human qualities, good and bad, are sublimated. Consequently, the mask may be exceptionally benign or extremely malignant. Ge's protection is only ensured by making the necessary sacrifices and respecting certain rules. As can be seen in the two masks shown on the two previous pages, Ge can be sculpted out of wood in different ways. Cat. 3, page 22 shows an example of the common beaked type, which originates mostly to the Bafing area of the northern Dan and usually has attached monkey fur. This type of mask may have a beautiful, shiny black patina or be covered with red felt. Often the surface bears residue from chewed kola nuts, spat on the mask as sacrificial offerings. The top is often decorated with a tuft of feathers. Green leaves are always added for performances. The performer also wears a suit that completely covers the body, including the hands and feet. The Belgian art historian P.J. Vandenhoute studied Dan masks during a 1938-1939 expedition to Cote d'Ivoire organized by Ghent University and the Antwerp Vleeshuismuseum. He reported that the beak design refers to an unspecified bird that calls out whenever there is a fire (1945). The beak mask is associated with fire in other ways. It belongs to the category of the Sagbwe, which includes the highly sacred masks that appear during the harvest festival, when the risk of fire is great in the northern Dan region due to the hot days and the harmatan, a dry desert wind. After the leader of the Sagbwe masks appears, the other Sagbwe emerge from the forest and an exuberant celebration follows, after which the masks take control of village. The Sagbwe masks are called "fire guards" and also perform other tasks. During the day, they protect the village from attack while the villagers gather the harvest; at night they prevent evil spirits and witches from disturbing the sleep of the villagers. The wearers of these masks must be alert and swift in order to perform these functions. Not all Sagbwe are of the beak type. Many are carved in the "classical" Dan style, which reflects some of the Dan's most important standards of beauty: a regularly shaped face; a slightly arched, high forehead; soft, emphatic cheekbones; a fine nose; and a protruding mouth (Vandenhoute 1948). The eyes are generally slit-shaped or circular. Sagbwe masks in "classical" Dan style usually have circular eyes, but this does not imply that all specimens with circular eyes are sacred Sagbwe masks, which act as "fire guards." Generally, the function of a Dan mask cannot be derived from its design, with the exception of the beaked type, which is always a "fire guard" and thus part of the Sagbwe category of most sacred masks. The mask in cat. 4, page 23 might belong either to the Sagbwe or a less

sacred category. It may have been an ancestral mask, an "avenger," or simply a singing or talking mask. If the function of the mask was not noted on the spot when it was collected, it is impossible to determine solely on the basis of the design. Elze Bruyninx

CAT. 5 Mask:"Johnny Burlado" Fang peoples, Mateo, Rio Muni, Equatorial Guinea Wood, pigment. H. 38 cm. AK 982

The wooden face mask is covered with white earth and has black paint around the eyebrows, the eyes, and the mouth. The forehead is also partially covered with black pigment. The mask, collected by Victor Bandeira in Equatorial Guinea in 1963, was made by Damian Mangue, the grandfather of the seller. It was worn in a dance named acomampe. In Portuguese, the mask is named "Johnny Burlado"(Johnny the cheated or the dupe) and represents a European who is invariably cheated by another mask, named Johnny Cabalerro, who represents a Fang person (Overseas Museum of Ethnologie-Lisbon, 1972: 277). Frank Herreman

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CAT. 6

Caryatide stool Luba peoples, Katanga province, Democratic Republic ofCongo Wood, cloth, shells, glass beads. H. 42.5 cm. AO 062

Luba art speaks on many levels at once. It tells histories, embodies memories, activates powers, and upholds aesthetic, moral, and spiritual values. A Luba royal throne is a tangible document of Luba social history and philosophy. Encapsulated within this single work of art are layers of experience and meaning that can hardly be summarized by words alone. Luba stools are microcosms of the essential precepts and prerogatives of Luba royal history and sacred politics, which were at their height during the 1700s and 1800s in the southeastern regions of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa, but still exist (Roberts and Roberts 1996). The caryatid stool represents ideals of Luba aesthetic achievement, while conforming to a strict set of formal principles that make it an efficacious symbol. According to Luba people with deep knowledge of Luba royal concepts, only a woman's body is strong enough to hold ancestral wisdom and spiritual blessing. The master sculptor of this stool created a receptacle for spiritual embodiment in the same way that butanda initiation rites prepare young Luba women for marriage and motherhood. In both cases, women's bodies must be "beautified" so that they can "work" as spirit vessels (Roberts and Roberts 1996:85-115). Today, middle-aged and elder Luba women in rural Luba areas of the Katanga region firmly uphold the importance of various body modifications, including scarification, extension of the labia, and plaiting and tressing the hair. Although the values concerning body adornment are changing, in earlier generations, a woman was perceived to be unmarriageable without these adornments, which were each considered to have some greater significance than mere physical beauty. In addition to rendering the female body more attractive and erotic, they enabled it to harness the attention and authority of spiritual denizens. The Luba universe is governed first and foremost by bavidye, spirits that dwell in sacred places and preside over human dramas and practices ranging from politics to possession. Women are considered to be the most efficacious spirit mediums for the bavidye spirits, and selected mediums are positioned at sacred sites around the Luba landscape, where they live in a state of ascetic devotion in order to intercede on behalf of humans in need of spiritual council. One notable institution of female spirit mediumship, which rose to power during the precolonial era and continued through colonialism until the 1980s, was the title of Mwadi, bestowed upon the female incarnations of several deceased Luba kings. Possessed by the spirit of a previous male ruler, the Mwadi's role was to perpetuate his memory indefinitely. Upon her own death, she was succeeded by another woman in her lineage. A Mwadi spirit medium who was deemed the legitimate incarnation of a named king was sent to live in his former residence, and acquired his titleholders, insignia, and even his wives. She ruled a symbolic "spirit capital," called kitenta, as though she were the king himself, and the site became a sacred center for pilgrimage and devotion (M. Roberts 2000). The artist of this majestic stool captured the essence of the ideologies surrounding women's connections to the spirit world. He has fashioned this throne not simply as a woman, but as a perfected spirit vessel. He has innovated on nineteenth-century hairstyles to depict one that is more common among eastern Luba neighbors. A long tress of hair shoots down the back with directional velocity to balance the weight of the high rounded forehead, full of wisdom and memory. In addition to the elegantly disposed scarifications on the woman's torso, the edges of the upper and lower platforms also are "scarified" to reinforce the feminization of this royal emblem. The eyes, inlaid with shell, are lost in other-

worldly contemplation, seeing beyond the realm of the living, almost as if refracting moonlight itselfâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the most potent of all symbols of sacred royalty (A. Roberts 1985). A Luba stool then is far more than a symbol. It is an instrument of connection and communication between the world of the living and that of the spirits (Roberts and Saar 2000). A kneeling female figure embodies literal and metaphorical references to the glories of Luba royal experience, which rests on ancestral legacies. Behind the overt authority of every Luba male ruler is the enduring grace of his predecessors, whose deeds and powers are conveyed and channelled through the women that surround him, uphold him, and remember him for posterity. Mary Nooter Roberts

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CAT.7 I OPPOSITE, LEFT

CAT. 8 I OPPOSITE, RIGHT

Headrest

Central and eastern Shona (Zezuru and Manyika)peoples, Zimbabwe and Mozambique

Northeast Shona (Budya and Tavara) and Barwe Tonga peoples, northeast Zimbabwe and central Mozambique

Wood. H. 14.2 cm. AJ 027

Wood. H. 14.2 cm. AA 968

Headrests are among the most widely collected art forms of the peoples of southeastern Africa. This is partly explained by the fact that their compact size suited the curio-seeking tendencies of the European hunters, travelers, missionaries and colonial officials who brought them back from Africa in considerable numbers. Judging from their comparatively high numbers, headrests must have been widely used in this region, whereas figurative sculpture and masks, which collectors have consistently preferred, are rare in this area of Africa. While collectors often noted the utilitarian functions of headrests for sleeping upon and protecting coiffures, they rarely inquired about the other functions that headrests undoubtedly had, including being symbols of status or tools of protection. Today, very few headrests remain in use, fewer are being made, and their primary functions in this part of Africa now revolve around religious usage. Headrests were and still are easily transported by both African users and European collectors. This has often created confusion about the origin of particular styles. Although the headrest in cat. 7, page 29 is of the type often considered quintessentially "Shona," the notion of a monolithic "Shona" identity is a twentieth-century construction of colonial officials and African nationalists (Ranger 1989), and several headrest styles exist among the Shona and their neighbors. This particular style, in fact, was prevalent among the central and eastern Shona-speaking peoples of Zimbabwe and Mozambique: the Zezuru, Ndau, Manyika,and Budya linguistic subdivisions of the Shona,and their northeastern neighbors, the Barwe Tonga speakers(Dewey 1991:160164, 1993:107-8). The distribution of headrest styles appears to have been regional rather than ethnic, since styles cross both ethnic and present-day political boundaries, and styles overlap rather than have clear perimeters. The base and upper platform, or "rest," of this headrest are typical of several Shona headrest styles. The base is oval, or 8-shaped, with gently sloping sides and V-shaped protrusions carved in the middle of front and back;the "rest" is a slightly curved rectangular shape with upturned flat rectangular ends that are ornamented at the terminals with parallel lines, diamonds or zigzags. What is particularly diagnostic of this eastern Shona area is the central support, consisting of two flat X-shaped supports and a rectangular element, filled with geometric motifs—diamonds and zigzags— typical of this style area, flanked by a pair of concentric circle motifs. Within this style, the central rectangular element can be oriented either vertically or horizontally between the Xs. Although artists kept within these general stylistic parameters, it is also in this central part of the headrest that artists expressed their personal inventiveness. Variations often included multiple pairs of circular motifs rather than the single pair seen here. The most common use of such headrests today is as a family heirloom. Personal items, if not buried with the deceased (Magava 1973, Mahachi 1987), are divided among descendants at an inheritance ceremony. Such inherited personal items—often ceremonial knives and axes, snuff containers or headrests—are frequently used as foci through which to direct prayers to the ancestors. One chief, for example, explained to me that when he wanted to pray to the ancestors he would take out his inherited headrest, say, "grandfather, here is your headrest," and then continue with his appeal. The other category of current headrest-users seems to be spirit mediums. I visited one whose possessing ancestral spirit had directed him to retrieve a headrest from the cave/grave where the ancestor had been buried. This headrest was, in part, a symbol that legitimized the user's mediumship. Other spirit mediums (and one chief) told me that they slept on headrests in order to facilitate having dreams through which the ancestors would communicate with them. Anitra Nettleton (1990)also highlighted this function in an article appropriately titled "Dream Machines."

This headrest has the stylistic characteristics of the northeastern Shona peoples(Budya and Tavara) and the neighboring Barwe Tonga. The base and the upper platform share the stylistic characteristics of other Shona headrest styles. These include the oval or 8-shaped base with gently sloping sides and V-shaped protrusions carved in the middle of front and back, and the slightly curved upper rest with the upturned flat rectangular ends ornamented, in this case, with chip-carved diamonds. A feature especially prevalent among the northeastern and eastern Shona speakers and their neighbors to the east is the pair of opposed triangular motifs (each made up of six smaller chip-carved triangles) that appears on the upper surface of the top. The most distinctive stylistic features of the headrests of this area of northeast Zimbabwe and central Mozambique are the rectilinear columns that appear between the base and the upper platform (Dewey 1991:165-167, 1993:108-110). Often only a pair of square columns are present but multiple columns or combinations of round and square columns(as in this example) also occur. While the surfaces of these columns are often ornamented with many motifs seen in other Shona headrest styles, including parallel lines, zigzags, diagonal crosses, and diamonds, the concentric circle motifs (such as in cat. 7, page 29) never appear on the columns of this style. As noted regarding cat. 7, the style exemplified by this headrest is regional rather than ethnic. One of the few Zimbabwean carvers who still made headrests in recent times, Brush Masusa (who died in 1995), lived in an area where this style was prevalent. He carved in both this style and the style seen in cat. 7. His home was in the northern Nyanga region of Zimbabwe, close to the border with Mozambique, where the Hwesa people under Chief Katerere live. This location is not a Shona-speaking area but it lies just to the north of the Manyika, a Shona-speaking group that conquered this area in the late 1700s and early 1800s, and the language of the area is a hybrid (Beach 1980:186) as are many of the art styles of the area. Headrests in this area (as in most Shona areas) are only used by men but their symbolism is decidedly female. The inhabitants of the region anthropomorphize and genderize headrests, but in a very abstract way. The two features making them female are the V-shaped motifs on the base—identified as the female groin—and the chip-carved surface decorations—identified as scarification (nyora), which only women wear. Gender division of roles and occupations (e.g. women are potters and men are blacksmith/carvers) extend to the use of many types of objects and to the genders symbolically ascribed to objects. The Shona do not seem to have the elaborate use of headrests in marriage rituals seen among the Zulu (see Nel 2000), but there are intriguing hints of how such objects functioned in gender interactions among the Shona and their neighbors. When a man slept on a headrest with the chip-carved details on its upper surface, the patterns (such as the triangular motifs on this headrest) could be transferred to his face temporarily. Women, I was told, found it hilarious when men appeared to be adorned with these transferred female scarifications. Another example of these interactions is that in former times a polygynous husband would indicate which of his wives he intended to sleep with by placing his headrest outside her house. As one elderly woman told me, in the typically understated and sometimes veiled prose of the Shona, "If you saw the headrest, you would know you were going to have a guest that night"(Dewey 1993:101). William Dewey

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CAT. 7, 9. 8

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o or)

xesvisreshezieicant

CAT.9 I MIDDLE I". 29

Headrest Lunda or Chokwe peoples, Angola, Zambia, and Democratic Republic ofthe Congo

Wood. H. 12.3 cm. A)036 CAT. 10

Stool Chokwe peoples, Lunda Sulprovince, Angola

Wood. H. 22 cm. AJ 019

The headrest(cat.9, centre, on the previous page) is somewhat of an enigma. Although museum records identify it as being from the Shona people of Mozambique, it does not resemble any Shona headrest style I am familiar with. Because little work was done on identifying African headrest styles until recently (see Dewey 1993, Falgayrettes 1989, Johannesburg Art Gallery 1991), headrests in collections were often mislabeled Shona because the Shona were known to be prolific headrest makers. This headrest was given to the Museu Nacional de Ethnologia in 1963 by the former Portuguese Overseas Agency but no information exists about who collected it, when, and where (pers. com. Rita Sa Marques, 2000). I suspect that the origin of the object in the former Portuguese colonies has been confused, and that it comes from Angola rather than Mozambique. A few similar headrests have been illustrated in catalogs but unfortunately without collection data and probably with ascribed identifications. One illustrated in the Supports de Reyes catalog (Falgayrettes 1989:38), has a similar flat rectangular upper platform, the round or oval base, and double flat support columns of openwork geometric ornamentation, but it is identified as Tabwa. A similar one in the Joss Collection (Dewey 1993:85, fig. 82) is identified as "Ovimbundu?, Angola." In both of those illustrated examples the sides of the double supporting columns are straight rather than scalloped as in the present example. Fortunately, Maes(1929: plate 4 fig. 12) identifies another similar headrest with more field collection data in the collection of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren (then known as the Museum of the Belgian Congo). It is recorded as having been collected by M. Daelman among the Lunda in the area of the town of Dilolo, which is on the border between the Congo and Angola. It has a rectangular base and upper platform and double openwork geometric supports (also with straight sides). Further support for suggesting a Chokwe or Lunda origin comes from comparing the form of this headrest with slightly larger Chokwe stools that also have double support columns of flat openwork screens with geometric ornamentation (such as cat. 10, opposite). Headrest use among the Chokwe is now rare but miniaturized headrests are still used in divination, particularly in the divination method called "shaking the basket,"(ngombo ya chisuka). The basket is filled with a variety of objects, such as plants, seeds, bones, and small carved figurines. A diviner pronounces solutions to clients' problems by shaking the basket and reading from the resulting configuration of its contents. A miniaturized headrest is often included in these baskets; termed "pillow of dreams" it is thought to help the diviner find solutions through dreams (Rodrigues de Areia 1978:40). Manuel Jordan (pers. cam. 1992) reports that Chokwe diviners still include such miniature headrests in their bas-

kets. One diviner stated that the headrests were only for use by chiefs, and that headrests formerly incorporated a piece of human skull as a magical device to empower them. If a sick person is divined for and the headrest came up, he interpreted that it showed that the illness was caused by the fact that the person had inadvertently walked past where a person had been sacrificed as part of the chief's investiture ceremonies. William Dewey

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C•1 Ce)

CAT. 11

Headrest Tsonga and southeast Shona (Ndau and eastern Karanga) peoples, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and South Africa. Collected near Save, Mozambique

Wood. L. 82 cm. AO 331

CAT. 12

Headrest Tsonga and southeast Shona (Ndau and eastern Karanga) peoples, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and South Africa. Collected near Save, Mozambique.

Wood. L. 64.5 cm. A0815

Headrests from the Tsonga-speaking peoples and their neighbors of southern Mozambique, southeastern Zimbabwe, and northeastern South Africa display an incredibly rich array of wonderfully carved forms (Becker 1991). While they have stylistic traits similar to those described for cat. 7 and cat. 8, page 29, such as the slightly curved rectangular upper platform and the 8-shaped base, several distinctive features clearly set this style apart. Unlike the styles to the north this style usually has appendages hanging under the upper platform, such as the rectangular and ring-like ones on these examples. The bases are also commonly quite flat and squared off on the edges. The central support is where the most artistic variation is shown. One common stylistic variation, seen in these examples, has single or double rectilinear pillars decorated with horizontal fluting. This style frequently also has staves, rifles, and other objects incorporated into the design (Dewey 1991:177). Carved rifles may be incorporated like a staff through the headrest (Becker 1991: fig. 63 and Dewey 1997:289), and sometimes these headrest/staves incorporate such utilitarian objects as bowls or snuff containers (Dewey 1993:121). Some headrests have figurative elements, such as heads (Becker 1991: plate 28), but full figures, as in this case, are added rarely. The geographic distribution of this style seems to extend from Shona areas of Zimbabwe, where I have seen examples in the field among the Ndau and Duma (Dewey 1993:118, 1997:211), to Mozambique (where the Maputo Museum of Natural History displays many examples) and perhaps as far south as northeastern South Africa, where some Tsonga/Shangane peoples settled after the 1890s. Ethnicity in this part of Africa is very complicated, with historical migrations, conquests, and colonial pressures making identity a changeable, often negotiated, concept(Becker 1997). Therefore, as with the other Zimbabwe/Mozambique headrest styles, it is preferable to regard these examples as representatives of a regional style rather than ethnic style. Becker (1991:72, citing information from L. Jacques 1949) says that both Tsonga men and women used headrests. Becker (1991:74-75) also notes that headrests became so much a part of the owner that on his death the headrest was, in many instances, buried together with him and other personal items (L. Jacques 1949:340).Yet other circumstances prevailed as well, in some instances the headrest was preserved and kept as mhamba. H. A. Junod, the Swiss missionary who documented the life of the Tsonga and Ronga in the first decades of this century, defines mhamba as "any object or act or even person which is used to establish a bond between the gods and their worshippers"(1962v.2:420). In other words a mhamba is a kind of communicating vehicle through which the ancestor may be contacted. It can function as a presence. In physical form a mhamba could exist in any kind of object, such as snuff boxes and beads and not only headrests. Junod cites a case which explains the use of a headrest asmhamba:"The Thongas (sic) have no sacredotal caste but the right of officiating in religious ceremonies is strictly confined to the eldest brother. .. If, after the death of his parents, their son should happen to

dream of them, he must offer worship to the deceased by pouring some ground tobacco on to his wooden pillow, this being the commencement of his religious functions"(1962:v.2:411). The rifle imagery incorporated into the headrest in cat. 12, page 32 undoubtedly related to local notions of status and power. Although guns were probably first introduced into the area by the Portuguese in the 1600s, firearm imagery appears to be incorporated into art forms only in the 1800s, when trade with Europeans became much more common. Local peoples often transformed European weapons by embellishing them with copper or brass wirework (Dewey 1997:289). Carved wooden spoons (Johannesburg Art Gallery 1991: plate 11), headrests, and even ceremonial knives all are known to have incorporated rifle imagery. The most recent example of such ceremonial knives have sheaths carved in the shape of an AK-47 to honor the guerillas who died in Zimbabwe's War of Liberation during the 1970s(Dewey 1994). The purpose of the headrest with the figurative pair attached to the end of the staff is unknown. As Klopper (1991), Nettleton (1988, 1991) and Van Wyk (1994) have pointed out, much confusion exists about who made and used figurative sculpture in this area. Some figures were used in initiations as didactic devices, some were incorporated into staves and used as emblems of status and power, and others began being sold to Europeans as curios in the early 1900s. How the figures on this headrest were used is unknown. William Dewey

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The Kongo Peoples'

The Kikongo-speaking peoples, the Bakongo, whose homelands lie on either WYATT MACGAFFEY

side of the lower reaches of the Congo River, have produced one of the most distinguished bodies of African art. The river itself was named for the capital of a large and well-organized kingdom, whose capital, Mbanza Kongo,located in what is now northern Angola, was first visited by Europeans at the end of the 1400s. The visitors were Portuguese sailors and missionaries, who introduced Christianity to Kongo. The conversion of the kingdom,consolidated under the great king Afonso I (reigned 1506-1545), opened the way for a steady stream of visitors whose reports, extending over 400 years, created a historical record unique in sub-Saharan Africa. The Bakongo, however, have never been subject to a single authority. The Kongo Kingdom itself extended no further north than the Congo River. The independent kingdoms of Ngoyo, Kakongo, and Loango controlled the coast from the mouth of the Congo northward toward modern Gabon. Inland, the Kongo communities were generally small, linked to each other by ties of kinship, ritual affiliation, and trade. Before the Portuguese arrived, the Bakongo exchanged forest products from the north for those of the Angolan savanna, but European nations, who came to include the Dutch, English and French, introduced their own manufacturesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;cloth, clothing, weapons, and alcoholâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in exchange for copper, ivory, and slaves. The reorganization of trade toward the Atlantic seaboard and the vast new market for slaves in the Americas generated profound political changes. Though the Kongo Kingdom was virtually destroyed by Portuguese forces in 1665, it persisted into the twentieth century as both an important local center and as a city celebrated in myth and legend. Christianity, too, declined to little more than a memory by the end of the 1800s. The Atlantic slave trade was officially forbidden by the British in 1817, but it continued on the Kongo coast until 1863, and even then persisted clandestinely. In 1885, when European colonial powers divided Africa among themselves, the Bakongo found themselves distributed among the French colony of Moyen

CAT. 27

Power figure: Nkisi Yombe peoples, Angola Wood, string, leather and hide, woven mat, mirror, shells, nails, pigment, power substances. H. 33 cm. AL 059

Congo (which at independence in 1960 became the Republic of Congo,with its capital at Brazzaville), Belgian Congo (which became the Democratic Republic of Congo, with its capital at Kinshasa), and the Portuguese colony of Angola, which became independent only in 1975. The territory of Angola included the enclave of Cabinda, on the coast between the two Congo republics.

Colonial rule reintroduced Christianity to the Bakongo. At first, forced labor took the place of slavery, but eventually the several populations were introduced to elementary education, wage labor, and taxation. The institutions that had generated Kongo art were suppressed and the objects themselves destroyed in large numbers or seized as trophies for European ethnographic collections. The colonial authorities created "tribal" identities for the various groups they controlled, who learned to think of themselves as competitors in the emergent political systems of their respective countries. Meanwhile, the millions of enslaved Kikongo speakers and their cultural relatives from Central Africa who had been transported across the Atlantic preserved many of their ancestral skills, arts, and beliefs, including their own understanding of Christianity. The extent and richness of this Kongo tradition in the Americas, from Peru to New England, is only now beginning to be explored adequately. Kongo culture was, and is, neither internally homogeneous nor sharply different from that of neighboring peoples. The ethnic unity implied by the term Bakongo is a product of colonial rule and of ethnography, which together imposed "tribal" classifications on subjugated peoples. Similarly, the internal cultural variations among modern Kikongo speakers are partially functions of the colonial policies variously practiced by the French, Belgian, and Portuguese authorities. Geography also plays a role, however. The northern areas are generally more heavily forested than the southern regions, and coastal areas were more directly implicated in the Atlantic trade than the interior. Perhaps the most important single geographic factor affecting the differentiation of groups is transportation. The Congo River divides Kongo territory roughly from east to west, but its course to the sea from Kinshasa and Brazzaville (which mark the eastern limit of Kongo habitation) is so interrupted by cataracts that the river becomes more a barrier to be crossed than a transport channel. Therefore, during the 1700s and 1800s the immense volume of trade between the coast and the interior was carried on the heads of Kongo porters. The main portage routes ran through the Angolan savanna and the Niari River valley in the north, rather than through the forested mountains of the central region. In the twentieth century, colonial authorities within the new boundaries introduced new forms and networks of transportation, which controlled the movements of goods, people, and ideas. Scholarship about the Kikongo-speaking peoples varies, once again, as a function of colonial histories. In the south, although the history of the Kongo Kingdom has been thoroughly investigated, the modern ethnography of this Angolan region, including its arts, is sparse. The Bakongo of the former French colony are better documented,and those of the former Belgian Congo much more so. Art connoisseurs and collectors have imposed their own categories on the ethnographic map, seeking to identify the formal characteristics of distinct styles with the "subtribes" that supposedly produced them. Recent scholarship has abandoned this approach to African art in favor ofidentifying "ateliers," or 36 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

workshops. Nevertheless it is useful to retain the following regional names: the Bavili, who constituted a trading network on the coast from Loango to Angola; the Bayombe, inhabitants of dense and mountainous forests inland from the coast; the Bawoyo, inhabitants of the former kingdom of Ngoyo, on the coast north of the Congo estuary; the Solongo, inhabitants of northwestern Angola, formerly a quasi-independent province of the Kongo Kingdom; Sundi (or Nsundi) and Bwende, found inland from Mayombe in the former Belgian Congo; and Bembe and Lan,in the former French Congo, west of Brazzaville. Little is known of the arts of the former Kongo Kingdom, except for the royal insignia, which themselves soon came to include items of European manufacture, the gifts of ambassadors. It is known that visitors admired mats and cloths of finely woven palm fibers and objects of carved wood and ivory, some of which they took home,where they have been preserved in European collections since the 1600s. Most collecting occured between 1850 and 1920, a period of intensifying European interest in Africa when ethnographic museums were established in many European cities to display the trophies of exploration and conquest. Although collectors prefered sculpted objects, especially figures, none of the material from this region of Africa was collected as artâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and very little of it was regarded as such until the 1960s. Moreover, the collectors, uninterested in the significance of the objects to their users, rarely troubled to record the indigenous names, locations or uses of what they took away; the missing information cannot be recovered. Most of the objects now regarded as Kongo art were made for use in ritual or ceremonial contexts. Partly because of the historical importance of the Kongo Kingdom and partly because of the romantic appeal of royalty, attention tends to focus on chiefs and their insignia. By the time that most collecting began, however, the Kongo king had been reduced to a mere chief among chiefs. Furthermore, the chiefs themselves generally had been overshadowed by ritual complexes called minkisi, which dominated political and economic processes everywhere. In Kongo thought, an nkisi (pl. minkisi) was a personalized force from the invisible land of the dead that had chosen, or been induced, to submit itself to a degree of human control effected through ritual performances. The trained expert who conducted the ritual was the nganga (operator or priest; pl. banganga) of the nkisi. The ritual could be more or less elaborate, take anywhere from a few minutes to many years to complete, and require the participation of any number of persons,from a single individual to an entire village or more. It usually included songs, dances, behavioral restrictions, special enclosures and prepared spaces, and a material apparatus, all more or less prescribed. The material apparatus included musical instruments, the bodies of the nganga and his patients or clients, articles of costume, accumulations of medicines, and, finally, a focal object, a composite that was the nkisi itself in the narrow sense as the locus of the empowering force. Little of these minkisi complexes survived the process of collection, which often included the proscription of the rituals and the destruction of the objects. The pieces most likely to be saved were those which the destroyers 37 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

(usually missionaries or political officers) thought visually striking; figures were more likely to survive than gourds, cloth bags or clay pots, no matter that such forms might have been equally important in the eyes of their Kongo owners. Moreover, the minkisi now in museums and collections have lost much of their original appearance, due to the ravages of time, accidents of transportation and storage, and due to collectors having stripped the figures of accessories they found distasteful. The introduction to a recent exhibition of Kongo objects comments that they emanate "such a force that it is unusual to find, in private collections or museums, one that has not had its power reined in, or even annihilated. By stripping off all or part of their components, their owners, and sometimes conservators, attempted to banish their own anxiety in the face of the manifest activism of these sculptures"(my translation) (Fondation Dapper 1989-9). According to Kongo belief, if an nkisi should lose any of its parts, if the restrictions it imposes on the conduct of those associated with it are ignored, or if its nganga dies, the nkisi loses its power, ceases to be an nkisi, and reverts to the status of a mere object In their new career as works of art, however, minkisi have acquired new power to impress spectators. Other types of African art, ofcalmer appearance, began to be accepted as "art" by the museum-going public in the 1950s, but works as visually disturbing as are many minkisi were not accepted before the 1960s. Factors contributing to their acceptance included the political independence of African nations, the civil rights movement in the United States, and the challenge to conventional art thinking brought by the various "anti-art" movements. Kongo art, with certain exceptions, is not representational; for its makers and users, meaning depended not only on the ritual context of use but also on cosmological assumptions, on explanatory theories offortune and misfortune, and, above all, on the Kikongo language. In these works, the relation between word and image is much more intimate than, say, that between a portrait and the label or title attached to it. Each element in a complex nkisi-figure is intended to evoke one or more linguistic associations, including metaphors and puns, which together can be "read" as a text describing its particular powers and purposes. In the course of composing the nkisi, the nganga chanted the name of each element and its significance. Unfortunately, those voices are now silent; nor would it ever have been possible to construct a dictionary of meanings, because much of the magic of minkisi lay in the subtleties of creative variation. Much of the standard vocabulary is known, but in the end what counts, and what surely was uppermost in the mind of the makers, is the visual impact.

Church and state During its long history the Kongo Kingdom was much battered by its association with European powers, particularly the Portuguese. It also relied, however, on its identity as a Catholic realm, which entitled it to a degree of attention and support from the Portuguese and from Catholic missions, especially when English and Dutch Protestants challenged Portuguese mercantile interests during the 1700s and 1800s. This tangled relationship is reflected in art38 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT.15 Staff Ndembu peoples, northern Bengo province, Angola Wood, brass, iron. H. 127.5 cm. Al 232

beautifully so in the two ivory finials which show a priest at prayer (cat. 13) and a seated chief holding ajug of palmwine and a mug (cat. 14). The chief's chair is of European style, and he appears to be wearing a European suit.

CAT. 13,14 Figural finials Kongo peoples, Zaire province, Angola Ivory. H.8.5 cm., 11.5 cm. AM 722, AM 723

More traditional marks of chiefship are the staff (cat. 15) and the bonnet ornamented with leopard claws (cat. 16, page 40). The usual Kikongo word for "bonnet," mini, comes from the Portuguese word for hat, but similar headgear was worn by Kongo kings in the 1400s. Mfru came to mean not only the bonnet but the chiefship itself, thought of as a specific force not unlike that which empowered a nkisi. By virtue of his initiation as the representative of this force, the chief became a "leopard." Fine, patterned weaving such as this (probably in pineapple fiber) was much admired by Europeans from an early date. Though metal ornaments on staffs are common,the ornate copper sheathing on this example is unusual; copper was one of Kongo's major exports before the arrival of the Portuguese, and remained so for centuries. Sets of ivory trumpets similar to that in cat. 17 announced the comings and goings ofchiefs and accompanied important funerals. 39 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

40 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT.17

Trumpet Km,go peopks, Zaire province, Angola Ivory. L. 62 cm. AM 139

Crucifixes were, as elsewhere, an important feature of Catholic devotion. The Kongo made their own following European models,but gaveJesus African features and also often included indigenous devotional elements. Crucifixes

CAT.18

Crucifix Kongo peoples, Zaire province, Angola Wood, bronze, metal wire. H.44.6 cm. AK 817

took on specifically Kongo functions as a consequence of the link between the Church and the king. Afonso instituted the Order of Christ, an association of chiefs and governors who were entitled to wear, as signs of their membership, crosses ofvarious kinds that authorized them to collect taxes and control trade. Membership was a form of initiation into specific and extraordinary powers, mediated by the crosses, which were thus regarded as much more than mere signs. By the 1800s, in areas beyond the influence of the crown, crucifixes with attached medicines came to be used as minkisi for hunting luck. These fine examples,cats. 18 to 20, pages 41-42 are cast in bronze.The rectangular halo seen in cat. 19, page 42 may represent the soul according to

CAT. 16

Kongolese notions.

Bonnet: Mint Kongo peoples, Zaire province, Angola Woven banana fiber, leopard claws. H. 33 cm. AO 168

41 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT. 19 Crucifix Kongo peoples, Zaire province, Angola Wood, bronze. H. 26 cm. D 4.1

CAT. 20 Crucifix Kongo peoples(Woyo?), S. Salvador, Zaire province, Angela Wood, bronze, metal wire. H. 38.5 cm. AA 996

CAT.21 - 23

Figurines Pinda people-s, Porto Amboim, Cuanza Sul province, Angola Stained ivory. H.12.2 cm., 8.8 cm,9.4 cm. AX 669, AX 671, AX 670

Minkisi, specialized powers In Kongo thought, unusual powers and abilities are derived from traffic with the land of the dead. Spirits, differentiated as being relatively selfish or relatively beneficial to the community, offer different kinds of power to the living through rituals of initiation. The distinctions between spirits are political rather than objective,intimately related to the competitive struggles ofindividuals and groups. The powers seen as most selfish are those of witches, who are believed to "eat" the substance of their neighbors. Because communal interests were defended against witchcraft by initiated chiefs, when colonial rule abolished chiefs the people felt vulnerable. Minkisi, each operated by its qualified nganga, occupied an ambiguous position. Though they were intended to help solve the problems of people afflicted with illnesses or misfortunes attributed to the envy and greed of witches, minkisi were themselves likely to be regarded by competitors as self-seeking devices akin to witchcraft. Nonetheless, chiefs generally strengthened their positions by acquiring minkisi of chiefship. Minkisi took many forms, although their basic structure was to render 43 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

forces accessible to manipulation by incorporation in a container. A grave containing an ancestor to whom one may pray is a container in the same sense; so is the body of a witch, who has acquired a harmful power, called kundu, that decent people do not have. A nkisi was revealed by the empowering spirit to the nganga who first composed it, and who was instructed in its use and able to instruct his successors by initiation. Composition took the form of adding "medicines" to the container, consisting of a wooden figure, a clay pot, an animal horn, a bag, or some combination of these. The medicines consisted ofnatural materials chosen either because they visually represented the attributes to be embodied in the particular nkisiâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a vulture feather, for example, indicated the ability to attack witchesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or because the name ofthe item suggested such an attribute by a kind of pun. A nut called nkiduku, for example, was often included so that the nkisi's beneficiary could be kidukwa,"protected." The three little ivory figures, cats. 21 to 23, pages 43, patinated by multiple applications of red powder to increase their effectiveness, were seized from an nganga by Portuguese authorities in 1948. They were part of his ritual equipment, but no one now knows what they were for. The largest, wearing a woman's elaborate hairstyle, carries in it two CAT. 24

human teeth. Another female figure (cat. 24), also covered in red, wears her hair in a different style; the filed teeth were considered beautiful. The animating medi-

Power figure: Nkisi Woyo peoples, Cabinda, Angola Wood, mirror, pigment, encrustation. H. 19 cm. AL 054

cines are contained in a pack on the belly. From the appearance ofthe figure it can be assumed that this nkisi favored pregnancy and childbirth. A masculine figure, cat. 29, p. 48, also covered in red, has the medicine pack fronted by a mirror, which the nganga employed to gauge whether witchcraft threatened and from which direction it might come. These minkisi are relatively simple in composition, because they have lost many of their attributes or were never regarded as very important. The object in cat. 25, page 45 is more complex, and its functions are more readily readable. The mirror is obscured by a patina ofsacrificial offerings, but this would not interfere with the detection ofwitches. The figure wears a collar of medicines to which are attached "night-guns" for shooting witches, each weapon itself a miniature nkisi. The raised right hand,which once held a knife, confirms the impression that this is an aggressive nkisi that was invoked to wreak violence on the unknown witch suspected of harming the nganga's client. The style is characteristic of Ngoyo.

44 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT. 25

Power figure: Nkisi Yombe peoples, Zaire province, Angola Wood,cloth, fiber string, mirror, earth, pigment, organic substances. H.24.5 cm. AL 060

co Tr

CAT. 28

Power figure: Nkisi Kongo peoples, Cabinda (?), Angola Wood, cloth, iron, beads, mirror, pigment. H. 18 cm. AB 043

CAT. 26 I OPPOSITE

Power figure: Nkisi Yombe peoples, Zaire province, Angola Wood, cloth, string, leather, pigment, power substances. H. 28 cm. AL 050

The objects in cats. 26 and 27, pages 46 and 34 are also from Ngoyo and may be examples of the same nkisi; both are unusually endowed with a dense texture of significant attributes which deliberately intensify the visual interest of the sculptural form. Though anyone seeing one of these figures in a ritual context could not know in detail what the attributes meant, he or she would be impressed by the sense that complex powers were mobilized in it. One figure cat. 26, page 46, has lost the mirror and

the

medicines packed

behind it, but other medicines are probably contained in the head, the neck ring, and elsewhere. The rags are probably all tokens from the garments of clients who entrusted particular missions to the nkisi. The other figure, cat. 27, page 34, with its mirror still in place, is nested in strips of animal skins. In contrast to this familiar type, the figure kneeling with a strange expression on its face (cat. 28, page 47) is almost unreadable, yet another example of the endless variety of minkisi. The pose and the fact that one side is painted white, the other red, suggest that the medicines on the back, head, and belly were intended to procure benefits. The curious iron object stuck in the chest is unique and mysterious. The two figures fenced in the bottom of the bloodred ship (cat. 30, page 49), probably a man and a woman, may have been inspired by the slave trade. This nkisi, also unique, is called kumbi lipanycr, the meaning of the second word is obscure, but "kumbin means a European ship. This nkisi, which came from 48 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT. 29

Power figure: Nkisi(Umbuhumba) Woyo peoples, Cabinda, Angola Wood,glass, pigment, encrustation. H. 20 cm. AL 048

CAT. 30

Power figure: Nkisi(Kumbi Lipanya) Myr,peoples, Cabinda, Angola Wood,fiber string, nails, mirror, pigment. H. 27.5 cm. AO 253

CAT. 31

Power figure: Nkisi Vtioyo peoples, Cabinda, Angola Wood, pigment. H. 20 cm. AL 056

xesvisreshezieicant

Cabinda, had the reputation of being extremely dangerous. Thejourney across the Atlantic was, and is, regarded as a transfer to the land of the dead. Some minkisi, like the Order of Christ, took the form of associations of persons with special functions or social status. The figure of a man and his two wives (cat. 31, page 49) is probably part of the ritual equipment of an initiate in the Lemba association, which recruited rich traders in northern regions of Kongo. The white color indicates that the piece helped to procure the benefits of peace and prosperity. The medicine packs are missing. The pattern of the decorative carving on the base is common in woven materials. In Ngoyo, the authority of the chiefs was supported by a masked association called Kindunga, itself a kind of nkisi, which still exists. The members are considered to be "wives" of the tutelary spirit of the chief's domain,the nkisi nsi. The mask is simply the face-piece of a costume of leaves that entirely covered the body of the masker. On this example (cat. 32, page 50) we see the ritual colors of red, white, and black, which are purely decorative in this case. Each masquerade has a name which is revealed not by the wooden mask itself but by some other object which is part of the costume; the name refers to a proverb that conveys a moral message. The masks appear in groups to dance at important funerals and other occasions of potential disorder, serving as a kind of police force.

Potlids2 Proverbs are important in Kongo village life, and recur in a number of contexts. Eloquence is admired; the skilled speaker can deploy just the right proverb to offer a compliment, to appeal to principle or to clinch an argument. The Bawoyo of the coast embodied proverbs in the carved lids, called matampa, that covered the clay pots in which food is cooked and served. A wife, or sometimes a husband,could silently convey a message by covering a pot with an appropriate lid. Carved lids were also valued as works of art, and thus were so expensive that a household might own only one or two, although others could be borrowed if necessary. A lid usually carried a principal symbol, with supplementary figures added; the most complicated lids could evoke not one but a cluster of proverbs. Four of the supplementary figures (two different seeds and two different sea shells) occur again and again; together they signify the principles of good conduct that lead to peace and prosperity. Like spoken proverbs, lids could be interpreted in a variety of ways, depending on the context and the skill of the interpreter. Entirely contrary meanings could be extracted from the same proverb in different contexts. Although the figure of a man in a boat (cat. 33, page 52) carries an unknowable message, one can identify the sun and the moon, the spiral shell that advocates patience, and beside it the seed known as kyala mooko, "outCAT. 32 Mask: Buko Chigundungo Viii peoples (?), Cabinda, Angola Wood, pigment, cloth, fiber, fur, brass nails. H. 26 cm. AL 075

stretched hands," which recommends willingness to receive advice. One lid (cat. 34, page 52) shows a woman caught in the coils of a snake that is swallowing her headfirst. The related proverb, "A python swallowed someone, but we only heard about it," means that one should mistrust rumors of

CAT. 33 I ABOVE ON LEFT

CAT. 36

CAT. 35 I ABOVE

Potlid War related peoples, Cabinda, Angola Wood. Diam. 18 cm. AE 268

Potlid Woyo peoples, Cabinda, Angola Wood. Diam. 24 cm. BA 346

Potlid Woyo related peoples, Cabinda, Angola Wood. Diam. 28.8 cm. AE 265

CAT. 34 I ABOVE ON RIGHT

CAT. 37

Potlid Woyo peoples, Cabinda, Angola Wood. Diam. 24 cm. AE 221

Potlid Woyo peoples, Cabinda, Angola Wood. Diam. 20.3 cm. AE 270

events which one has not seen for oneself. A woman might give this lid to her husband when she has noticed a change in his attitude towards her and suspects that he has been hearing ill of her. The two circles represent a kind ofseed that refers to the reconciliation of disputes. Another lid (cat. 35, page 52) appears to represent a whole household, the wives offering food and water to the persons seated on a mat, but its corresponding proverb is unknown. Nor do we know what proverb goes with the lid that shows a leopard attacking a prostrate woman (cat. 36, page 52), but the lid clearly invokes the powers of a chief because chiefs were closely associated with leopards, the most beautiful and

dangerous of animals.

Supporting the central figure are some conventional signs of chiefly dignityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the chief's ornate wooden sword (kipaba), a gun, a set of ivory trumpets (cat. 17, page 41), and a set of drums (which invoke the proverb,"When you hear [the chief's] drums, you know there's trouble").

Funerary figures Graves are of special importance to the Bakongo notjust as resting places for the dead but as points of contact with them, since the "dead" are considered CAT. 38

to be continuing their lives in a parallel world called Mpemba, which is also a name for a cemetery and for white kaolin clay, white

Half figure: Ntadi Solcmgo peoples, Nevi, Zaire province, Angola Steatite (soapstone). H.26 cm. AN 086

being the color of the dead. White clay, or chalk,is used in ritual to signify also the virtues ofinnocence, benevolence,and clairvoyance. It contrasts with black (associated with sex, witchcraft, and organic processes) and red, which marks such dangerous states of transition as birth and death. At the graveside one may pray to one's ancestors for help and guidance, or beg forgiveness for some offense which has annoyed them. Formerly, chiefs were inaugurated in the cemetery of the chiefs; it was said that the burial of a chief in this world was simultaneously his inauguration as a chief in the other world. At ordinary burials,some of the deceased's belongings are placed on his grave lest he miss them and bother the living by returning to look for them. When a family's resources permit,it is considered honorable to build a memorial in cement,sometimes an elaborate construction carrying motifs related to the deceased or the family. During the 1800s the Bakongo on either side of the Congo River estuary began to carve figures in the soft local soapstone, using techniques and often models derived from the much older tradition ofsculpture in wood.The stone art had died out by 1930; both scholars and local informants debate the uses to 53 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

which the figures were put. They are always found on graves, and may well have been made to commemorate the deceased or some interest of his or hers.They were probably called ntadi, a word that comes from tadi, "stone," but may also refer to tala, "to look at," implying that the figures were witnesses in this world for the deceased in the other. Some,however,were used as minkisi, when "medicines" had been added to them;some were apparently made as "luxury goods" and bought as such by inland chiefs, who took them home from successful trading expeditions to the coast. Favorite ntadi themes include a figure with hands clasped as though in prayer; the chief wearing his cap decorated with leopard claws and leaning his chin on his hand in the pose called kyadi,"sorrow"(cat. 38, page 53 is an example of this theme, though the right arm and the claws on the cap have been broken off); and a mother-and-child theme. In Kongo iconology, a female carries a child to show that she is married, but in some cases it is likely that the figure refers to the matrilineage. Some soapstone figures strongly resemble smaller figures in wood and ivory, called pfemba (cat. 39, page 55), which were used in connection with a women's maternity cult on the Loango coast. Other stone figures probably embody proverbs. A clay pot, or urn (cat. 40, page 56), known to have been recovered from a grave, carries female sexual characteristics and may have commemorated a particular woman. One can only guess at the significance of this piece or of that shown in cat. 41, page 57, which has a similar provenance. On the northern bank of the Congo estuary, distinct workshops have been identified by the similarities in style ofthe products. The source ofthe figure in cat. 38, page 53 is readily identifiable by the treatment of the mouth and ears, while the object in cat. 42, page 57 comes from a different workshop noted for the monumentality of its pieces, despite their small size; this one shows traces of red paint. These particular objects were traded to the south bank, where at least one workshop produced low-relief sculptures, probably influenced by European models but showing once again the familiar mother-and-child theme (cat. 43, page 58). The raised hand and the sun and possible moon seen in cat. 44, page 58 remain enigmatic. The mat (cat. 45, page 59),from southern Kongo, carries a figure which may be merely ornamental in this instance but which recurs in contexts associated with death. The figure, dividing the human body into three rectangles, reappears elsewhere as a representation of a lizard, which has symbolic importance. According to a widely known folktale, at death a man's soul is transformed into a lizard, and a female's into a frog; the corresponding designs appear on some old tombstones.

CAT.39

These notes owe much to Marie-Louise Bastin's catalogue, Sculpture angolaise(Lisbon, Museu Nacional de Etnologia, 1994). The information in this section is principally derived from J. Cornet, "Pictographies Woyo," Quademi Poro 2(Milan, 1980).

54 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

Maternity figure Yombe peoples, Cabinda, Angola Wood. H. 25 cm. AO 907

.ieuiiiiti

56 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT. 41

Lion figure Ambaquista peoples, Ndalantando, Cuanza Norte province, Angola

Terracotta. H. 32cm. AM 702

CAT. 42

Figure: Ntadi Solongo peoples, Noqui, Zaire province, Angola

Steatite (soapstone), pigment. H. 28.5 cm. AN 091

CAT. 48

Urn Ambaquista peoples, N'dalantando, Cuanza Norte province, Angola

Terracotta. H. 30.5 cm. AM 939

57 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT. 43

CAT. 44

Funerary stele

Solongo peoples, N'zeto, Zaire province, Angola

Solongo(?) peoples, N'zeto, Zaire province, Angola

Steatite (soapstone). H. 77 cm. AY 082

Steatite (soapstone). H.90 cm. AJ 612

CAT. 45

Mat: Chikanga Southern Kongo peoples, Cachala, Zaire province, Angola

Woven natural fiber, pigment. 140 x 75 cm. AB 504

58 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

...

... -.

................. ..... .............;-..............

X•121:110:1120116114C

The Initiation Arts of the Zombo, Nkanu, Yaka, and Suku Peoples Introduction ANNEMIEKE VAN DAMME

The Zombo,Nkanu,Yaka' and Suku live close to each other on the savanna mountain plateaus of southwestern Congo and northeastern Angola. Their territories are wedged between the Inkisi River (in the west) and the Kwenge River (in the east) and are crossed by many smaller and larger rivers. Today, their livelihood vests in agriculture, mainly the growing of manioc. They add variety to their menus through such seasonal activities as hunting,fishing, and gathering food in the wild. Until recently, the Yaka's primary economic activity was hunting, and the Zombo participated in the slave trade, for which they were denounced by neighboring peoples. Like nearly all the Kongo peoples, these Kikongo speakers claim to hail from the center of the historical Kongo Empire.2 They took over their present territories from the Mbakas and the Nsamba, in some cases after centuries of migration, and were influenced by the existing culture of the Nsamba in important ways.

Nsamba and Besi-Kongo The Nsamba were a proto-Bantu agrarian people who migrated,in consecutive waves from 500 BC onwards,from the border region between Nigeria and Cameroon into the savanna south of the Congo River. They settled in scattered small, clan-based communities. Their leaders, called kitome (sing.bitome), were both secular and religious chiefs, and regarded as proprietors of the land.* When another group of Bantu-speakers, known in the literature as the Besi Kongo,founded the Kongo Empire within Nsamba territory during the 1300s,5 they were forced to acknowledge the Nsamba as the proprietors of the land and therefore their religious superiors. As a result, an Nsamba ruling clan named Kinsaku gained an influential position in the government of the newly created empire. Titles synonymous with kitome, such as kalunga and kalamba, still exist among several peoples, including the Yaka, Holo, and Chokwe. Today, the title of kalamba still indicates a religious function connected with CAT.48

Post: Kea di Kakungu Yaka peoples, Uige province, Angola Wood, animal skin, raffia, feathers, fiber, pigment. H.80 cm. AM 880

the original ownership of the land. The presence of the Nsamba also can be linked to a number of innovations in the region, including palm cultivation, raffia weaving,iron smelting, ceramics, rock art, tattooing, and wood sculpture. Two archaeological finds of wood sculptures can be connected to this ancient Nsamba culture on the basis of 61 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

their sites and ages. One is a cephalic pole found by Desmond Clark during digs on the banks of the Kwango; the other is a wooden animal head unearthed in southern Angola, near the source of the Kwanza. According to the dating methods used, the wood sculptures were made during the iron age (first millennium AD)(Gillon 1984:21,302).

Yaka and Luwa A milestone in the history of the Kongo Empire was the attack on the capital San Salvador in the latter half of the 1500s6 by the Yaga, a group of warrior herdsmen who are now thought to have been the ancestors of the present Yaka population. The Yaga,repelled by an army oflocal recruits and Portuguese soldiers, splitâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;some headed north, others crossed the Kwango River eastward, and a third group fled south. The fragmentation and eventual collapse of the Kongo Empire, which occurred between 1666 and 1678, resulted from several factors, including this battle, the subsequent continual threat of the Yaga on the eastern border of the empire, electoral quarrels, the internal strife between the Besi Kongo and the Nsamba,and the intrigues of the Portuguese. With the creation of the Lunda Empire (around 1600) on the right bank of the Kwango, a new dominating factor appeared that would drastically change the culture of several peoples. Lunda rulers, hungry for expansion, subjected and assimilated Yaka groups, creating the Luwa population. Despite the fact that they were a minority, the Luwa managed to dominate other groups through far-reaching interventions in the political and social life of the vanquished, by enlarging their clans with slaves, and by replacing the pre-existing matrilineal hereditary succession with a patrilineage. They thus gained control over the area from the Kwilu River in the east to beyond the Kwango in the west. At the end of the 1800s, the peoples on the left bank of the Kwango were under Luwa rule'for a period, while the Suku were driven by the Luwa from their ancient home near the Kwango River (in the Nganga Valley) and split up in southern and northeastern directions. This historical sketch helps explain the cultural parallels among these peoples. While the impact of the Luwa is mainly noticeable in the Yaka culture, it is the influence of the Nsamba and Kongo that is more relevant to the art discussed in this essay.

Religion Though it is often claimed that the Zombo, Nkanu,Yaka, and Suku have a monotheistic religion, it seems more correct to say that their supreme deity, Nzambi Mpungu, was positioned at the apex of the original Kongo religious hierarchy. They have a pantheon populated by the spirits of their own ancestors (bakulu), by spirits of the original peoples (bankita, bisimbi, matebo), and by impersonal forces (minkist). Within every community natural healers, diviners and sorcerers use sculpted or other objects of power to manipulate metaphysical powers. Through individual or collective rituals they can sustain or restore the health oftheir fel62 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

low humans. One example ofsuch a ritual is the nkanda,s a regularly organized puberty ritual that focuses on the male population. (I prefer to use the term nkanda here, as well as for the circumcision and puberty ritual of the eastern Kongo peoples, for which the ethnographic literature, following Van Wing (1920, 1921), as a rule uses the term (nzo) longo. As Nkanu informants told me, the longo was the ancestral circumcision ceremony, which was accompanied by a brief ritual. The institution of the nkanda was spread by the Luwa.) Participation in this rite of passage is compulsory for every adolescent boy because it prepares him physically and mentally for the task that awaits him as an adult within the community.

Nkanda Initiation As a result of westernization, the spread of new ideologies, and the activities of missionaries and religious sects, the nkanda rituals are only sporadically organized today, sometimes in a shorter form (known either as nkanda mahodi or nkanda mu gala).9 The nkanda participants are called bikumbi (Nkanu), tundansi (Yaka), or kandansi(Suku). They are gathered in a secluded and enclosed place (kimpasi) in the forest. Circumcision precedes the nkanda. The circumcision and healing period are regarded as ensuring the procreative powers of the coming generation of young adults. Among the Yaka, the circumciser (nganga nsiabula or nganga itapa) performs the operation at a post that stands on the path that connects the initiation site with the village. The post is called Kakungu (derived from nka Kungu, meaning "Lord Kungu". Among the Nkanu the circumciser (nganga kitapa) performs the circumcision at the entrance of the enclosure (kimpasi), which is guarded by a pair of statues. The newly circumcised boys are given a new name.The boy who is selected on the basis ofseniority or status to present himself first is called Kiala among the Nkanu, or Kapita among the Yaka and Suku. The most prominent and often also the oldest of the initiates is named Mbala, and is cut last. The other initiates are renamed in any order. After the circumcision the boys are taken to the initiation area where the nganga (k)isidika (nganga means "healer" or "specialist;" the verb kusidika means "to protect") have set up the necessary defenses against attacks from evildoers. One or more post-menopausal women,"who no longer bring children into the world" and therefore cannotjeopardize their own fertility or that of the neophytes, are responsible for supplying food to the initiates. After the initiates' wounds have healed, the initiation begins. It includes the teaching of certain manual skills, parables, songs and dances, and a kind of esoteric vocabulary, as well as initiation into the ethics and beliefs of the people. Older initiated men (bilombosi (Nkanu), tolumbusi (Yaka)) educate, supervise, and dictate the rules of life within the kimpasi. Towards the end of the nkanda ritual, a carver (nganga luvumbu (Nkanu), nkalaweni (Yaka, Suku)) makes the power figures. The closing ceremonies take place in three phases. First, the feathered 63 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

mask leads the way out of the kimpasi (fig. 1). This mask is known among the Zombo and Nkanu as Nkoso,among the Yaka and Suku as Mwelu, and among the Angolan Nkanu and Yaka as Kamatzala. Then a masked performance is held in the village and a dance tour to collect money to pay the nkanda-specialists. Finally, the closing ritual is performed at the camp: it is burned along with the power figures used in the ceremony. Among the eastern Kongo peoples (the Nkanu and Zombo),'째 a hut with three walls (kikaku) is built at a busy crossroads between the kimpasi and the village, during the first stage ofthe closing ceremonies,which is called kuyobila ku nkanda." Colorful panels covered with relief sculptures and painted with ideograms are attached to the walls inside, and sculptures of different sizes are placed in front of them on the floor (fig. 2). The kikaku is a sign that the nkanda ritual will soon come to a close: like the masks, it accompanies the ritual rebirth of the initiates. During the masked dances, the boys come forward in pairs. The feathered mask appears first. Among the Yaka and Nkanu the mask is generally worn by the first initiate, named Kapita or Kiala, but this does not necessarily apply among the other groups. The order of the other masks seems to depend on the organization of the nkanda. Among the Yaka, the oldest initiate, Mbala, wears the mask called Kambandzia, while among the Nkanu he performs the Kakungu mask,among others. This last initiate concludes the dance festival. Apart from the masks mentioned above, the Yaka also use masks named Chekedi, Miondo,Ndemba,and Kholuka,among others, and the Nkanu make

Fig. 1. Two Nkanu men in typical dance costume, with ankle bells (nsasi), a dance skirt made of animal skin (biked), and raffia garlands (nsambundala) around the upper arms. The man on the left is wearing the mask Kisokolo; the figure on the right wears the mask called Nkoso. Photograph by Lemba Kivuvu Kieto, taken at Kibavunga, DRC,1974.

initiation panels (sing. kikaku, pl. bikaku), masks named Kisokolo, Makemba, Ndele, Mangombo, and several zoomorphic masks (fig. 3). The most important of the Suku masks is named Hemba.

Masks and Poles All of the masks produced by these peoples are made to serve during the closing ceremonies of the nkanda ritual, except for the non-wooden masks (Nkoso, Mwelu, Kamatzala) and Kakungu and Kazeba among the Yaka and Suku.'2As power objects (minkist) they ensure the smooth course of this crucial phase, during which the boys, who were thought dead by the community, are ritually reborn. This meaning is reinforced in the Nkanu term for "mask"(nkisi mi kutukila ku nkanda), which means literally "power objects for departure from the nkanda." Masks are usually carved from the wood of the umbrella tree (Ricinodendron heudelotit). This soft, light wood allows the sculptor to create round, delicately modeled shapes and masks that are easy to wear despite their considerable size. Though masks are generally rather roughly carved, polychrome painting adds to the finish." The basic shapes of the various masks among these peoples allow us to distinguish them. Full helmet masks, which fit like a bell over the head of the masker, are typically Suku. Masks of semi-helmet form are Nkanu or Zombo. Face masks with a grip at the chin, which allows the dancer to hold the mask in

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Fig. 2. A kikaku hut photographed by Francois-Leopold Michel in 1903 at Tumba Mani, DRC. A cephalic pole (kale di luvumbu) is in the foreground. Inside the open hut, three figures(two hunters and a seated woman)are placed in front of the sculpted, polychrome wall. Archive document KMMA,Tervuren 49.1.3275.

front of his face, or with an internal string or stick for the dancer to clench between his teeth, are Yaka. Monumental designs are typical of Nkanu and Zombo masks (fig. 4). The masks consist of a rather large wooden part, crowned with a "hat" (sometimes quite tall), and a short fiber collar (kisala) (fig. 5). (In Yaka masks, the proportions are reversed: they usually have a small face and a long raffia collar.) In the semi-helmet masks of the Nkanu and Zombo, the hat-like superstructure rests on the wearer's scalp. This superstructure, which adds little weight to the mask, typically consists of either a woven bracket, covered with raffia fabric or burlap, or a sewn shape stuffed Fig. 3. Marcel Kahuma, a nganga luvumbu (which means in the Nkanu language the nganga who erects) poses with some of his objects. From left to right, we can see an antelope mask, called Nsiesi, two masks in the shape of figures(Makemba and Ndele), a Nkoso mask, and the hippo mask called Ngufu. The name Makemba is probably derived from "ma," a title of respect for a woman, and "kemba," which derives from kukemba, which means "rejoice." The name Ndele derives from "mundele,"which means "white man." Photograph by the author, taken in the Nkanu village of Kisoma, DRC, 1990.

with vegetable matter, and is painted on both sides. The superstructure, which can take on considerable dimensions, especially in the Kakungu mask, is usually painted with a circular design on both sides. Cephalic poles (makala, sing. (di)kala), made especially for the nkand,a ritual, also have the facial features of the most important mask types. Among the Nkanu the kala di kakungu" corresponds with the mask Kakungu, kala di ndilu with Nkoso;the kala di luvumbu with Kisokolo.Among the Yaka,the kala di kambandzia refers to the mask of the same name. This suggests that masks and cephalic poles performed analogous functions, and we might conclude, as does Bourgeois (1979:98), that the masks and poles are respectively wearable and static means of protection. Nkanu sources confirmed that the makala

Fig. 4. lgnace Mayimuna Magebuka,a nganga luvumbu, adds the finishing touch to the painting of a Kisokolo mask. Photograph by the author, taken in the Nkanu village of Kingemba-Kinga, DRC,1991.

"replace" the masks when the latter are unavailable. The main task of the makala (and nsind,a ("pole" or "stake"))'5appears to be to repel and neutralize destructive forces. It is the nganga (k)isidika who sets the poles into the ground and attaches to their top or base the "weapons" aimed at eliminating evildoers. Because the poles are partly above and partly below ground, they ensure contact with the ancestral world. The term for these poles, makala, refers to the ancestors and their power to ensure human procreation or to cure infertility. The reference occurs via the words "kala" and "(e)sisi," Kongo words for "charcoal" or "a piece of half-charred firewood," which related to the practices of the Nsamba kitome, exhaustively described by the seventeenth-century chronicler Cavazzim One of the kitome's religious duties as chief was to maintain a ritual fire. Members of his community obtained 65 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

from him charred pieces of wood to stimulate the fertility of the earth, people, and animals. Today, those who have fertility problems can be treated at the kakungu pole while a nkanda session is in progress. Since the pole sculptures never leave the nkanda, at other times the specialist diviner will diagnose which nkanda power is responsible for the client's affliction, and then the nganga luvumbu will install smaller pieces of charred wood in the patient's home. Kakungu Among all these peoples, Kakungu is considered to be the oldest and most distinguished mask. The mask is characterized by the unnatural size of the face, red skin, bulging cheeks and chin, and concave eye sockets (or slits in some Yaka and Suku examples). The white beard on some of the Yaka and Suku pieces indicates that Kakungu is an old man. Research among the Nkanu suggests that the mask represents a kitome, the Nsamba religious leader from the Kinsaku family. The large face suggests Mbaka physiognomic proportions while the red color and tattoos point to his Nsamba identity. Furthermore, Kakungu, like the kitome, is believed to have the power to influence the weather. Some Nkanu informants told me that the mask is also intended to scare the neophytes. Kakungu's red skin and swollen cheeks, signs of serious malnutrition, suggest to initiates that the nkanda camp is a place of hunger. The rotten and shriveled eyeballs suggest the affliction of blindness (nkisi nkita)that strikes those who break nkanda rules. The superstructure ofthe

Fig. 5.The profile of the masks clearly shows the bulging headdress with colorful painting. Photograph by the author, Kisoma, DRC,1990.

Kakungu mask represents a termite hill (which symbolizes the ancestral world) with the sun rising on one side and setting on the other. In the worldview of the Nkanu (and of the Kongo in general), the earth and the ancestral world are represented as two identical termite hills that touch each other at the base. A cephalic pole representing Kakungu (kala di kakungu)(cat. 46,page 60) is a sign that a nkanda ritual is in process, and warns off women, evildoers, and the uninitiated. Nkoso, Mwelu, and Kamatzala

CAT.47

All four peoples make a similar, non-wooden mask, known among the Zombo and Nkanu as Nkoso,among the Yaka and Suku as Mwelu,and among the Angolan Nkanu and Yaka as Kamatzala. Etymologically, the word nkoso can 66 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

Mask: Kamatzala Nkanu peoples, Urge province, Angola Feathers, raffia, twigs, pigment. H.80 cm. AM 819

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be connected with bunkusu, which means "half gourd" or "face," mwelu could mean "threshold," and kamatzala can be translated as "lord with feathers." This mask possibly developed from a gourd split in half, perhaps with a knitted fiber cap pulled over it. The eyes are usually made from gourd fragments, and feathers are inserted into the fiber netting (cat. 47, page 67, fig. 1). This type of mask is worn by an older initiate whose task is to accompany the neophytes when they leave the nkanda camp, for example to go to the river or to the village to steal food. Like a bird, this mask type is said to be capable of crossing borders (village, savanna, forest), which probably sheds light on the name Mwelu, meaning "threshold." Cat. 48 shows a cephalic pole whose pointed face and feather crown relate it to this mask type. My Nkanu informants described this type of cephalic pole as a kala di ndilu, a pole erected, near where the neophytes eat together, to prevent a spell from being cast on their food. Kisokolo The sculptural characteristics usually considered typical of the Yaka style are the goggle-shaped framing of the face and the elongated, hooked nose. These characteristics are found in the Yaka masks called Ndemba, Mbala, Miondo, and

CAT.48

Chekedi, as well as in their figurative sculpture. The Kisokolo mask (cat. 49,

Post: Dikala or Kala di Ndilu

page 69) of the Nkanu and Zombo has the same features, however. The name

Yaka peoples, lite province, Angola Wood,feathers, raffia, cloth, horns, pigment. H.62 cm. AM 814

Kisokolo may be linked with the Chokwe-word "chisokolu," a forked hunter's staff with protrusion for the attachment of amulets. In the literature, the hooked nose on masks of these types is often discussed as a phallic symbol. It may also have had a functional use, however. Van Wing (1921:369) notes that the neophytes had to bite a piece of manioc bread and goat meat from the nose of the "mbau" mask,"and its hooked shape certainly would have suited that purpose. The black curve that appears on the forehead and cheeks and ends at the nostrils represents a scarification known by the Nkanu as n'ganzi, which probably also occurred among neighboring peoples.'8 The Kisokolo mask (apparently termed "Issogulo" in northern Angola, as described on the museum card for cat. 49) has a nose that curls slightly upward, a whitened face with a black frame, and "horns," which Nkanu informants told me represent the raised arms of a dancer expressing his joy. This horned form may also refer to historic headgear. Although Bastin (1994:34, fig. 13) suggests that Mbundu dignitaries used to wear a similar horned hood, 68 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT.49 Mask: Kisokolo or Issogulo Nkanu peoples, Uige province, Angola Wood, raffia, animal fur, cloth, barkcloth, pigment. H. 60. AM 820

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CAT. 51 Post: Kala di Luvumbu or Kokungo Manu peoples, Uige province, Angola Wood, raffia, kaolin, pigment. H. 46 cm. AM 843

CAT. 50 Post: Kola di Luvumbu or Kassandje Nkanu peoples, Uzke province, Angola Wood, animal skins, fiber, sticks, pigment. H. 100 cm. AM 862

CAT. 52 Mask: Makemba Zombo peoples, Uige province, Angola Wood, pigment, fiber ruff, woven and roped fiber. H. 40 cm. AE 140

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CAT. 53

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C131)3108d IHDI8AdOD SL, rs 1V3

but I believe that it was used by Nsamba chiefs. In this particular example (cat.

CAT. 53

49), the piece of otter (mfukt) skin that is supposed to fit between the horns

Helmet mask: Hemba Suku peopks, Ike province, Angola Wood, raffia, pigment. H.48 cm. AE 139

has been represented in paint. Previous scholarship generally connects a white mask face with the symbolic death of the initiates within the kimpasi, and inter-

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prets the lines underneath the eyes as tears shed for their passing. Nkanu informants, however, explained both details to me as tokens of the traditional

CAT.54(P.73)

clan chiefs power,since the face of the person newly elected to this position is

Helmet mask: Hemba Zombo peoples, Uige province, Angola Wood, raffia, pigment. H.64 cm. AZ 607

rubbed with kaolin (mpemba). The white color and the lines under the eyes are meant to protect his face when he contacts the ancestors. Kisokolo, like Kakungu and Nkoso, has a corresponding cephalic pole. Among the Nkanu, it is known as kala di luvumbu. The Yaka and Suku have a comparable type, the kala di kambandzia. The Kisokolo features are clear in the examples in cat. 50 and cat. 51, page 70. Cat. 50 was made from a pitchforkshaped branch. The miniature bows around the horns, like the piece of skin around the neck, are "weapons" against evildoers.

Makemba The mask shown in cat. 52, page 71 is probably Makemba,judging from its white face and the feminine makunda coiffure. Like that of her male counterpart, Kisokolo, Makemba's face is rubbed with kaolin and she has lines underneath her eyes. As a member of the chosen clan chief's family, she is initiated along with him and is appointed ndona (female chief). The fact that this is a Zombo example can be inferred from its serene facial expression, its arrowhead-shaped nose, and the fairly realistic representation of the mouth.

Hemba The Hemba mask is a typical Suku creation (cat. 53, page 72). This type, which fits like a helmet over the head of a dancer, is apparently also found among the Zombo (cat. 54, page 73). The animal motif atop the mask, inspired according to Bourgeois (1990: 126) by the totem animals ofthe Luwa, is replaced with a skullcap-shaped coiffure, an apparently common hairstyle also found in the wood sculpture of the Nkanu, Mbeko, Ntandu, Lula, Yaka, Teke, and related groups.

The Mbata from the DRC are known in northern Angola as the Zombo. In Portuguese writings, the Nkanu are called Bacongos, Quicongos, Bacanos,Canos,or Bakano;the Yaka are known as laca or Baiaca. The Kongo Empire, which had an exceptionally centralized government for its time and place, had its largest expansion around 1500. According to Van Wing(1959:19) its borders reached up to Loango and Malebo Pool in the north and southward to the Kwanza River, the Atlantic Ocean was its western limit, and the Kwango River was its boundary in the east. This is the Nkanu name for the "pygmy" people encountered by their ancestors; also known alternatively as Mbaka-Mbaka. This group must have been related to the (B)Aka now living in eastern Cameroon, Gabon, and Congo Brazzaville, between the rivers Sanaga, Ubangi, and Niari. Among the eastern Kongo peoples the representative of the primary ancestors carries the title of nganga ngombo mputu("nganga" means "specialist," "ngombo" derives from the "nkisi ngombo" of "divination," and "mputu" is the "ancestral world"). He is appointed from the same fam

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ily as the clan chief(mfumu mpu). Both individuals keep part of the insignia of power and maintain contact with the ancestors. The dates given in the literature, ranging from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, is based on the number of kings thought to have reigned before the first christianized king, Don Joao I Nzinga a Nkuwu (d.1506). Van Wing (1959:56) believes the foundations of the kingdom were laid around the end of the 1300s, reckoning that four or five generations were needed to extend the Kongo Kingdom to the point at which the Portuguese found it in 1482. Balandier (1965:22) places the event between 1350 and 1400. Randles (1968:17) situates the foundation between the 1300s and 1400s, while Thornton (1992: 61) proposes 1390. 6 According to the only written source for this periodâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the work of Lopez and Pigafetta (1591)â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Yaka penetrated the Kongo Kingdom via the Mbata province in 1568. Historians disagree on the exact moment of this event, suggesting dates between 1550 and 1573. A German researcher named Wolff (first name uncertain), who traveled across northern Angola at the end of the 1800s, heard about Yaka people who had crossed the Kwango and occupied its left bank. His companion, Richard Buttner, found a battle underway between the eastern Kongo and the Yaka (Plancquaert 1932:55, 119). Like Van Wing (1959:28), who suggests that the Nkanu retained vivid memories of their invaders from across the Kwango River, these researchers see a connection with the Yaga invasion of the 1500s. In my opinion, however, these facts relate to the more recent raids by the Luwa. The nkanda is known among several other ethnic groups, either under the same name or a phonetic variation. 9 Nkandu mu gata means "the nkanda in the village." Bourgeois(1979:11) translates "nkanda mu hata" as "the village nkanda," and describes the term nkanda mahodi as a simplified version, influenced by missionaries, that employs neither the charm specialist (isidika) nor masks as an integral part of its ritual. In the Kinkanu language,"mahodi" refers to the stem of a calabash, but it is unclear how this might relate to the term "nkanda mahodi." The building of an open construction where all kinds of sculptures are displayed is typical of the eastern Kongo peoples. I know of examples among the Nkanu, Ntandu, Lula, and Zombo. 11 From the kuyobila ku nkanda phase on, the newly initiated are allowed to stand across from the kikaku and rub their bodies with a mixture of red dye and oil, after having bathed in the river. Among the Nkanu this phase is known as the kuyola nkoso phase, a term derived from the verb "to wash"(kuyola, kuyobila). 12 Himmelheber, in his article "les masques Bayaka et leurs sculpteurs" (1939), states that the Kakungu mask is shown to the Yaka initiates on the day of their circumcision. Several authors have repeated this fact. According to my Nkanu sources, however, Kakungu is present at the start of the nkanda ritual in the shape of a pole (kala) and does not appear as a mask until the closing ceremony. 11 The multicolored treatment of Nkanu and Yaka masks is characteristic, though rare in other African art. Their headdresses are decorated with colorful designs against a blackened background. Both the colors and the motifs have a certain symbolic value. 14 The cephalic poles that serve in the nkanda are often denoted with the general term kala di kakungu. This creates some confusion, since the name also refers to poles with the well-defined physiognomic qualities of the Kakungu. This explains the caption "kala di kokango[sicr Kakungu) on the museum card of cat. 51, page 70, which is actually a typical example of a kala di luvumbu. Is Theoretically, one can distinguish between makala and nsinda, although they are often used synonymously. The first term refers to poles with a sculpted head, while nsinda merely have colored lines or at most three incisions that indicate a mouth and eyes. 16 The Capuchin Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo is the author of the book Istorica Descrizione de'tre Regni Congo, Matamba et Angola, published in 1687. 17 Mbau or mbawu is a general term for "mask." 18 The existing literature often regards the facial ornamentation around the eyes as diagnostic of Yaka style. Biebuyck (1985:188) states that "Tattooing, which is not common among the Yaka, is absent from their carvings." In contrast, the late Prof. A. Maesen of the Royal Museum of Central Africa (Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika) in Tervuren, thought it possible that the Yaka once used this kind of tattooing(De Mahieu 1967:113, 114), on the basis of a photograph published by Lamal (1949:pl. 3). A similar pattern is found on figurative representations made by the Ntandu, Mbeko, Lula, and Nkanu. I met two elderly Nkanu with a comparable scarification design on their faces.

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The Matapa and Kongo Kasai or Kongo-Dinga Peoples The territory of the Matapa is shown on some maps as a small area located MANUEL JORDAN

directly east ofthe northeastern Angolan town ofSombo and extending northsouth along the western bank of the Kasai River, which divides Angola and Democratic Republic of the Congo (Bastin 1961:31, 1994:10).' Most of this Matapa territory falls within the northeastern area of the Lunda South (Lunda Sul) province of Angola. A map published in 1890 by Portuguese explorer Henrique A. Dias de Carvalho (1890:118) shows roughly the same location for the "Mataba" (sic.), whom he places between the rivers Luembe (or Luia/Ruia) and Kasai. In his text he mentions that this strategic location helped the Matapa chiefs resist invasions by the Lunda, whose court considered the Matapa chiefs "insignificant." Carvalho also mentions that Matapa chiefs protected each other from the ruling Lunda,and he noted tensions and alliances with other neighbors, such as the Chokwe and Imbangala, who controlled the trade in weapons vital to the Matapa's self-defence.2 â&#x20AC;˘

The Matapa have remained between territories controlled by the Lunda (east of the Kasai River) and the Chokwe (to the west), who respectively constitute the majority population group in the neighboring areas of Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola. Although the Matapa have been subject to Chokwe and Lunda influences, they seem to have retained distinct social and cultural traditions, which are best understood in relation to those of the Kongo of Kasai, or Kongo-Dinga (Ceyssens 1984, Vansina 1998).3 The Kasai River probably served as a cultural corridor of peoples and ideas connecting the Matapa with their related Kongo-Dinga neighbors, who inhabit the northeastern tip of Angola (in Lunda Norte/North province) and adjacent areas in Democratic Republic of the Congo near the Kasai (or Luka) River. Although Ceyssens (1984) presents an in-depth study of social relations and cultural practices of the Kongo-Dinga,and some oftheir artforms have been described in context, similar information about the Matapa is practically nonexistent. Although the wood, copper, and copper-covered wooden masks of the Kongo-Dinga, Kata, and Lwalu (related neighbors in D.R.C.) have been thor-

CAT. 59

Mask: Chipepa Matapa, or Kongo-Dinga peoples, CanZat; Camena, Lynda Norte Province, Angola Burlap cloth, twig frame,feathers, fiber, pigment. H. 70 cm. AM 280

oughly researched (Ceyssens 1993:97-105;Petridis 1993:97, 100, 102, 104; Felix 1997:66-69, 74-75), only scarce and conflicting information exists about the fiber masks apparently used by the Kongo-Dinga and Matapa. In 1948, Dr. A. de Barros Machado photographed two mask performers in the Kongo-Dinga area (fig. 6). One wore a wooden mask (with a feather headdress) in a style 77 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT. 55 Mask Matapa, or Kongo-Dinga peoples, Canzar, Lunda Norte Province, Angola

Burlap cloth, twig frame, raffia, feathers, animal hair, pigment. H.95 cm. AM 282

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CAT. 56

Mask: Catumbela Malapa, or Kongo-Dinga peoples, Canzan Lunda Norte Province, Angola Burlap cloth, twig frame, raffia, fiber, paper, pigment. H.63. AM 278

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CAT. 57

Mask: Chipepa Matapa, or Kongo-Dingo peoples, Canzan Lundez Norte Province, Angola

Burlap cloth, twig frame, feathers, cloth, fiber. H. 70 cm. AM 272

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a")

,_ •'YRIGHTPROTE

CAT. 60 Mask Malapa, or Kongo-Dinga peoples, Canzar, Camena, Lynda Norte Province, Angola Open weave fiber, pigment. H. 40 cm. AM 286

Fig. 6. This photo, taken in 1948 by Barros Machado, documents two mask performers in the Kongo-Dinga area of northeastern Angola. Fig. 7. This photo, originally published by (Norio de Oliveira in 1958, was taken in northeastern Angolan in an area just north of the territory of the Matapa. The mask is of the same type as that illustrated in cat. 60.

attributable to the Kongo-Dinga or the Lwalu; the other consisted of a face constructed from tightly woven fibers, attached round eyes and mouth, and a similar headdress. Bastin (1994:37) describes the image as "mask dancers participating in a ritual ceremony"in an area on the extreme northeast ofAngola. The mask made of ephemeral materials in Machado's photograph is almost identical to another mask published byJose Osorio de Oliveira in 1958 (fig. 7), which was photographed in the Angolan town of Luia, located just north of where Matapa territory is placed on the map but south of the Kongo-Dinga area in Angola. Six other fiber masks attributed to the Matapa were collected in 1968-69 by Antonio Carreia in the Canzar region of northeastern Angola (Bastin 1994:37, 115)(cats. 55-60, pages 78-82), which falls within the defined territory of the Kongo-Dinga, rather than Matapa territory. The mask in cat. 60, page 82 is of the same type as that photographed by Osorio de Oliveira in Luia, north ofthe region recorded as Matapa, and the example photographed by Machado in northeastern Angola and attributed by him to the Kongo-Dinga (or Kongo Kasai). At least two possibilites might account for these apparently conflicting attributions and origins for masks of the Kongo-Dinga and Matapa in northeastern Angola. One possibility is that the masks photographed by Machado and 83

Osorio de Oliveira appeared in masquerades staged for the visitors that had no ritual or ceremonial function.' On such occasions, masks that normally do not appear together are sometimes combined (Fontinha 1997: 30-31), as are masquerades from different ethnic groups (Osorio de Oliveira 1958). Another possibility is that after these related peoples' territories were mapped as distinct in the 1940s they have fused in an intermediate zone (roughly between Canzar and Luia) where their traditions continue to invigorate one another. Whatever the case, the lack of contextual information on Matapa masquerades presents a problem in their interpretation until further field research clarifies them. Based on the Kongo-Dinga and Lwalu models, it is likely that the masquerades represent ancestral characters, which are performed mainly in the post-circumcision context of the ngongo male association (Ceyssens 1984:126-144; Petridis 1993:100; Vansina 1998:9-14).5 Other shared art forms, including carved wooden figures and figurative posts that represent tutelary or protective ancestors(cat. 61, page 85), are created by the Kongo-Dinga, Matapa, Chokwe, Lunda, and other related and neighboring peoples.

2 3

The Matapa are rarely included in ethnographic maps of Angola and D.R.C. Mainly this is due to the limited information available on them, and the fact that they are surrounded by such peoples as the Chokwe and Lunda, whose numbers and political control of large territories in Angola and D.R.C. have attracted more attention from observers. See Ceyssens (1984:33-59) for a consideration of inter-ethnic politics in relation to the related Kongo-Dinga in D.R.C. Their art forms, including masks and figurative sculptures, also show more affinity with those of the Kongo-Dinga and the Lwalu and Kete to the north. My thanks to Marc Felix (pers. com. 2000)for sharing articles and documentation on the Kongo-Dinga. Not far west of Kongo-Dinga territory similar staged masquerades occur near the Dundo Museum in northeastern Angola, where the Chokwe are the population majority (Rodrigues de Areia 1995:175; Fontinha 1997:46-47, 56; Porto 1999:87). This tradition is also shared by the neighboring Chokwe whose akishi masks, although different in style and conception, mainly appear in the context of the male mukanda initiations.

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CAT. 61

Post: mbandji Kasai-Kongo people, Angola

Wood. H.82 cm. AG 802

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The Arts of Chokwe and Related Peoples The Chokwe, Lwena, Luchazi, Lwimbi, Songo, and Ovimbundu peoples of MANUEL A JORDAN

Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo,and Zambia have related histories, cultural traits, and cosmologies, which they embed in distinct ways in the visual vocabulary that they also share.' Their zenith of cultural achievement dates from the mid to late 1800s, when the Chokwe in particular expanded their sphere of political power by gaining new territories and developing a reper-

CAT. 62

toire of royal art forms (shared with others) to validate and justify their chiefs

Royal couple representing Chibinda Runga and Lweji Chokwe peoples, Lunda Sul province, Angola Wood. H. 33 and 30 cm. respectively AO 334 and AO 333

(Bastin 1978). Around 1887 the Chokwe invaded the court of the dominant Lunda,under whose well-organized institution of kingship the Chokwe and others had lived. Although the Lunda regained their capital a few years later and reinstated their paramount, the Mwata Yamvo, the Chokwe retained parts of the Lunda territories and established themselves as the majority population in areas west of that capita1.2 Emulating Lunda principles of kingship, the Chokwe used art as a strategy to claim their chiefs' share of royal lineages dating back to the Lunda migrations of the early 1600s, which had given rise to the Chokwe, Lwena, Luchazi, and Lwimbi as differentiable peoples (fig. 8).3 According to different mytho-historical accounts, the Lunda lineage intertwined with Luba royalty during the late 1500s and/or early 1600s, when the Lunda queen/chieftainess Lweji (also known as Luweji or Ruwej) married a Luba prince named Chibinda Ilunga (also known as Chibind Yirung). This event caused political disruptions and led to the division of the Lunda polity. In an introduction to the mnemonic qualities of Luba art, titled "audacities of memory," Mary Nooter Roberts and Allen F. Roberts (1996:33) note that "images engender modes of recollection as much as they are determined by them."' The recollection of the historical links between the Luba and Lunda through thejoining of Lweji and Chibinda Ilunga is perhaps best expressed in the image of the Chokwe royal couple from the National Museum of Ethnology in Lisbon (cat. 62 a, b), which recalls the various (and often conflicting) accounts surrounding this couple. According to some accounts, a Lunda senior chief (named either Yala

Fig. 8. Luchazi chief Kalunga, seen here in a recent photo holding his symbols of office, represents a traditional form of authority that he shares with Luvale, Lunda, and Mbunda neighboring chiefs in northwestern Zambia. Photo Manuel Jordan, Chief Kalunga palace compound, northwestern Zambia, 1997.

Muaku or Konde) opted to appoint his daughter, Lweji, as his successor (fig. 9)5 His two sons, Chinguli and Chinyama, left the court, upset over their father's decision and further angered by their sister's marriage to an outsider, Chibinda Ilunga, a Luba "hunter" of royal blood. The brothers and their fol87 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

lowers migrated to other territories, conquering and intermarrying with other peoples. Their settlements and those established by their descendants eventually engendered distinct ethnicities, including the Chokwe, Lwena, Luchazi, Lwimbi, and others.' Back at the Lunda court, Chibinda Ilunga obtained or usurped the royal title from Lweji. Some accounts assert that because Lweji could not bear children Chibinda Ilunga had a son, Yaav, with a second wife. Chibinda Ilunga's son is said to be the first representative of the Mwata Yamvo dynasty of the Lunda. This title of Mwato Yamvo for the Lunda paramount is still acknowledged by the Lunda of Democratic Republic of the Congo and by all the related peoples of Angola and Zambia (Palmeirim 1994). Chokwe, Lwena, Luchazi, and Lwimbi populations maintained a relationship with the Lunda court through their own chiefs. They remained under Lunda political influence, paying tribute in the form of taxes to the Mwata Yamvo for over 200 years. The Portuguese-sponsored trade routes from the Angolan coast to the African interior, in place by the early 1600s, linked the western Ovimbundu and Songo in trade negotiations with the Chokwe, Lwena, Luchazi, and Lwimbi to the east. Trade initially included such goods as beeswax and ivory, and later rubber, which the Chokwe efficiently collected by leaving their villages for long periods and traveling to distant territories where they eventually settled (Miller 1969). The economic gain from such enterprises provided new wealth with which the Chokwe acquired such costly items as weapons. Toward the end of the 1800s, the combination of wealth, access to weapons, and the

Fig. 9. The achievement of Lweji in becoming the first Lunda female chief, is still carried on today by few female chiefs such as Nyakulenga, seen here, who governs a territory adjacent to that of her brother, Chief Ishinde, in northwestern Zambia. Photo Manuel Jordan, Chief lshinde palace compound, northwestern Zambia, 1992.

settlement of new territories eventually enabled the Chokwe and their political constituencies to overthrow the Lunda. The Lwena, Luchazi, Lwimbi, and others also benefited from this redistribution of political power. This Chokwe royal couple (cat. 62, p. 86), probably dating from the mid to late 1800s, reflects the new political power of Chokwe chiefs as they systematically reclaimed their royal lineages while at the same time acknowledging their Lunda origins and relations. The royal figures evoke the presence of Chibinda Ilunga and Lweji (Jordan et.al. 1998). Chibinda Ilunga was celebrated by the Chokwe and Lunda as a civilizing cultural hero who introduced the Luba concept ofsacred kingship, as well as new customs and technologies (Bastin 1978). Lweji, also a historical character and the first Lunda female chief, completes a model of gender interdependency that is still at the generative core of most rituals, ceremonies, and social or cultural undertakings.' The male figure, recalling the image of Chibinda Ilunga as a bearer of cultural innovations, also metaphorically stands for the presence of powerful Chokwe chiefs who established their spheres of political influence through vast areas of the southern Democratic Republic of the Congo, through most of northeastern, central, and southern Angola, and in parts of northwestern Zambia.'The crown that is carved as part of the male chief figure imitates the chipenya mutwe type worn by important chiefs, such as Chief Chauto of Moxico in Angola, who was immortalized in a photograph (fig. 10) by the Portuguese explorer Fonseca Cardoso published in 1903 (Bastin 1982:77).

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Fig. 10. This photo reproduces an image published by Portuguese explorer Fonseca Cardoso in 1903. The chief's crown, made in metal, indicates the rank of the powerful chief who once ruled territories in the Moxico area (and town)of eastern Angola.

Fig. 11. Two Luvale female initiates, shown here, dance with flexed legs and lifted arms to honor the Luvale paramount, Chief Ndungu, during a confirmatory ceremony held at his palace. The formal dance posture recalls that found in carved figurative representations. Photo Manuel Jordan, Chief Ndungu palace compound, Mize, northwestern Zambia, 1997 Fig. 12. These Mbunda male mukanda initiates practice their graduation dances that are characterized by a rapid twisting of the hips while maintaining a formal composure. The dances are different than those performed by female initiates but the position of the arms and legs is similar. The Lisbon royal figures maintain that same posture, suggesting the potential dynamic qualities of dances that mark important social transitions. Photo Manuel Jordan, Chifwe area of northwestern Zambia, 1992.

The chief figure holds two smaller figurines, one male and one female. Bastin (1982:173-174) interprets these as mahamba ancestors and bearers ofthe royal lineage, because their schematic carving style is consistent with the Chokwe treatment of mahamba figures (Lima 1971). Consistent with the idea that "images engender recollection as much as they are determined by them," however, two of my consultants in Zambia, Chtiofu Sampoko and Bernard Mukuta Samukinji, both Lunda and Chokwe descendants of Angolan chiefs, presented an alternative interpretation (pers. corn. 1992, 1997). They viewed the figurines as "portraits" of a chief and his wife, held by the male royal ancestor who is accompanied by his wife. This complements rather than contradicts the idea that 100 years or more after these forms were created they may be redefined or reinterpreted according to a current symbology. They based their interpretation on the fact that the male figurine wears a more recent European-style hat than the larger figure, which bears a traditional (or chisemwa) crown, the chipenya mutwe.9 This clearly and unquestionably indicated to them that the larger figures represent the ancestral royal lineage and the figurines their descendants. Consistent with either interpretation, however, is that one of the principal concepts supported by these figures is the continuity and prosperity of a chiefs lineage. The formal posture of these figuresâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;their large feet planted firmly on the ground,flexed legs, and large hands presented in front of the bodyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;relate to an idea of "agency" that is still evident in diverse performative contexts. Diviners, mask performers, and male and female initiates assume this posture in auspicious dances performed to mark such importantforms of transition as healing the ill or possessed, reenacting the symbolic essence of an ancestral character, or moving from childhood into adulthood (figs. 11, 12). 89 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

The female figure, besides completing the royal couple and representing a chief's wife, metaphorically "presences" female chiefs (such as Lweji and others), as do current masks representing her or other women with royal links or attributes (fig. 13).'Â° The Songo figure of a rider on an ox in cat. 63, page 91 also reflects historical circumstances structured within a cosmological framework that has broader connotations.This nineteenth-century figure reflects the status of the owner by indicating his participation in the trade between coast and interior. Although it is unclear whether the Songo engaged in long-distance enterprise themselves or grew wealthy by taxing traders who passed through their territories (Buchner 1883, Bastin 1994:43-44), the trader image became synonymous with wealth and status, and was incorporated into ancestral shrines and probably the treasuries of chiefs. In the mahamba altars of the Holo, similar images (sometimes placed alongside others representing Europeans, Christian icons, and the Creator, Kalunga or Nzambi), condensed new ideas and influences, creating powerful ensembles that reflected and spiritually sustained their access to new wealth. The Songo trader figure is flanked by birds that may be symbols of royalty and/or represent the Creator's realm of "the above" (Jordan, et.al. 1998:40). That association is exemplified by Holo Nzambi figures that often show the Creator "framed" in a threshold and topped by the representation of a bird (Batulukisi 1998). The stool at the base of this trader figure is as symbolically significant as the figure. It conveys the idea of a seat of power, one that often supports a royal ancestor (as in the case of the Lwena female figure seated on the royal stool seen in cat. 64, page 91). The continuous X-shaped motifs in the mid section of the stool are also imbued with symbolism. As explained to me by Zambian consultants, on one level the "X" represents the currency token that was common in the "copper belt" areas of Zambia and Democratic Republic of the Congo.On another level, it may be interpreted as an abstract image ofa seated ancestor, whose elbows rested on raised knees form an "X"shape. In the past, people were buried in this position, and tiny figurines in this pose, representing male or female ancestors, are commonly found among the objects used in basket divination (Areia 1985). Today, this pose, with the ancestor's head generally cradled in the hands, is celebrated in Angola as the "Angolan thinker" (pensador Angokzno)".This important pose is best illustrated by the three combs in this exhibition (cats. 65-67, pages 92), particularly the examples in cat. 65 and cat. 66, which show good contrast between the abstract and figurative forms of representation. The Songo trader thus rides above a circle of seated ancestors, between them lies the plane of the earth (well defined by a decorative pattern), and below is the realm of ancestors. In the case of the Songo stool, or throne, in cat. 68, page 93, the same symbolic associations are evident in an object that formed an actual seat of power for an important individual. This Songo layering of symbolic associations and iconographic division into realmsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;upper (birds implying Kalunga/Nzambi), earth (trader on ox), and underground 90 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

Fig. 6. This mask, performed by Bernard Mukuta Samukinji in Zambia, was made by the Chokwe ritual specialist to teach people aspects of Lunda history during a mukanda initiation. Mr. Samukinji first saw a Lweji mask during his own mukanda initiation in Angola over forty years ago. Photo Manuel Jordan, Chitofu Village, northwestern Zambia, 1991.

CAT. 63

Figure

CAT. 64

Figure

Songo peoples, Malanje province, Angola

buena peoples, Morico Province, Angola

Wood. H. 23. AA 932

Wood, cloth, brass tacks, fiber, pigment, metal. H. 31 cm. AA 922

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CAT. 65

Comb Chokwe related peoples, Lunda Sul province, Angola Wood. H. 12.6 cm. AJ 779

CAT. 66

Comb Chokwe peoples, Lunda Sul province, Angola Wood. H. 15.5 cm. AA 806

CAT. 67

CAT. 68

Comb Chokwe peoples, Lunda Sul province, Angola Wood. H. 13.5 cm. AO 217

Royal stool Songo peoples, Malanje province, Angola Wood. H. 34.5 cm. AJ 289

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(ancestors)â&#x20AC;&#x201D;is consistent with the world view of all the related peoples discussed here.12 A similar layering is evident in Chokwe-related masquerades, where the ancestors return after enduring a long symbolicjourney from the realm of the dead (underground), coming from the graveyards in the west, where the sun sets, to enter the realm of the living. During chiefs' ceremonies, mukanda male initiations, and in other contexts, ancestral mask characters (akishi) educate by dramatizing appropriate and inappropriate social behaviors (Jordan 1993). The symbolic powers broughtforth by the different akishi help to articulate the generative and regenerative forces of a Chokwe-related cosmos (Jordan 1998, Felix and Jordan 1998). One of the great innate qualities of all the pieces selected for this publication from the permanent collection of the Lisbon National Museum of Ethnology is that their cosmological meanings remain intact today, although many of them are more than a century old. Many of these art forms are still made and used in areas of Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zambia.'3While the image of the trader riding on an ox appears irrelevant, trade remains relevant, as do travel to distant territories and the trials and tribulations related to such enterprise. Today, these ideas may be channeled through the vivid image ofa canoe (ilia), which recurs in divination and is associated with chiefs' territories and healing cults (Areia 1985,Jordan 1996, Wastiau 1997, 1998). This canoe may also serve as a fitting conclusion to this cursory voyage through the arts of Chokwe and related peoples. Along with iconography that has a longer history, it illustrates that as the different art forms of these related and neighboring peoples are inherited through time, and as their realities, needs, and aspirations are redefined,images continually draw upon cosmological models that are fertile and renewable,sustaining a sense of continuity that by nature does not contradict the past." Initiation Masks Chokwe masks, called akishi (sing. mukishi),are the spiritual backbone of male initiation and the associated circumcision camp, which are both called mukanda25 Akishi are the embodiment of ancestors (spirits of the dead or dfu) that are engaged in masquerade form to employ their supernatural powers on behalf of mukanda, the initiates, and the village hosting the initiation.'6 More than one hundred akishi mask characters are created and performed by Chokwe, Lwena, Lunda, Luchazi, Mbunda,and other neighboring and related peoples of Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zambia (Vrydagh 1977, Bastin 1982, Kubik 1993,Jordan 1998, Felix and Jordan 1998). The different characters fulfill specific ritual and ceremonial roles according to their defined physical and symbolic attributes, performative behaviors, and character dispositions.'7 One of the most important mukanda-related masks of the Chokwe is called Kalelwa (fig. 14). This mukishi represents a powerful ancestor who is responsible 94 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

Fig. 14. This mask character, called Kalelwa, represents a powerful ancestor that protects the mukanda initiation camp. Although Kalelwa is generally attributed to the Chokwe, this field photo was taken in the context of a Lunda initiation. Photo Manuel Jordan, town of Manyinga, northwestern Zambia, 1991.

for the well-being of the mukanda initiates, or tundanji. Kalelwa falls within a category of aggressive mask characters who generally chase or threaten women and uninitiated males with such weapons as a machete, an axe, or a small tree branch." Kalelwa's intimidating demeanor is directly related to its role as a protective spirit. Different versions of Kalelwa result from distinct approaches to the construction of its headdress. One favored version is configured by creating four arched wings or flaps supported on a central tubular structure (cats. 69, 70, pages 97 and 98). Another version features narrow arcs that connect the bottom of the headdress to the top of the central tubular element (cat. 71, page 99)." Such configurations are a matter oftaste and are unrelated to ethnic-specific art styles. Chikunza is another mukanda-related mask with a prominent superstructure. This mukishi features an anthropomorphic face and a very tall conical headdress supported by a frontal spine with multiple structural rings (cat. 72, page 100, fig. 15). Although Chikunza's role in mukanda is similar to that of Kalelwa, Chikunza generally behaves less aggressively. Chikunza represents an auspicious ancestral spirit that is symbolically associated with human fertility, abundance of natural resources, and prosperity. Chikunza's attributes offertility are also recalled in a great variety of art forms used by chiefs, diviners, hunters, and others.2째 Chokwe-related peoples also create many anthropomorphic and zoomorphic akishi, which interact with their audiences during participatory dances and Fig. 15. Chikunza,seen here in mask form, represents an ancestor whose symbolic attributes include fertility and good luck in hunting. The mask was made and performed by Chokwe ritual expert Bernard Mukuta Samukinji for a Lunda initiation camp where he served as the head instructor. Photo Manuel Jordan, Chitofu Village, northwestern Zambia, 1991.

performances organized in conjunction with mukanda."The most popular mukishi in this "accessible" category is Pwo (fig. 16), whose name literally means "woman." Pwo's graceful dances epitomize the composure and manners of an accomplished primordial female ancestor, and Pwo's acrobatic skits reflects the female ancestor's supernatural attributes. Although created and performed by men,Pwo honors women, particularly the mothers and female relatives of the tundanji initiates. Pwo masks are often carved in wood to recreate the facial features of a beautiful woman (cat. 73, page 100)." Facial details may include scarification marks that reflect the maturity and social stature ofthe female character. Examples created by the same carver or workshop generally reflect similar overall artistic design with slight variations in the features and scarification motifs to represent particular female ancestors (cats. 74,75, pages 101 and 102)." Male anthropomorphic akishi such as Chisaluke (fig. 17) and Chileya (cats. 76, 77, page 103) serve as tutelary ancestors for the tundanji initiates, helping them refine their mukanda graduation dances. When they appear alongside Pwo the male characters may reinforce concepts ofgender interdependence. Animal masquerades, and those representing "the fool" (called Ndondo) and "the outsider" or "white man"(called Katoyo) are performed to dramatize wild or untamed,foolish,and absurd behaviors.These "poor" behaviors contrast with the virtues of such "accomplished" types as Pwo and certain other male characters. A favored "untamed" zoomorphic character among the Chokwe is Ngulu, the pig, often naturalistically carved in wood (cat. 78, page 104). 95 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

Akishi masks fulfill specific mukanda roles by drawing on the power of their

11011Wir

animating spirits and assisting or leading specific ritual and ceremonial events. The ancestral masks are also educational role models; they represent both behaviors to be emulated as proper and avoided as socially inappropriate.24 The akishi masquerades of Chokwe and related peoples are one of their most resilient art forms. They continue to be performed today to support the institution of mukanda and to dramatize cosmology.25

Fig. 17. Chisaluke, seen here, is a tutelary male ancestor who appears towards the end of the mukanda initiation to bring additional spiritual support to the initiates. Chisaluke takes an active role in teaching the initiates the dances they will perform at their graduation. Photo Manuel Jordan, Chifwe area of northwestern Zambia, 1992.

Fig. 16. Pwo represents a female ancestor and an ideal woman. In the company of a male character such as Chisaluke, Pwo asks for a chief's permission to conclude mukanda initiation ceremonies being held at her home village. This photo shows a Chokwe Pwo masquerader returning from a chief's family compound after informing the chief that the initiates have completed their mukanda education. Photo Manuel Jordan, Malikinya Village, northwestern Zambia, 1991.

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CAT. 69 Mask: Kalelwa Chokwe peoples, Sobato de Mandange-Chitalo, Lynda Sul province, Angola Wood, barkcloth, colored adhesive tape, fabric, fibers, pigments, pitch. H. 30 cm. AP 072

xenareshematatat

CAT. 71

Mask: Kalelwa Mbwela peoples, Sakalele, Cuando Cubango province, Angola

Bark cloth, cloth, colored adhesive tape, twig frame, fiber, pigment, pitch. H.94 cm. AD 433

CAT. 73

Mask: Pwo Chokwe or Lunda peoples, Capaia, Samelambo, Lunda Sul province, Angola

Wood,fiber, feathers, shells, pigment. H. 23 cm. AM 028

CAT. 72

Mask: Chikunza Chokwe related peoples, Longa, Cuito-Canavale, Cuando Cubango province, Angola

Bark cloth, wood, raffia, colored adhesive tape, pigment. H. 132 cm. AO 766 CAT. 74

Mask: Mwana-pwo Chokwe peoples, Lunda Sul province, Angola

Wood, buttons, beads, fiber, metal, animal hair, pigment. H. 24. AB 255

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CAT. 77 Mask: Chileya Chokwe related peoples, Chissende, Angola Bark cloth, twig frame, cloth, fiber, pitch, colored adhesive tape, raffia. H. 31 cm. AD 423

CAT. 76 Mask: Chileya with costume (top half only) Chokwe or buena peoples, I,onga, Cuito Cuanavale, Cuando Cubango province, Angola Woven fiber, barkcloth, fabric, feathers, wood, colored adhesive tape, pigment, pitch. H. 50 cm. AO 760

CAT. 75 Mask: Mwana-pwo Chokwe peoples, Lunda Sul province, Angola Wood, buttons, brass nails, fiber, fur, pigment. H. 23 cm. AB 256

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't 0 r.4

OPYRIGHT PROTECfEll

Figures of Ancestors and Chiefs' Chokwe-related peoples traditionally honor a Creator god called Kalunga or Nzambi. The Creator is invoked in personal prayers, during the investiture and confirmatory ceremonies for chiefs, and at the onset of divination sessions when diviners acknowledge the Supreme Being before asking for his/her spiritual guidance." These peoples follow a concept of sacred or divine kingship that regards chiefs as representatives of God on earth (Bastin 1982:37, 43). Diviners also have a crucial social role as intermediaries between humans and the ancestral spirits who may influence the lives of their living kin (Areia 1985, Martins 1993,Jordan 1996, Fontinha 1997).27 When ancestors manifest as active spiritual agents or agencies they are called mahamba (sing. hamba)(Barbosa 1989: 86)."Mahamba watch over their living descendants but they are capricious and expect humans to honor them through offerings and invocations. People who maintain a good relationship with their ancestors enjoy their protection and positive influences. Illness, bad luck, and other forms of misfortune are often attributed to an individual's (or a society's) neglect of ancestors (Lima 1971, Wastiau 1997, 1998). Individuals, families, or communities may create shrines, called kachipangv, to establish loci for contact with their protective spirits (fig. 18). Specific types Fig. 18. This inconspicuous kachipango shrine includes a carved pointed stick that is stuck in the ground and a large tree that serves as a threshold for the protective spirit. The keeper of the shrine, Mr. Sasombo, explained that the ancestor travels through the tree and enters the stick through the pointed end. A bell that is attached to the tree trunk serves to call the ancestor in times of need or prayer. Photo Manuel Jordan, Sasombo family compound, Kabompo, northwestern Zambia, 1997.

of tree, termitaries, and old houses may also become thresholds for the spirits and serve as loci for ancestral worship (Jordan 1996:179-199, Wastiau 1998). Kachipango ensembles often include abstract and figurative sculptural forms similar to those kept by diviners, ritual specialists, and others as the embodiment of their ancestors (fig. 19). These figures are also called mahamba;whereas the term tuponya (singular kaponya) refers more generally to any figurative representation, whether carved, modeled or constructed. Chiefs are expected to maintain a propitious relationship with the spiritual

Fig. 19. This ancestral figure, built from bent twigs and branches, takes the form of a lion but actually represents the spirit of a hunter. The lion-ancestor is partially hidden near a path to the home of Luvale diviner Mr. Sasombo where it serves to protect his house from intruders. Photo Manuel Jordan, Sasombo family compound, Kabompo, northwestern Zambia, 1992.

CAT. 78

Mask: Ngulu Chokwe peoples, Luna Sulprovince, Angola Wood,fiber, brass nails, coins, beads, buttons, zipper, cloth, pigment. H.32 cm. AL 586

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world in order to secure the well-being of their communities. To achieve this, chiefs may employ a variety of ritual experts, including diviners who serve as keepers ofroyal hamba shrines and other items related to a chief's royal lineage (Palmeirim 1994:36, Bastin 1982:53)." Some of these art forms were and still are kept in public spaces where everyone is aware of the spiritual agencies that protect the chief and his or her constituency. These "public" figures, though often schematic or abstract in form, nevertheless are highly recognizable and effective as representations that recall specific ancestral attributes and powers (fig. 70)." During the 1800s, the chiefs of the Chokwe (and related peoples) commissioned figures from skilled carvers who worked exclusively for the rulers." These refined art forms are highly complex in their symbolic meaning and associations (see cats. 62 and 64, pages 86 and 91). Chiefs' figures legitimized the royal lineage. They may depict actual bearers of royal titles, and they once embodied spiritual agencies that could be activated on behalf of the community (Jordan et al 1998:33). The powerful figures were probably kept in royal treasuries or inside a chief's palace,were they were attended by ritual specialists and addressed by the chief or members of the court. Royal figures may have been displayed in public during such important ritual or ceremonial occasions as the funerals or investitures of chiefs. Royal figures, like the chiefs title of mwanangana,or "owner of the land," were inherited by a chiefs successors." Other forms of ancestral representation directly convey ideas of wealth and status. Nineteenth-century figures of traders riding on oxen reflect wealth acquired through trade between the Angolan coast and the interior (see cat. 63, page 91)." These figures were mainly produced by the Songo and Holo peoples, although they are also found among the Chokwe. Chiefs may have kept such figures in their shrines but individuals who had gained wealth and social status through their entrepreneurship also kept such images to secure ancestral support in sustaining their newfound wealth. Most Chokwe-related ancestral figures belong to individuals who use them to honor personal or familial spirits. These figures may be tended in personal shrines or inside houses. Diviners in particular may keep tuponya that embody their tutelary spirits. These generally are conceived as female figures that stress both a diviner's lineage and concepts of fertility and continuity, which the diviner employs to find the causes and cures for various personal or social problems (fig. 21). Other female figures are used in the context of mwali female initiations (cat. 79, page 107). These figures are generally carved with rounded contour lines that emphasize the potential fertility of the initiates (Cameron 1995, Kubik 1995:317). It is unclear whether these figures representfemale ancestors or are strictly didactic. Symbols of Authority Chokwe and related peoples refer to their chiefs as mwanangana, which literally means "child of wisdom"(Horton 1990) but is commonly interpreted as 106 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

Fig. 20. This photo shows a detail of the fence posts surrounding the palace of Luchazi chief Kalunga. The posts take the form of Chikunza mask heads, symbolically indicating that the palace is protected by powerful and fertile ancestors that are auspicious to the chief and his constituency. Photo Manuel Jordan, Chief Kalunga palace compound, northwestern Zambia, 1997.

Fig. 21. Seen here is Lunda diviner Mr. Chitofu Sampoko holding a large figure that represents a female ancestor. Diviners sometimes keep figures of the type to embody or host the spirit of their tutelary ancestors. Photo Manuel Jordan, Chitofu Village, northwestern Zambia, 1997.

CAT. 79

Figure Ovimbundu peoples, Benguela or Cuanza Sul province, Angola Wood, beads, pigment. H. 24.5 cm. AO 78

107 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

108 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

"lord or overseer of the land"(Bastin 1982:43).The chief's title defines his or her central position within a territory, where the chief controls both the civilized landscape (society, village, cultivated lands) and nature or the wilderness. When a chief ceremonially waves a fly whisk, an axe, or a sword, he or she makes the symbolic statement: "This is my land,these are my people."These regalia objects symbolize the chief's all-encompassing power, which extends from the chief's person to the boundaries of his or her territory." When a chief sits on a throne holding a royal scepter in a ritual or ceremonial context, this epitomizes the cosmological precepts that support a chiefand the institution of kingship (fig. 22)."Some thrones include elaborate figurative representations that comment on the chief's and the community's ideas about their relationship with an ancestral or spiritual realm (Kwononoka 1989:26-48, Bastin 1961:189-201). Other figurative forms in the iconography of thrones are devised as scenes that commemorate historical events or interject everyday practices and occurrences that reflect morals and social values. These visual metaphors reflect :11.GZ=

â&#x20AC;˘

' --egrommor^lop.wromer.affsc

Chokwe-related cosmologies by reference to their social, political, historical, cultural, and religious principles (Jordan 1996:23-52). Even thrones with more austere figural representations may still evoke the spirits of former rulers or

Fig. 22. This photo shows Luchazi chief Kalunga at the moment of his investiture ceremonies. The chief sits on his throne in ceremonial garment, with other chiefs at his side, while being honored by a ritual specialist who performs invocations that are appropriate during events of such significance. Photo Manuel Jordan, Chief Kalunga palace compound, northwestern Zambia, 1991.

founders ofroyal lineages (cat.80, page 108).These thrones often include threedimensional or low relief representations of mukishi masks, which indicate the different forms ofspiritual manifestation acting on behalfofa chiefand his/her constituency.s6 Chokwe and related peoples also makes stools that incorporate large anthropomorphic or animal images. The Chokwe favor caryatid stools in which the seat is supported by a female ancestor sitting, kneeling or standing on a round base (Bastin 1982:258-261)." Another type offigurative stool,favored by the Songo in particular, takes the form of a female ancestor seated with her elbows on her knees. The example in (see cat. 68, page 93) appears to hold a shallow bowl or basket where a title holder may sit. The figure's pudenda is well defined and placed so that it touches the ground. This reinforces the connection with the land and the underground,which is symbolically associated with the place where ancestors dwell. In such stools, the female ancestor is the bearer of a chiefly lineage who metaphorically connects a seated chief with a line of predecessors,and in literally carrying the ruler she also metaphorically underscores her support of the chief and his or her people. Other stools combine animal and ancestor figures (cat. 81, page 110). The ancestor figures may be placed between the legs of an animal, which represent a doorway for the spirits and frame the ancestors on this threshold." Stools may also take the form ofjust one animal. The elegance, power, and agility of the leopard in cat. 82, page 110 mirror a chiefs regal bearing. When figurative staffs, scepters, and lances (cats. 83-89, pages 111 to 113)

CAT.80

touch the earth or are stuck into it for display they,too,symbolically connect with

Royal throne Lzuimbi 11.1 peoples, Bii province, Angola Wood,skin, brass tacks. H. 72 cm. A0410

the underground world of ancestors. Although figurative staffs are not owned only by chiefs, they are costly and generally reflect high status (Areia 1992)." Staffs that depict single (often female) figures generally represent the ances109 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT. 81

Royal stool Chokwe peoples, Lunda Sul province, Angola

Wood. L. 44 cm. AB 014

CAT. 82

Royal stool Chokwe peoples, Lunda Sul province, Angola

Wood, brass studs. L. 40 cm. AA 573

110 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

Fig. 23. The staffs of some diviners may symbolically indicate the source of the powers they employ towards the resolution of people's problems. Seen here is a detail of Luvale diviner Samusevu's staff. The staff's finial takes the form of a tutelary ancestor playing a drum and recalling his ability to perform rituals(that include drumming) to heal or exorcize afflicted patients. The materials attached and embedded on the staff's surface attest to the many battles the diviner has won against negative forces. Photo Manuel Jordan, near the town of Kabompo, northwestern Zambia, 1992.

tral spirit who protects the owner (cats. 83-86, pages 112 and 113). More complex staffs with multiple figures convey ancestry, and may also indicate an owner's profession and his/her attributes of power (Roberts 1994)(fig. 23). Staffs or scepters that include healing scenes are normally owned by healers or diviners. Multiple mask-like faces around a staff's shaft (cat. 87, page 111) convey the diviner's power to see in all directions and his access to mediatory spirits.째 CAT.87

Diviner's staff Chokwe peoples, Lunda Sul province, Angola Wood, brass tacks, beads, fiber. H.90 cm. AP 818

Staffs with figures riding oxen comment on their owners' wealth, achieved through trade between the Angolan interior and the coast.'' Additional figurative elements on such staffs portray the spiritual structure that supports the trader's success. 111 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT. 83

CAT. 84

CAT. 85

Staff Chokwe peoples, Lunda Sul province, Angola Wood. H. 81 cm. AB 228

Staff Ovimbundu peoples, Benguela or Cuanza Sul province, Angola Wood, beads, pigment. H. 55 cm. AO 583

Staff Ovimbundu peoples, Benguela or Cuanza Sul province, Angola Wood. H. 69 cm. AA 779

112

CAT.88(P. 109)

CAT.88

CAT. 89

Staff Ovirnbundu peoples, Benguela or Cuanza Sulprovince, Angola Wood. H. 54.7 cm. AO 213

Staff Sone peoples, Malanje province, Angola Wood. H.42.5 cm. AA 986

Staff Holo peoples, Mangando, Lurula Norte province, Angola Wood,fiber, metal. H. 107.5 cm. Al 350

113

Beyond the function of thrones, stools, and staffs, as symbols of authority or rank, the figurative elements they incorporate are viewed as spiritual agencies that may be activated to "move in invisible ways"to support the needs of their living descendants. The objects themselves may be addressed by the names of the ancestors they represent (Kauenhoven-Jansen 1981). Some stools and staffs serve as divination implements (sing. ngombo, pl. ngombo) through which a diviner sees "pictures"in the objects that relate to a client's affliction (Jordan 1994:1423). The symbolic complexity of these objects reflects the multilayered relationships between humans and the spirit world. Prestige Objects In the rich and diverse cultures of Chokwe-related peoples, many types of objects, including ceramic forms, basketry, stools, staffs, pipes, combs, and hairpins, may be conceived either as plain utilitarian objects or as articles that reflect the status and prestige of their owners (Hambly 1934, Baumann 1935, White 1948, Redinha 1953,Bastin 1961,Heintze 1995,Areia 1992). The choice of materials, intricacy of design, and complexity of symbolic and decorative figures and patterns all reflect an item's cost and quality.째 Certain objects and symbols are reserved for the exclusive use of chiefs, village heads, ritual specialists, or other persons of high social status.째 Ordinary individuals, however, may commission fine objects according to their needs and means to reflect

CAT. 91

Drum: ngoma ya shina Chokwe peoples, Lunda Sulprovince, Angola Wood,skin, leather strips. H.97 cm. AB 324

their own wealth and taste. Finely crafted musical instruments, combs, pipes, axes, and stools (cats. 90-92) may include elaborate figurative and/or abstract motifs, and they may be owned by anyone who can afford them. A person living in a village close to a chief's court may include in a personal item an image ofthe local ruler or the ruler's ancestors. Even houses may feature decorative architectural elements or murals that represent and honor a chief or a royal lineage (Redinha 1951). The quality or elaboration of a particular object is an immediate indicator of status but does not necessarily reflect its symbolic power or meaning. The owner of a simple gourd pipe (called mutopa or mutompa),for example, may smoke it to honor the predecessors from whom it was inherited, regard it as the representation of an ancestor or the lineage, and include it in rituals and ceremonies marking important life transitions, whether personal or familia1.4 Though a common household item, a pipe also establishes a deep sense of community because smoking is an activity often shared with one's spouse,close relatives, or trusted friends.5 Inhaling and exhaling, like breathing, reflect life itself.6 Tobacco itself may be considered a powerful substance. Tobacco mixed with ritual "medicines" (called vitumbo) sometimes is inserted into the cavities offigures to activate the spirits they represent.' Furthermore, the social attributes of tobacco may also generate a symbolic value for it. Chokwe-related peoples create many tobacco-related implements, including various pipe types, snuff containers (cat. 93, page 115), and snuff mortars. Many of these items are highly decorated with brass tacks, wire, and beads,and may include single or multiple figurative representations (Bastin 1961:106114

CAT. 90

Thumb piano Chokwe peoples, Xassengue, Lunda Sul province, Angola Wood, metal. H. 26.5 cm. AB 344

CAT. 93

Snuff container Ovimbundu peoples, Benguela or Cuanza Sulprovince, Angola Wood. H. 10.5 cm. AB 041 CAT. 92

Comb Lwena peoples, Moxico province, Angola Wood. H. 29.1 cm. AP 053

118). One type of pipe, called peshi, is carved in wood with an elongated body that features a metal stem on one end and a bowl on the other. The bowl is commonly carved as part of the pipe's body and it is sometimes capped by a figurative lid. The body of the pipe is often treated as a sculptural frieze, which may include figures of ancestors (cats. 94-96, pages 116, 117) or (cats. 97,98, pages 118) figures that suggest access to new technologies (cat. 99, page 118) or scenes related to royal life or royal events (cats. 100-102, page 119). Among Chokwe-related peoples, the Ovimbundu, Mbwela, Songo, and Holo carvers created some of the finest prestige pipes. European explorers and ethnographers who traveled through their territories from the late 1800s to as late as 1950 often illustrated pipes and other prestige implements proudly held by these related peoples (Pinto 1881:281, 295; Carvalho 1890:293-294; Hambly 1934:pl. 15; White 1948:19). 115 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT.94

Pipe Songo peoples, Malanje, Malanje province, Angola Wood, metal. L. 102.1 cm.

AA 959

CAT.95

Pipe Ovimbundu peoples, Benguela or Cuanza Sul province, Angola

Wood, metal. L. 68.5 cm. AK 053

CAT. 96

Pipe Ovimbundu peoples, Benguela or Cuanza Sul province, Angola

Wood, metal. H. 24 cm. AA 963

116 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

117 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT. 97

Pipe Nolo peoples, Cuango, Lunda Norte province, Angola

Wood, metal. H. 22 cm. AA 721

CAT. 98

Pipe Holo peoples, Lunda Norte province, Angola

Wood, metal. L. 63.5 cm. AK 458

CAT. 99

Pipe Chokwe peoples, Lunda Sul province, Angola

Wood, metal, pigment. H. 20 cm. AJ 894

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CAT. 100

Pipe Mbwela peoples, Moxico or Cuando Cubango province, Angola

Wood, brass studs. L. 38 cm. AA 626

CAT. 101

Pipe Ovimbundu peoples, Benguela or Cuanza Sul province, Angola

Wood, metal wire, beads. L. 52 cm. AA 639

CAT. 102

Pipe Ovimbundu peoples, Benguela or Cuanza Sul province, Angola

Wood, metal, beads, pigment. L. 34 cm. AA 719

119 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

2 3

's 16

" I째

For examples of early accounts about these related peoples see Cameron 1877, Carvalho 1890, Capello and Ivens 1881, Pinto 1881, Cardoso 1919, Schachtzabels (1913-1914) in Heintze 1995, Hambly 1934, Baumann 1935, White 1948, Cabrita 1954, and Redinha 1953. For examples of later studies about their art and culture see Bastin 1961, Turner 1967, Lima 1971, Vrydagh 1977, Areia 1985, Kubik 1993, Palmeirim 1994, Cameron 1995, Jordan 1996, Heusch 1972, Wastiau 1997, Jordan et.al. 1998, Felix and Jordan 1998. For a historical study of Chokwe expansion see Miller 1969. For illustrations of the different royal art forms of Chokwe-related peoples, see Bastin 1961, 1974, 1982, and Jordan et.al. 1998. For a study of the strategy behind the manipulation of such forms of recollection in relation to the Lunda, see Palmeirim 1994. Diverse accounts of this legendary story exist. Most scholars (e.g. Verhulphen 1936) base their interpretations on accounts by such early explorers as Carvalho (1885, 1890). For a structuralist analysis of the different versions of the legendary story see Heusch (1972). Turner(1955)supplies another version, and Palmeirim (1994) gives a recent analysis of the subject. For related accounts, see Miller (1969) and Bastin (1982:31-35). It is unclear whether the Chokwe and other related groups "developed" after Lunda migrations or whether these ethnicities were already distinct and settled by the time of the Lunda territorial expansion. For a summary of the histories of these related peoples see McCulloch (1951). For a study of gender issues among these related peoples, see Cameron (1995). Although there are Chokwe settlements in areas of western and northwestern Zambia, they do not have acting chiefs. Due to the political instability of territories within Angola, however, some Chokwe chiefs have been displaced into Zambian refugee camps. I am not informed about the current status of these chiefs or other chiefs who were in Zambia from 1991 to 1993, when I conducted initial field work in the western and northwestern provinces of Zambia. These field consultants based their comments on photographs of the Lisbon couple and the figure of a chief from the University of Iowa that similarly holds male and female figurines. Other consultants with whom I shared the photographs reached the same conclusion. During research for a recent publication on ancestral masquerades from Zambia, co-authored with Marc Felix (1998), it became evident that several female masks include decorative items such as diadems and arched crowns that imply that the represented female character has extraordinary status. Marc Felix suggested that these probably represent female chiefs or women with royal links. This interpretation is consistent with the representation of particular characters among these related peoples, including such male chiefly characters as Chihongo among the Chokwe. My field documentation of a mask representing Lweji confirms that such royal female characters are depicted, and I hope to find further confirmation in future field research. The Angolan thinker is celebrated through a related image printed on Angolan currency, and is also commonly reproduced in carved form for export and sold in Luanda as the pensador Angolano. As explained to me by different informants in discussions related to thresholds or passageways for ancestors who transit between these realms. This is particularly true of akishi masquerades with more than 100 characters, performed by these related peoples in Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zambia. Divination arts and those related to the representation of ancestors continue to be produced and utilized in different ritual contexts. Royal arts are now not as refined or elaborate as those found in the courts of nineteenth-century chiefs, but important chiefs still own such official symbols as crowns and ceremonial swords, axes, scepters, and staffs of office. Histories and local versions of events may be challenged, reinterpreted or politically manipulated, but in all cases it is shared cosmological views, visually represented through different art forms, that provide the intellectual or philosophical core that allows for change or adaptation. In particular, the agencies of the past, the ancestors as spiritual manifestations, continue to partake in the interests of their living descendants, assuming new forms when necessary but maintaining their original essences. Among Chokwe-related peoples in Zambia, these masks are called makishi(sing. //kith!). Akishi also appear in such other contexts as the investiture ceremonies of chiefs and their annual confirmatory ceremonies. The different attributes, behaviors, and dispositions correlate with mask types. I intend to explore this mask typology in forthcoming publications. Chokwe-related peoples create several other "aggressive" akishi. Different Zambian field assistants concurred that, for the Chokwe, Kalelwa tops the power hierarchy of all mukanda-related masks. A character called Mupala occupies the same position among Luvale and Luchazi peoples. The different versions of Kalelwa are commonly created by all these related peoples in Angola, Zambia, and Democratic Republic of the Congo. The art forms include chief's thrones, staffs, whistles, and divination figurines.

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' 2 A category of ambiguous characters constitutes a typological transition between the authoritative or aggressive characters and those that are more accessible through their participatory performances. These ambiguous masks, not discussed here, include representations of diviners or healers as well as trickster characters, which highlight different forms of supernatural power. 22 Several female akishi characters exist, including representations of a young woman, an old woman, and a female chief or chiefs. 21 The two similar Pwo masks included in this exhibition and publication are probably the work of one carver or carvers working within one workshop, as noted by Bastin (1982:102). At least one other Pwo mask attributable to the same hand or group is in the permanent collection of the University of Iowa Museum of Art (Roy 1992:142-143). 2. The audience can compare and contrast the different mask types and their behaviors during public performances (personal communication with Bernard Mukuta Samukinji, Chitofu Sampoko, Henry Kaumba, and Charles Chitofu (1991-1993)). 25 See Jordan (1993, 1998) for details on the social roles of masquerades and their educational qualities. 26 The Creator may be considered male and/or female, as in the case of Nzambi figures where male, female, and/or male-female representations may be incorporated within the frame that represents a form of spiritual threshold. I have discussed the concept of Kalunga with Zambian field consultants, who see the Creator as all-encompassing and therefore capable of assuming any gender. " Ancestors may afflict their descendants by causing them all sorts of problems, or possess them. Diviners also redress afflictions related to witchcraft, which cause another type of possession that requires distinct treatments by diviners or ritual experts (Jordan 1996, Wastiau 1997, 1998). When a person is said to be "suffering from mahamba"the individual has done something to upset a particular ancestor. Some diviners working for chiefs may receive honorary titles as members of a chief's court. See Lima (1971)for different forms of figurative representation related to mahamba. 31 Artists, like talented diviners, were sought after by chiefs, who brought them to their courts and awarded them honorary titles. 32 Different royal arts forms, including symbols of office, thrones, and other regalia, were kept by chiefs and inherited through generations. Some inherited items are still kept by chiefs today. " For further discussion of trade, see my section in this volume entitled "The Arts of Chokwe and Related Peoples." m As explained to me by Zambian Chokwe consultant Bernard Mukuta Samukinji (1991-1993). 15 The throne centers the chief in an axis of power; the symbols represented in the throne, scepter, and other items often elaborate on the source of that power. • Representations of such akishi(sing. mukishft as Chikunza and Chihongo are often incorporated into the iconography of thrones and other emblems of authority. For further discussion of masquerades, see my section in this volume on Chokwe-related "Initiation Masks." " For an explanation of the seated form as it relates to ancestry, see my section in this volume entitled "The Arts of Chokwe and Related Peoples." • As in the case of Nzambi figures framed within a symbolic threshold (Batulukisi 1998). • For an elaboration on the symbolism of staffs created by Chokwe and related peoples, see Jordan 1994. 40 Bernard Mukuta Samukinji, personal communications, 1991-1993. " For elaboration on the trader figures, see my section in this volume entitled "The Arts of Chokwe and Related Peoples." 42 Zambian informants explained to me that the price for some quality objects was extremely high, and that a combination of livestock, grains, and currency was often needed to pay for some objects. 43 The Lunda Zambian diviner Chitofu Sampoko(Lunda)explained to me that an ordinary individual should not carry a staff whose symbolism would identify him as a diviner, and a chief's crown is for a chief and not for common people (pers. corn. 1991-1993). It is in the light of his comments that I used the term "exclusive." See the following note #3 for an alternative use of related symbols. In Zambia near the courts of the Luvale chief Ndungu and the Lunda chief Ishinde, I encountered individuals with such items as thumb pianos, staffs, and axes that incorporated figurative references to these chiefs. These items were explained to me as having been made'to honor the chief." " Derived from personal communication with the Zambian Chokwe/Luchazi diviner Chipoya (deceased 1993) and his wife, 1992. Some individuals are reluctant to share such personal implements as pipes for fear that others may apply 'Witchcraft" substances to these items in order to harm the owners. 47 My interpretation. • Having noticed or been informed about the smell of tobacco on certain Chokwe-related figures not intended to function as tobacco paraphernalia, including on the chief figure in the Dallas Museum of Art, I discussed the associative qualities of tobacco with several Zambian consultants between 1991 and 1993 and in 1997, from whom this observation derives.

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Masks from the Lands of Dawn' The Ngangela Peoples Southeastern Angola is a remote world. The Portuguese, who founded the city GERHARD KUBIK

of Luanda in 1576, were entrenched along the coast for 350 years before they ventured to occupy and gain control over the vast interior that now constitutes the Republic of Angola. They only began to establish a network of administrative posts in the remote interior after 1885,when European colonial claims had been marked on maps. Though such travelers as Ladislaus Magyar (1859), Serpa Pinto (1881) and Paiva Couceiro (1892) explored southeastern Angola, it was not until 1912 that the region was "opened up," and named Distrito Cuando-Cubango (after the rivers Kwandu and Kuvangu that form its natural boundaries). A place known locally as Menonge was renamed Vila Serpa Pinto and became the district capital. The interior of southeast Angola was inhabited originally only by San (or "Bushman") hunter-gatherers. In the late 1500s, the Bantu-speaking peoples who later immigrated into the region were associated with the powerful Lunda Empire,situated east of the Kasai River in present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo and ruled by Queen Luweji. When conflicts broke out there around 1600, many populations associated with the Lunda Empire began to migrate southward and settle on the flood plains of Angolan rivers (Pogge 1880, Baumann 1935, Sangambo 1979, Kubik 1994:36-42). In their new settlements, these peoples began to develop separate identities and dialects through the process of linguistic divergence. The Luchazi, Chokwe,and Lwena (or Luvale, luvak being an aquatic plant used in basketry and mat making (Mwondela:1970:2)) all named themselves after local rivers. The Mbunda (a term which means literally "red soil") took their name after the local laterite soils in present-day Moxico Province. The Lwimbi were named by their neighbors after a powerful chief who had led a migration to the Kwanza River after quarreling with the Luchazi chief Mwene Ngongola (Pearson 1977:12). In the southeast, those who built their houses of mats and grass in the flood plains were called by others Mbwela (the etymology of the word mbwela is not currently known), while their cultural relatives who

CAT. 103

Mask: Ndzingi Mbwela peoples, Sakaieke Village, Cuando Cubango province, Angola

Wooden frame, barkcloth, fiber, pigment. H.64 cm. AD 426

constructed mud houses on the forest fringe were called Nkhangala, a term that refers to the bush area between the dry forest and the flood plain. Ethnogenesis in this region began so recently and is often so incomplete that it is not always useful to consider such ethnic groups as the Nkhangala and Mbwela as different (therefore, they are sometimes referred to in this essay as 123 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

the Mbwela/Nkhangala). Furthermore, accelerating inter-ethnic contact in recent decades has promoted cultural merging, which counteracts the process oflinguistic divergence. The relative cultural unity of the eastern Angolan peoples was obvious to outsiders. As the caravan trade from coastal cities across the Angolan highlands and into the east increased during the late 1700s, Ovimbundu traders began to call the peoples in the east "VaNgangela," which means "people of the aurora" or "people of the east where dawn comes up." According to Pearson (1977:11), this term originated when Luchazi traders first reached the Ovimbundu highlands, were asked where they had come from, and replied, "We have come from the Auroraâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the East,"(Twafumu kungangela) Thereafter, the Ovimbundu applied the blanket term Ngangela to all easterners (which the Portuguese translated as Ganguelas (BaiaÂ° 1939, 1940, Koolwijk 1964a, 1964b, Carreira 1969)). The name Ngangela (not to be confused with Nkhangala) was not readily accepted by the people concerned, however, because in some dialects ngangela also denotes areas of uninhabited bush,such as certain sandy plains and grasslands west ofthe upper Zambezi River(C.M.N.White 1959:1).The name is still resented by most Luchazi speakers (Ngunga 1979), as it was in 1921 when Pearson arrived in southeast Angola (Pearson 1977:11). Moreover, the Ovimbundu used the name with the chi-/vi- prefix (Ovingangela, sing. Ochingangela), which denies people their humanity, and is akin to calling them subhuman. It appears that by the 1950s the designation Ngangela was only accepted by the members of this population cluster settled west of Menonge, although peoples to the east of Menonge prefer to call them the Nyemba (nyembais a type of coiffure). It takes time for a researcher to sort out the complexity of ethnic terminology in eastern Angola, where self-appellations and the appellations of others are interwoven (Kubik 1994:42-94). The administration post of Cuito-Cuanavale, where I based myself for six months of research in 1965,was established only in 1912(Rohan-Chabot 1921, Kubik 1994:34).The missionary Rev. Emil Pearson and his family had arrived in 1921 to found a Protestant mission at Njamba, near Mavinga, which long remained the only mission in the region. The Cuando-Cubango district (renamed Kwando-Kubango after independence in 1975) was so peripheral to Portuguese economic interests that it was regularly referred to as "the lands of the end of the world"(ten-as dofim do mundo)(Huigbretse 1970:64). During my research I walked to villages within an 80-kilometer radius of Cuito-Cuanavale, visiting Mbwela, Nkhangala, Luchazi, and Chokwe villages along the Kwitu, Kwanavale,and Longa rivers. At that time, these communities were often inaccessible even by 4-wheel-drive vehicle, had no Western-style schools, and were hardly affected by foreign influences, although occasionally I met young men who had worked on the South African mines or on Portuguese-owned plantations in the central Angolan highlands. The Portuguese administration asserted itself only once a year, mostly rudely, to collect poll tax from the villagers.

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I happened to be the first anthropologist in the region, and apparently the last, because the Angolan civil war has destroyed much of the culture ofsoutheast Angola. Today, the villages are deserted. Most of the population has moved to fortified settlements, to the coastal cities or to refugee camps,leaving behind unidentified minefields! I soon discovered while learning the Mbwela language in 1965 that knowledge of this tongue would open up to me the entire region as far as northwestern Zambia, because Mbwela is little different from Luchazi and Mbunda.3 I worked mainly among speakers of Mbwela and Nkhangala, and less among Chokwe and Luchazi, although all these people were settled close togetherâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;I often encountered a Luchazi village within 15 kilometers of a Chokwe village, for example. Much cultural interaction occurred between all these peoples, and they had something close to a common repertoire of masks. I learned Mbwela from scratch. Missionary dictionaries and records of western Ngangela (BaiaÂ° 1939, 1940) were not much use in my area because the language is quite different from Mbwela/Nkhangala. I built up a vocabulary, decoded the grammar, and worked on the concepts underlying various words. Since I learned Mbwela mainly in the company of children and adolescents, who had the time to walk around with me,I was drawn into their subculture, and this partly explains my involvement in the study of initiation and masks. In Mbwela/Nkhangala culture, life proceeds within a tight educational system that has been handed down by parents and grandparents to promote social equilibrium in their matrilineal society, which accords the maternal uncle great authority. Progress from one age-group to the next requires initiation, and the passage through these initiatory institutions defines an individual's educational status. Specific educational processes are associated with the various age-groups in this society, which was (and is) based on gender parity: each male institution, including secret societies, has a female counterpart. Male and female initiation rites are therefore analogous. The earliest initiation procedures are the obligatory mukanda (for males) where initiates learn about masks (makisi, sing. likist), and chikula (also called litungu lya mwali, for females). Mukanda initiation takes place before the onset of puberty,and commences with circumcision. Female initiation (chikula) begins after a girl's first menstruation. The girls' genitals are not surgically mutilated but the labia minora are gradually stretched by physical manipulation using castor oil and herbal medicines. After the completion of mukand,a or chikula, the optional institutions for males include vandumbu ("the voices of the dead kings")4 and mungongi, and for females tuwema("the flames"). These institutions can be described as secret societies that are off-limits to the opposite gender, although the gender division becomes less pronounced in later life. Both males and females participate in the mahamba spirit possession ceremonies, for example, and although the ideographic script called tusona(Kubik 1987) is mainly a male pastime,females can also draw it. 125 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

The early initiation rites of mukanda and chikula are central to this society. An uncircumcised man (chilima)who has not graduated from mukanda (hospital circumcision does not replace mukanda) would be ridiculed in this society because his status is equal to that offemales or children, and no woman would marry him. In 1965,I encountered a mukanda approximately every 15 kilometers, even in thinly populated areas.5 I worked in four of them. The chikula rite was also shown to me in part, by special permission of the wife of Chief Kayoko. A mukanda is organized when a sufficient number of boys (varying from two to sixteen initiates (Kubik 1993b:344-345)) in a village or region are aged between six and twelve. For economic and medical reasons the mukanda is always set up in the dry season, preferably in May orJune. The principal organizer is called chizika-mukanda. Other personnel include the professional circumciser (chihkenzi),the music and dance teacher (ngomba), the guardians (vilombokz,sing. chilombola),the assistant guardians (tulombola-tito, sing. kalombola-tito),and casual visitors. In contrast to Western-style educational systems, here the teachers are in the majority. Each initiate (kandanda) has one personal guardian and one or more assistant guardians. As few as two boys in the lodge might benefit from the teachings of a dozen adults, who tend to them round the clock during the four or five months ofseclusion. The guardians are appointed by the initiates' mothers, who also remunerate them in one way or another. Mukanda is the term for the boys' circumcision school, but should not be equated with circumcision because the genital mutilation actually takes place before the lodge is erected, at the edge of the village in front ofa forked structure referred to as halusumba. The blood drips into a bowl carved from a termite hill. After the circumcisions, the boys' guardians construct the mukanda lodge, usually a few hundred meters away from the village at the edge of the dry forest, where the initiates (tundanda) spend several months in seclusion. The word mukanda also denotes the lodge. Mukanda instruction has several stages. During the first two weeks after circumcision the lodge is very quiet. The guardians administer medicines made from local plants to help the boys' wounds heal. Some of these plants are displayed atop poles projecting above the mukanda enclosure to warn offillicit visitors. At first, the initiates sleep in pairs in cage-like structures with their legs spread to inhibit infection of the wound. In the mukanda community's secret code, these structures are called euphemistically njivo yaputu, which means a Portuguese-style house'A rite called "genet cat climbing up"(kulonda ntsimba) is held when the initiates have healed and are once again nimble as genets. After this, instruction intensifies, and the guardians and mukanda elders begin to make the season's masks inside the lodge while the initiates are sent on daylong hunting or fishing excursions. Although the making of the masks involves weeks of hard labor, particularly for the manufacture of the costumes (Kubik 1969:8-12), all the masks will be burned at the end of the mukanda seclusion period, together with the lodge. 126 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

The seclusion period is marked by intensive instruction, with discipline a fundamental requirement. Instruction includes songs (often of historical or symbolic content), dances, recitation of oral histories, learning about taboos, symbols,and aspects of the natural world (e.g. plants), and such practical skills as hunting, setting traps, and fishing. Twice a day the assistant guardians carry to the initiates the food which their mothers have prepared but cannot deliver, because mothers may not even approach the mukanda. The assistant guardians sing as they carry the food,and the boys must respond to the song from inside the lodge, and they must eat inside on special grass plates. As this suggests, even simple actions are highly formalized during mukanda.' Before the completed masks can perform in the village, an initiation rite must take place inside the lodge. This is the ceremony of kutsimpwa makisi, in which the secret of the masks is revealed: the masks are not spirits, as the initiates had believed, but worn by men,including their relatives and guardians. In a kutsimpwa that I documented in 1965 at Sekulu Sakateke's village, 25 kilometers northeast of Cuito-Cuanavale, the masqueraders lined up at the gate, with their legs spread. The initiates, waiting outside the lodge, were then summonsed individually. Each was told that the masks were about to swallow him, and then made to crawl through the tunnel of legs in mortal fear. At the end of the passage each initiate was hit on the back with a rod held by the last masquerader in the line. Then the men unmasked, and the initiates discovered to their amazement that men were inside the fearful effigies. Finally, the initiates were encouraged to help the men undress, and this is when they were first allowed to examine and touch the makisi. It takes many years, however, before initiates are considered mature enough to perform as masqueraders. First they will have to learn a specific mask's theatrical role and its specialized choreography. The masks (nzakisi) are inseparably linked to mukanda, without which there can be no masks. Masks appear in public only during the mukanda season, when the guardians and other village men wear them to appear as spirits. The purpose of the public performances at a special dance place (cilend,e) is to establish and maintain symbolic links between the mukanda community and the village community, which includes women and children. As long as the mukanda songs can be heard sounding from the lodge at night and the makisi masquerades take place regularly, the villagers conclude that all is well in the lodge, nobody is ill, and the initiation process is proceeding as planned. A broader messages is also transmittedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;that the male community has access to transcendental powers, to the spirits which the masks represent. The boys' progress during mukanda is celebrated by several appearances ofthe masks in the chilende, and these are joyful occasions for the mothers. The masks interact with the male drummers and the women,who sing and clap, give them presents through young initiated men,and throw peanuts, symbolizing wealth, over the masks.Some of the initiates' mothers (vanyatund,anda), recognizable by their special coiffure, respond by dancing themselves.8 Some women,including the mothers,step forward individually and mirror the dance movements of their favorite mask,or send a handkerchiefas a token to a dancer who impresses them. 127 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

It is taxing and hot to perform in a mask and costume. The dancer must also be careful not to reveal his human identity Although some women might recognize their husbands behind their costumes, they would never violate taboo by exposing them. Initiated men may approach a masquerader to deliver presents from the women, and may talk to him briefly, in which case the exhausted man will reply quietly. The masqueraders are not in any unusual psychological state besides identifying with their roles as actors. The masqueraders publically perform their roles devotedly, even to the point of exhaustion, but the makisi do not induce spirit possession. The dancers do not fall into a trance and "become" spirits. My research colleague, Moya Aliya Malamusi, expressed it this way: "In relationship to the spectators, the masked performer thinks of himself as a spirit, but in relationship to his partners and the initiates he thinks of himself as a human being." Spirit possession and trance are prominent phenomena in this culture, but they belong to another realm of activitiesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the mahamba, where a professional medium enters trance and speaks to the audience in the voice of the spirit possessing him. Similarly, my research in Mbwela/Nkhangala society suggested that the maker of a mask does not assume that a spirit resides in the object he has made. Rather, an anthropomorphic mask is a psychological symbol that acts as a channel for "the ancestral spirit of a person"(mukulu wamuntu), usually a prominent personality and often an historical one. These spirits are not "worshipped"in a Western sense; rather, they are symbols that produce psychological effects. Each secluded initiate,for example,receives a personal mask called Mpumpu, which he would never wear. Instead, this powerful figure, made in the boy's name, watches over the his psychological transformation into an adult. In psychoanalytic terms, one might say that for the boy the Mpumpu mask is the image of a powerful superego to be internalized. Several dozen masks form the repertoire of a single village. Masks are ranked according to the personality they depict. The most senior Mbwela/Nkhangala mask is Mpumpu.It depicts the founding king Mwene Nyumbu,for whom the first mukanda in history was constructed by his brothers. The story told to initiates describes a conflict the king had with his sister Senda, to whom he was married. When Senda insulted the king's uncircumcised penis, Mwene Nyumbu circumcised himself(Kubik 1969:15-16). His brothers then took him to the forest to treat his wound, and built the first mukanda enclosure. This founding myth may transmit a psychological conflict in the remote past about sibling incest, which was resolved by developing a matrilineal society. Mpumpu (fig. 24) usually performs shortly before sunset, after all the other masks have appeared. This is understood symbolically to refer to Mwene Nyumbu as "a person plagued by

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Fig. 24. Mpumpu, the king of the Mbwela masks, commemorates the legendary king Mwene Nyumbu who introduced circumcision and founded the first mukanda. G. Kubik. Taken at Sakateke village, August 1961

bad luck or bad omens"(muntu wa ciyovo), doomed until he was reborn through his auto-circumcision. Mpumpu wears a dummy penis that he wags during his performance. Certain masks are specific to particular ethnic groups, others are shared characters. Among the Chokwe masks described by Barbosa (1989:12), for example, the Mwana Pwo mask appears among the Mbwela/Nkhangala as Mwanampwevo (fig.25). While this shared character represents a young woman who died early in her life, the Chokwe masks of Chikuza (called Chikunza in Angola) and Kalelwa, which depict two nineteenth-century Chokwe kings, Mwene Kanyika (fig. 26)and Mwene Ndumba wa Tembo (Kubik 1993a:110-117), have no counterpart among the Mbwela/Nkhangala. Anthropomorphic masks depict prominent historical personalities (whose spirits are invoked in the masquerade),social types or characters, and spirits which were never part of human society. Chileya,for example, represents a dwarf-like jester from the court of an ancient king. He dances like a woman rotating and Fig. 25. Mwanampwevo(The Young Woman), is a timeless symbol of a beautiful young woman who died prematurely. G. Kubik. Taken at Cingangu village, north of Longa, October 1965.

jerking her pelvis, recalling the story that Chileya's penis was amputated because he sexually ac.caulted the king's daughters. Masks representing charac-

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, , 411.1 ti

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, Fig. 26. The Chokwe mask in action. Chikuza represents the Chokwe king, Mwene Kanyika, who ruled at the end of the 1700s. Chokwe masks form part of the repertoire of makisi among the Mbwela/Nkhangala and Luchazi in southeastern Angola. G. Kubik. Taken at ChiefKambonge's village, south ofLonga, Cuando-Cubango, August 1965

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ters or types include Kasinakazi, the old man; Likisi lyaKandanda, the initiate who died during the circumcision camp; Kambinda, the slave trader; and Chindele, the white man (fig. 27)â&#x20AC;&#x201D;the latter two have been incorporated into the Mbwela repertoire from the western Ngangela (or Nyemba) tradition. Among the Mbwela I also encountered an interesting mask called Chitanga, which represented a freak with two faces (see figure in Kubik 1969:18). The head consisted of a decorated gourd with cutout eyes and mouth and an attached beard of sisal fibers. The term chitanga means perplexity, bewilderment, puzzlement, confusion; vyuma vyavitanga are things that cause bewilderment (Pearson 1970:44). Paiva Couceiro (1892) also reported a mask made from a large gourd. New characters have always been added to the existing repertoire to reflect recent historical experiences. In northwestern Zambia in the late 1970s, for example, a mask called Chiwigi (from the English "wig") was created to depict the spirit of reggae star Bob Marley with his dreadlocks.9 Zoomorphic masks include spirits of the forest and the rivers, such as Lifwako, a fantastic riverine animal believed able to catch and kill a person; Nthyengu, the roan antelope; Munguli, the hyena; and Nkhwaze, the fish eagle. Slight stylistic variation in the repertoire of masks occurs across eastern and southeastern Angola. While typical Mbwela, Nkhangala, Luchazi, and Chokwe masks have a costume made of a network of twisted plant fibers, those of the western Ngangela-speaking groups usually wear a shaggy bark fiber costume dyed black with river mud. In the western Ngangela dialect, masks are not called makisi, but tungandi (sing. kangandi). This term also appears in Mbwela/Nkhangala, but as the designation ofa specific mask, Kanganzi, which is Mpumpu's assistant. The makisi conjure an imaginary world that recalls the ancestors, brings in strange beings from the bush, and evokes history, all through the pantomime of the masked dancers whose meaning the audience decodes. The makisi also position males as power brokers in front of the larger community. The men jealously guard the knowledge and technology they harness to make the makisi, just as the women protect their own secrets. The masks are therefore subject to numerous taboos and prohibitions in relation to uninitiated outsiders, and notable differences exist between the stories told to the uninitiated and to mukanda graduates. Although knowledge of the secret of the masks appears to empower the male community at the expense of females, Mbwela/Nkhangala society in 1965 was not structured along the lines of a gender conflict. At most, such a conflict was played out as a game. The women's "revenge" comes in December when their own masquerade becomes active in the village, and teenagers and young men are "attacked" and playfully flogged by a horde of young women. The "masks of the females" (makisi avampwevo), the female equivalents of the "masks worn by males" (makisi avamala), belong to the women's parallel institution, to which men have no access. Although many of the women's mak130 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

Fig. 27. Kambinda (the slave trader)(right) and Chindele (the white man)(left). Their shaggy fiber costumes dyed with black mud typify the western Nkhangala (or Nyemba) mask tradition. Chindele has an angular face painted red and a hooked nose, evoking the slave traders who greatly affected the western Ngangela people in the early 1800s. Later, these types of masks were also adopted by the Mbwela and Nkhangala further east, as in the case of these examples. G. Kubik. Taken inside the mukanda at Sakateke's village, August 21, 1965.

isi have names identical to those by men, these are not readily classified as masks in Western terms, because they generally consist merely of body paint and body decoration. Mbwela/Nkhangala conceptualization, however, proCAT. 104

ceeds from meaning, not solely from form. The women also have their own

Mask: Mwene Chinonge

secret association called tuwema ("the flames"), and they create their own nocturnal spectacle of dancing sparks. How they do it is their technological secret

Ngangela peoples, Kapenela. Huila province, Angola

Wood,fiber, metal, buttons, pigment. H. 27 cm. AL 598

(Kubik 1993a:170-171). 131 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

132 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

Fig. 28. Stages in the manufacture of Ndzingi. G. Kubik. Taken in the mukanda at Sakateke village, August 1965. (a)and (b) bark cloth hammering to make Ndzingi's head cover (c)and (d)the framework of the head being covered with dried bark cloth (e)the finished mask (mutwe walikisi) with red and brown paint (f) display of all the newly manufactured masks inside the mukanda, including Ndzingi An episode of Ndzingi's public performance:(28g) The mask collapses and falls down to demonstrate the apparent weight of its huge spherical head;(h)two initiated youngsters come running to help him up again. G. Kubik. Taken at the chilende(dance place) in Sakatake's village, August 22, 1965.

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CAT. 105

Mask: Kakumbi Ngangela peoples, Gangela, Huila province, Angola Wooden frame, barkcloth, fiber, raffia, pigment. H. 100 cm. AL 671

134 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

Ndzingi Ndzingi (cat. 103, page 122) depicts a giant from the forest. In many fireside tales, this creature appears under the name Chikisikisi. It is said to live in the hills and to have such a large mouth that can swallow a dog. I observed this mask being made (fig. 28a-h) in Sakateke village in August 1965, and later collected it. That August, the mukanda lodge of Sekulu (or sub chief) Sakateke, situated on a flat hill about 100 meters from his village and accommodating six boys aged between five and ten, was a bustling workshop. Almost the entire mukanda personnel, including the guardians and the dance teacher, and other male helpers from the village were making new masks and repairing old costumes in preparation for a large masquerade. I watched a man hammer out the red bark cloth for Ndzingi's head. By the time it was applied in pieces over the twig framework it had dried to ash gray. Then the huge head was painted in the symbolic colors of red-brown (mukundu) and white (mphernba), which represent death and resurrection, or luck. The tubeshaped mouth was rolled from another type of bark, and a ruff of bark fibers was attached to the neck. The net costume was made in the local interlacing technique (see also Kubik 1969). Ndzingi's performance, as I observed it, dramatized both the mask's aggression and debility. Ndzingi began by running across the dance place swaying its head. Then it danced in the winnowing (kuhunga) style, which features a sideways twisting of the pelvis and stamping. Soon, however, Ndzingi's head began to wobble, until he fell to the ground, apparently pulled down by the weight of its head. Two initiated boys ran laughing to help him up again (fig. 28G, p. 133). This episode was repeated several times until the performer retreated to the mukanda.

Mwene Chinonge The other southern Angolan masks in the exhibition (cats. 105-111) come from the western Ngangela (or Nyemba) area, i.e. the region west of Menonge. They were all collected in that region by Antonio Carreira in 1967, when he traveled widely around Vila da Ponte (then called Artur de Paiva) and to Ngalange and other places specifically to collect artifacts for the Museu de Etnologia, Lisbon. It is difficult to interpret these objects without detailed documentation.'째 Carreira provided very little documentation, apart from the odd photograph and vague references to objects. Furthermore, most of the terms and place names he mentions are in phonetic Portuguese transcriptions of Ngangela. I have attempted to transcribe these terms into current orthography, although many of the villages he mentions are not marked on current maps. A 1968 article published by Carreira does, however, provide some useful hints. The mask, cat. 104 on page 131, was collected in a place called Kapenda in the area of Ngalange in Huila Province, in the westernmost Ngangela-speaking area. Mwene Chinonge might represent a powerful Ngangela chief who died long ago, although the meaning of mwene (chief, king, headman) covers the entire hierarchy of traditional authority. The word chinonge (pl. vinonge) has two usual meanings in Nkhangala, referring either to a species of grass or to 135 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT. 106

Mask: Chiando Ngangela peoples, Kapoko Village near Kuvango (Vila da Ponte), Huila province, Angola Wooden frame, fiber, barkcloth, raffia, pigment. H.90 cm. AL 634

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CAT 107

Mask: Ngomb e Ngangela peoples, Ngalange, Huila Province, Angola

Wooden frame, bark cloth, fiber, raffia, pigment. H. 65 cm. AL 677

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138 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT. 110

CAT. 108

Mask: Mphulu

Mask: Munguli

Ngangela peoples, Kangombe, Gangela, Huila province, Angola

Ngangela peoples, Gangela, Huila Province, Angola

Wooden frame, barkcloth, fiber, raffia, pigment. H.45 cm. AL 635

Wooden frame, bark cloth, raffia, fiber, metal, pigment. H. 20 cm. AL 709

CAT. 109

Mask: itiphulu Ngangela peoples, Kalemba Village, Huila province, Angola

Fiber, barkcloth, pigment. H. 28 cm. AL 603

139 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

140 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

the red kidney bean (Pearson 1970:36), but Baia* (1939:12) gives a third possible meaning,lioness ("tyinonge in his obsolete orthography of"chincmgen).

Kakumbi Carreira's notes mention only this mask's (cat. 105, page 134) name and that it was collected at Vikungu village (Vicungo in his account), which is in Huila Province, near Vila da Ponte. This mask obviously depicts a zoomorphic being. The name Kakumbi could be a diminutive form of the word likumbi, which has two meanings:(a) the mane along the back of an animal, for example a gnu,(b) a species of very large locust (Pearson 1970:158). Bastin (1969) depicts a similar mask and preserved costume from the Kasindi region now in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin (# III C 31754), which has been described elsewhere under the name Kangandi ka Lithawene, meaning the mask of Lithawene (Krieger and Kutscher 1960:87).

Chiando and Ngombe Carreira (1968:64) published a field photograph showing these with their costumes. He describes Chiando (cat. 106, page 136) ("Txiando" in his Portuguese spelling) only as a type of bird. Ngombe is a widespread Bantu word applied to cattle, and the Ngombe mask shown here(cat. 107, page 137) is clearly bovine. Chiando was collected at Kapoko near Vila da Ponte, and Ngombe at Ngalange in Huila Province. Munguli Munguli means hyena (cat. 108, page 139), a motif widespread in southcentral African masks. The aggressive nature of this animal is conveyed by the metal teeth. Some specimens of Munguli have a jaw that can be manipulated from inside the costume, and a moveable tail. Unfortunately, the costume of this mask was not collected. In 1971 and in 1987, I documented and filmed a 1987 performance of a Munguli mask among the Luchazi of Sangombe village, Kabompo District, northwestern Zambia.

Mphulu Mphulu (pl. vampu/u)means gnu, which is what this mask, collected in Kalemba village, represents. It is not surprising that the gnu features among zoomorphic masks, since a famous ideograph called vampu/u is drawn in the sand by elderly men (Kubik 1987:82) and was also seen painted on the wall of CAT. 111 Mask: Nyamachahila Ngangela peoples, Kapok째 Village near Kuvango(Vila da Ponte), Huila province, Angola Wood,fiber, buttons, organic material, pigment. H. 16 cm. AL 636

a granary in northern Angola in 1930(Baumann 1935:pl. 44). The ideograph depicts the story of four gnus who hear gunshots in the forest and survive because they run away from the noises caused by the belligerent human race. Two Mphulu masks are exhibited (cats. 109, 110, pages 138 and 139). Carreira illustrates one of them, with the shaggy costume typical of the west141 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

erm Ngangela (or Nyemba) region, and identifies it as a gnu (Carreira 1968:62).

Nyamachahila According to Carreira (1968:68), the name of this mask (cat. 111, page 140)(which he spells in Portuguese as Nhama Txahila) means the first-born daughter of Cahila, suggesting that this mask, worn by men, depicts a female character. Among the Mbwela/Nkhangala, the names of several other masks start with nyama-,for example, Nyamavwelu, which depicts a Lunda mythological female character (Kubik 1969), and Nyamachikhanka, which represents a river bird feeding on fish. This mask was collected at Kapoko village near Vila da Ponte. Bastin (1969:17) mentions but does not name a comparable object in the private Belgian collection ofJef Vander Straete.

Lisala or Chitataveka Lisala or Chitataveka, a mask (cat. 112, page 9) in the western Ngangela or Nyemba style was collected by Gerhard Kubik in 1965 from the mukanda of Sekulu (subchief) Sakateke, with the latter's permission. Sakateke was a village north of the administration post Cuito-Cuanavale (Kwitu-Kwanavale). This mask represents a fabulous river animal that has wide ears sticking out. It is said to be found in the rivers Kwanavale, Kwitu, Kwelei, Kweve and Kutatu. Its sighting is a bad omen and brings bad luck. According to Chief Chingangu (interviewed in 1965) there was a certain person who encounted this animal near the river. When he returned home from hisjourney, he found his entire family dead.

lnambembe This head of a mask (cat. 113, page 12) was collected by Antonio Carreira in 1967 in the region west of the town of Menonge (Serpa Pinto), southern Angola. It seems that this object is identical with the one shown in a photograph by Carreira in his article "Regido dos Ganguelas," Geographica, 3(13): 64, under the designationa Inambembe(Mother of Mbembe). Stylistically, this mask belongs to the western Ngangela or Nyemba tradition. Masks in a similar type of manufacture with large spectacle-like eyes in red and white decoration have also been integated into the repertoire of masked characters further east. There, they have been filmed repeatedly in action by G. Kubik.

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This title commemorates Rev. Emil Pearson and his work on the language and literature of the people he called the "VaNgangela, People of the Aurora"(Pearson 1970, 1973, 1977, 1984). In 1992 and 1993, my colleague Moya A. Malamusi and I worked among Mbwela, Nkhangala, and Nyemba refugees in the area of Rundu, Namibia, to see what was left of the culture. Much of the language and oral literature were intact, but no masks were made (Namibian law forbade initiation schools and the creation of their masks), although many of the old songs and dances associated with the masks were still remembered.(Recorded in video #15, Kubik/Malamusi, Namibia 1992, Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin, Fachferat Musikethnologie.) The Mbwela language is a variant of the cluster summarized by Malcolm Guthrie (1948) as Zone K, group 10. The main differences between Mbwela and neighboring languages are phonetic. In 300 or 400 years of separate development, Mbunda has come to include certain unique phonetic sounds and other pronunciation differences, which might have come about due to modification of the teeth as a form of marking ethnic identity. The phonetic pronunciation of the names of particular masks also varies between these peoples. See Kubik 1981 for audio recordings(on LP record format). I have described mukanda extensively elsewhere (Kubik 1971, 1981) and published a psychological analysis (Kubik I993b). In one of my photographs showing the construction of the Ndzingi mask, such a structure can be seen in the background. The analysis of mukanda lyrics and taboos (Kubik 1981, I993b) suggests that, besides the general objectives of educating and socializing initiates, one of the primary aims of mukanda is to sever a young boy's attachment to his mother, sisters, and other females. In a matrilineal society such as that of the Mbwela/Nkangala, with a prolonged weaning period and a long post-partum sex taboo, mukanda may serve to counteract the possibility of cross-sex identification and incest by reclaiming the boy for the male part of society. As can be seen in our film shot later at Sangombe village on the Zambian side of the border (Videocassette Tape # 74, September 19, 1987, collection Kubik/Malamusi). I filmed many aspects of Mbwela, Nkhangala, Chokwe, and Luchazi culture in 1965 and later. Videocassette copies are housed at the Etnologisches Museum, Berlin. The following are particularly important for the complex mukanda and makisi: Mukanda Season in Southeast Angola. 1965. 1 hour. Videocassette (silent film). Mukanda Season in Northwest Zambia. 1971. 1 hour. Videocassette (silent film). Mukanda at Village Maveve. 1979. 1 hour. Videocassette. (Tape #24, Kabompo and Zambezi districts, Zambia) Litunga lya Nyamuso. 1979. 1 hour. Videocassette.(Tape # 27, girls' initiation, Kabompo and Zambezi districts, Zambia) Kukuwa Mingonge. 1979. 1 hour. Videocassette.(Tape # 28, Kabompo and Zambezi districts, Zambia) Cikula Feast at Samende. 1979. 1 hour. Videocassette.(Tape # 29, Kabompo and Zambezi districts, Zambia) Mukanda at Katuva River. 1979. 1 hour. Videocassette.(Tape # 31, Kabompo and Zambezi districts, Zambia) Makisi Dance Feast at Sangombe. 1987. 20 mins. Videocassette.(Tape # 74, Kabompo District, Zambia) Tusona Ideographs Drawn in the Sand. 1987. 20 mins. Videocassette.(Tape # 75, Kabompo district, Zambia) Vankhangala, Vambwela and Valucasi Refugees near Rundu. 1992. Videocassette. (Tape # 15/Kubik/Malamusi, Namibia) Field notes at Cikenge village, Kabompo District, Zambia, 1979. As is evident in Marie-Louise Bastin's 1969 essay "Ngangela Masks," where she struggles to interpret these objects.

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Embodied Futures: The Dolls of Southwestern Angola The Herero named the peoples who lived north of them "Ambo," meaning ELISABETH CAMERON

"people with cattle outposts"(Loeb 1962:9). The peoples whom the Herero lumped together as Ambo incorporated twelve distinct groups, including the Ndonga and Kwanyama peoples. Since arriving in the region several hundred years ago, these distinct groups lived apart,often with a no-man's-land between them,and clashed often (Estermann 1976:51). As noted by the Herero, all these southwestern-Angolan peoples, including the various Ambo peoples, their Nyaneka neighbors,and the Nkumbi peoples, all shared three social features: cattle herding, agriculture, and matrilineal descent. Until about 1950, these groups also appear to have had a royal clan headed by a paramount chief.' Throughout this region, men's lives centered on cattle herding while women were prepared from birth to fulfill their dual roles as mothers and farmers. Four days after the birth of an infant girl, an adult woman formally introduced her to key agricultural aspects of the community,showing her the corn storage area and threshing floor (Hahn 1966:25-26) or presenting her to a palm leaf and a hoe (Timm 1998:209). The girl's socialization as caregiver began with caring for her younger siblings and cousins. In some areas, a girl at all times held under her tongue four or more small quartz stones called "children" (ovana), which she only removed after she had produced a child, after which the ovana were passed down to another young girl in her family (Estermann 1979:44). As these practices suggest, the Ambo and Nyaneka held in awe women's creative powers as the guardians and nurturers offertility; they considered barrenness a physical disaster and a personal dishonor to the woman and her family (Delachaux 1936:55). Dolls everywhere generally play an important role in socializing girls, and often in Africa in promoting and protecting the bearing of children. Like girls everywhere, Ambo and Nyaneka girls received dolls from family members or made dolls for themselves out ofsuch found materials as clay and fabric scraps. Although playthings in these cultures, little girls' dolls represented the

CAT.116 Ritual doll Ambo or Nyaneka related peoples, Namibe province, Angola Fiber, corn cob, cloth, beads, metal chain and studs, bullet shells. H.24 cm. AZ 611

promise of future children (Timm 1998:207), and girls had to handle them gently. Older girls and grown women also carried small ritual figures, which they believed embodied their future children. As is common throughout Africa, both girls' dolls and women's ritual figures are called "child" and their material is specified. In Ambo,for example, 145 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

dolls are termed child of clay (okana konata), child of wood (okana kositi) or child of palm nut(okana ki)clunga)(Timm 1998). Dolls may also be given a personal name. Many scholars do not use the term "doll"for the ritual figures used by adult women because they feel this association with children's toys trivializes the ritual figures. In a recent publication on southern African dolls, including dolls for both play and ritual, authors termed the ritual objects "fertility figures" (Dell 1998) and "child figures"(Timm 1998). I have argued elsewhere that children's dolls are not trivial, and that both types of object, whether used for play or in ritual,function in the same way and are called the same things in the vernacular(Cameron 1996a, 1996b).In this essay, I use the English term "doll" to refer to both genres. Several reports testify to the fact that the ritual dolls of southwestern Angola were of great significance for the entire family because they were seen as the future offspring of the entire family, or as Loeb termed them, the "imagery vehicles for a family's future progeny" (Loeb 1962:114). Early researchers and collectors were surprised that the Ambo and Nyaneka resisted even allowing a doll to be seen when not being carried by a girl (Delachaux 1936:55), and only families who had become Christian would sell their dolls (Loeb 1962:115). A young man who met a girl carrying a doll had to give her a gift or suffer her curses(Delachaux 1936:56-7). In case offire, the family doll was the first and often the only thing rescued from the flames (Tonjes 1911:132). Early literature states that if a young girl and her doll were captured, the family's priority was to recover the doll even if they had to pay a ransom of as many as twelve cows; only then would they ransom the girl for a much smaller fee (Loeb 1962:115).Younger girls could occasionally carry and play with these important dolls but had to take great care because an injury to the doll was equivalent to injuring her future children (Shaw 1948:63). A girl who lost a doll was expected to be barren (Loeb 1962:114). As a result of the extraordinary cultural value placed on the doll, museum collections have few early examples. The ownership of the doll followed the matrilineal structure of the Ambo and Nyaneka. Families guarded them, passing them from mother to older daughter or from older to younger sister. Several girls might even share a doll. Existing literature describes several courses of action for a growing family who needed more dolls. Rather than being contradictory, these differences probably reflect different practices in the various areas where scholars have worked, which in turn demonstrates the difficulty ofsummarizing a tradition shared by different peoples.A father might provide a doll for his daughter (Tonjes 1911:132), or a young woman might take an appropriate piece of wood to a boy in the community and ask him to create the doll for her (Loeb 1962:118; Timm 1998:211) or a healer might provide a doll for a family (Timm 1998:211). Dolls served double duty in socializing a girl by symbolizing future children and by taking the form of adult women in ceremonial attire. Although variations exist between all the groups in southwestern Angola, the ceremonial life 146 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT. 114

Ritual doll Kwanyama peoples, A mbo Area, Cunene province, Angola Wood,fabric, string, beads, pigment, wax (?). H. 37 cm. AP 039

1-17

of a girl follows several general patterns. A young girl follows her mother and learns her future roles by observation and imitation. As a girl grows and matures, her mother gives her the responsibility of caring for younger children, assisting with household tasks, and farming a small plot ofland. Families with young girls or community leaders host dances for the adolescents of the community.Some familiarity is permitted between the sexes,including a form of bundling2 where a young man and woman slept together without having sex but separated only by the girl's apron that she had pulled between her legs. Among some peoples in the past, if a man impregnated a girl before her initiation ceremony, the couple were tied together, covered with straw, and burned (Loeb 1962:240). Other peoples practiced abortion or allowed the couple to marry. Women's initiations took place when the girl began to develop breasts but before she began to menstruate. A marriage ceremony followed these initial ceremonies,either immediately among the Ambo or among the Nyaneka within several years. The young women wore special dress and hairstyles that marked each step along her route to becoming a mother. The most consistently elaborated feature on the dolls is the ceremonial hairstyles. After a young woman was initiated, the women in her family passed on to her the family's doll. Either the girl or the man she planned to marry named the doll. The woman acknowledged the doll's role as an embodiment of the child she hoped to bear by caring for it as if it were her child, and being careful not to lose or harm the doll, which would have severe consequences. When the woman had her first child, the child took the doll's name, and the doll reverted to a generic "child of wood" and was stored away for the next girl in the family. Margo Timm gives an alternate scenario among the Ambo where a

CAT. 115

man gives the doll to his chosen wife (Timm 1998:213). Lebzelter states that

Ritual doll Mwila Nyaneka peoples, Netsuke province, Angola Low-fired clay, cloth, beads, pigment. H.80 cm. AP 071

when a man gives a young woman a doll, she accepts his suit by returning the doll, after which he names the doll and returns it to her (1934,II: 232). The base of the Kwanyama doll, Ambo area (cat. 114, page 147), is a tree branch with a natural fork for the two legs of the figure. Black gum mixed with clay and wax form the head,shoulders, and arms. On older dolls, eyes, mouth, and hairstyle are made of ostrich eggshell beads and small iron beads hang around the neck ofthe doll. Ant6nio Carreira collected this doll around 1969 (Bastin 1994:fig. 244) when such European materials as glass beads and striped cloth were readily available. Beads are used for eyes and for the necklace, girdle, and beaded apron that hangs in front of the figure. The cowry shells of the elende hairstyle are also represented by white beads. The apron here, traditionally made of white and black leather, is red striped cloth. The color red is important because of its association with menstrual blood, and therefore with the ability of the girl to become pregnant. Radcliffe-Brown states that women rubbed these dolls with menstrual blood (1925:99-102), although he does not state the occasions on which this took place. Rather than carrying the doll in a baby-carrier, an Ambo girl wore the doll tucked into her belt, where it rests snugly against her stomach. 148 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

CAT. 117

Fig. 29. Mwila girl and her doll. Photo:Afrika Museum, Berg en Dal, The Netherlands.

Ritual doll Mwila Nyaneka peoples, Namibe province, Angola

Fiber, beads, buttons, brass studs, cloth, encrustation. H. 29.5 cm. AG 797

The Mwila are one of many peoples conventionally lumped together as the Nyaneka. Like dolls in many areas of Africa, women made this doll oflow-fired clay (cat. 115, page 149). It portrays a mature woman with articulated arms,the hairstyle of a married woman,and a cloth apron. Very little published information exists about clay dolls among the Mwila Nyaneka peoples. Marie-Louise Bastin calls this figure a "fertility doll in female form"(paupee d,efecondite itfigurationfeminine) but provides no references to support the ritual function (Bastin 1994:fig. 241). On the basis of evidence from surrounding groups, however, this clay doll may have been used both for play and to symbolize female fertility. Women among the neighboring Kwanyama made clay dolls specifically for little girls to play with (Delachaux 1936:55; Loeb 1962:119), and Ambo healers also made clay dolls for women who wanted to become pregnant (Loeb 1962:119). Margo Timm suggests that the clay dolls used in children's play are heavy with fertility symbolism. She points to the link in Ambo culture between the work area ofa female potter and the womb of god (Timm 1998:213). Furthermore, this doll is likely made from 149 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

IVHDIROBBISCRATIM

iuia.iiit

clay taken from a termite mound, which is a phallic symbol throughout this region and would therefore introduce the male element needed for fertility. At first glance the doll (cat. 116, page 144) looks like a standard Mwila Nyaneka doll made of fiber and decorated with cloth and beads, but in this case the maker has substituted an ear of corn for the fiber core. The doll clearly represents an initiated woman, and wears a girdle of white beads that is a modern equivalent of the woman's girdle made of ostrich eggshell beads. In the past, mothers put several strands of ostrich eggshell beads around the waist of a baby girl, then added strands throughout the child's early years. At the girl's initiation, the density of the beads in her girdle indicated the wealth of her clan. The hairstyle also appears to be the elende style of the Ambo,with the cowry shells represented by beads coming down each side of the doll's head. An interesting contradiction arises between the eternal nature of these heirloom dolls and the ephemeral nature of the corncob, which seems more vulnerable to infestation and disintegration than the fiber core. Perhaps this doll evokes women's dual role: as mother and farmer. The similarlity between the recently initiated Mwila Nyaneka girl and her doll is clear in a photograph from the Afrika Museum (fig. 29). They both wear the bead girdle and a hairstyle composed of beaded strands of hair. The reddish color on the doll (cat. 117, page 149) and the red fiber skirt refer to menstrual blood and therefore the ability of the girl who carries it to bear children. The palm fiber core of the doll visually links the doll to women's activities of weaving and processing palm oil.' CAT. 120

It could be argued that the organization of these groups around a "king" is based on a misunderstanding by the Portuguese and their desire to work only with authority figures. In contrast, oral traditions indicate that authority was held by a clan of Twa (hunter-gatherers) who obtained the submission of cattle herders through trickery (Estermann 1976, I:55). Today, traditions and responsibilities surrounding the royal clan seem to be in the process of being forgotten. Bundling, a courtship practice found in many cultures around the world, is when an unmarried couple sleep together without having sex. Often they sleep fully clothed to limit intimacy. Margo Timm convincingly links the palm nut dolls of the Ambo to women's activities surrounding the palm tree. Many initiation activities take place under a palm tree, and women are referred to metaphorically as palm trees. Also the initiates exchange metal and bead ornaments for fiber replacements(Timm 1989:207-209).

Funerary stele Mbali peoples, Namibe province, Angola Stone. H.62 cm. AL 983 This funerary headstone shows a female figure holding a branch with leaves in her right hand. A loincloth covers her hips and thighs while the rest of the legs and the feet remain uncovered and are represented in profile. This headstone comes from a burial-place in the region of Namibe, formerly the Mocamedes district in the southwest of Angola. It was created by a Mbali artist. The Mbali are descendants of the earlier slaves and plantation workers that came to the region. Headstones are their most distinct works of art. They are made in sandstone, reinforced concrete, and more recently in artificial marble. The iconography of the Mbali stele and the way human figures are represented differ from traditional African sculpture. Mbali artists were inspired by tombs for the colonials that were made in Lisbon and brought to Angola. An influential Mbali sculptor was Victor Jamba. He worked in a stone-mason's yard in Lisbon. When Jamba returned to Angola, he brought back an album of headstone designs that continued to inspire the iconography of his work. (cardaso, 1974). Frank Herreman

152 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

153 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

The Bidjogo Peoples of Guinea Bissau The roughly 15,000 members of the Bidjogo people inhabit some twenty DANIELLE GALLOIS-DUQUETTE Translatedfrom French byJoachim Neugmschel

islands and islets off the West African coast, a few miles from Guinea-Bissau, to which they belong politically. Not all these islands are permanently occupied, but they are cultivated by the burn method; the scorched fields become rice paddies fed by the frequentsummer rainfall. The Bidjogo also live on palm nut oil, fish, poultry, and, more recently, orchard produce, which religious missionaries have prompted them to develop. Along the flat,jagged coast, mangrove trees alternate with beaches of fine sand. The villages are grouped in the interior, in clearings within the savanna or sparse forests. There are five geographic zones: 1. East: the islands of Galinhas, Roxa, Soga, Rubane, and Bubaque. The latter, the most developed, contains the town of the same name and the port linking the islands to the mainland. 2. South: Orangozinho, Meneque,Canogo and Orango. 3. West: Uno, Uracane, Eguba, Unhocomozinho,and Unhocomo, the farthest into the Atlantic and therefore important in religious symbolism. 4. North-west: Caravela and Carache. 5. North-east: Formosa,Ponta, and Maio. In each of these zones, the Bidjogo language, tied to the northern Atlantic group of Bantu origin, evinces peculiarities that make communication between zones difficult. The inhabitants therefore prefer to use Creole. Europeans have known about the Bidjogo as inhabitants of the archipelago since the 1400s: they were first mentioned in 1456 by a Venetian, Ca Da Mosto, in the story of his travels. In 1460,Pedro da Cintra managed to disembark and even observe a few "idol sculptures," "estatuas de idolos de ntadeira." This is the oldest reference to Bidjogo sculpture. He also reported that the "Africans worshipped these statues." In 1594, Alvares d'Almeda wrote that these Africans "are very quarrelsome, they are constantly at war...and the men do only three things: fight wars, build

CATS. 142/143

Two Sacred figures: Orebok Ocoto[Great Spirit Possessor of the Earth] Bidjogo peoples, Eticoga, Orango Grande, Arguipilago dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

boats, and gather palm wine." Numerous tales describe the Bidjogo's bellicose attitude. The mainland populations, such as the Beafabas, a powerful kingdom, had to appeal to the king of Portugal to ward off invasions by the archipelago men, who assailed the coastal villages in large boats and carried off

Wood,earth, crushed plant material, iron chain, sacrificial encrustation. H.39 cm.

women and cattle. Clearly, the Bidjogo were both sailors and warriorsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;two

AD 948 and AD 990

features that survive today in their artistic efforts. In 1616, Father Manuel 155 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

Alvares described their canoes and equipment: Their boats, known as "almadies," are made from a single tree trunk. They are very low, so that the men heighten them, making them deeper and capable of transporting all the more thieves and booty; they do so by adding planks,which we call "fargues." Normally each vessel contains 22 to 24 men, all ofthem rowers.... the captain stands in the prow,brandishing his buckler and his assegai and loudly chanting to the rhythm of the oars wielded by those infernal soldiers. In the early 1930s, the Austrian explorer Hugo Adolf Bernatzik took several photos of these enormous canoes, each prow of which was decorated with a sculpted bull's head sporting impressive horns. Nowadays the Bidjogo are content to buy pirogues from the Niominka in Senegal. During the 1800s, the western European nationsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;England, France, and Portugalâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;argued over the control of the archipelago. According to contemporary archives, each nation signed treaties to its own advantage and brutally punished the islanders for political reversals in which they unwillingly became embroiled. Finally, the Portuguese established a colony around the city of Bissau, and the various administrators crushed revolts by the inhabitants (especially the Can habaque, who were regarded as the cruelest). Eventually, the definitive pacification in 1936 cost both sides enormous losses. Then,in 1974, the country became independent. Today, the Bidjogo, protected against Islamization by distance and deeply attached to their traditions despite inevitable acculturation, manage to preserve many traits noticed by past navigators. The Council of Elders (Grandeza in Creole), made up of elders of either sex, makes such village decisions as handling conflicts with other villages and arranging the sowing of the crop or dates for initiation. The priestess (oquinka in Bidjogo) plays an important role here, as was true in the past, when shipwrecked navigators owed their safety to her favorable interpretation of the pulsations ofa chicken whose throat had been cut. Since the end ofthe 1800s, however, a king, who is not mentioned in earlier histories, gradually attained importance, and today it is the king who deals with the civil authorities. Probably because so many sculptures have been stolen during the past few decades, the king is now the guardian of the figures that represent the spirits of deified ancestors and he keeps them in his own home. Though the king has assumed this role of the priestess, who recently still lived as a celibate in the village sanctuary, nourishing the spirits with offerings and sustaining the sacred fire at night.The priestess, however,retains her authority over the female world. Men and women have very separate rights and duties in which secrecy plays a major role, creating a singular relationship between the sexes in regard to the coastal tribes. Perhaps because of the men's naval expeditions, it is the women who perform such tasks as maintaining and even building the circular straw homes, which are located in the husbands' villages. The woman also chooses her spouse, who cannot turn her down lest he be rejected by the other women.The situation is akin to a matriarchy. Ifa mother asks for a divorce, the 156 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

children are awarded to the father but remain attached through her to the one offour clan ancestors from whom she is descended. Numerous variant myths describe how the world and the clans originated. One version, collected in 1976, was related by the elderly king of Abu on the island of Formosa: At the beginning of the world, in the great sanctuary of the island of Orango', a mother gave birth to a hermaphroditic child, Orakuma,then to three girls, Ominka, Oraga, Ogubane. The bonds between Orakuma and his three sisters led to a lineage of boys or girls in alternate years. It was the Orakuma clan that began to sculpt decorative statuettes (Bonecas in Creole) and fabricated the first effigy of the Great Spirit (Ira Grande in Creole). Furthermore that clan possessed the earth, while Ominka dealt with fishing, Oraga wove rugs, and Ogubane took charge of palm groves and rice paddies." (personal communication) Just as every Bidjogo is descended through his mother from one of the four mythical ancestors, each village belongs to one of the four clans. The clan that "owns the soil" (d,ona do chao, in Creole) supplies the traditional authorities of the village: the king, the priestess, the slit drum2 player. The clans are exogamous in principle,and while all four may coexist on a large island like Bubaque, a small island like Soga or Unhocomo may be limited to a single clan. Every village has its sanctuary, where worshipers pray to the Great Spirit of the Earth (Creole:Ira Grande do Chao).The term ira signifies everything containing a sacred and mysterious energy. It can designate a weave of palm fronds that alerts the traveler about to enter a place for the secret activities of initiation; it can apply to a wild goat's horn filled with plant powder to ward off snakes; and it can refer to a wooden sculpture depicting a seated figure, which is kept concealed behind the curtain of the temple altar except when exhibited in ceremonies. Every village worships the Great Spirit of the Earth. When the worshipers make a pledge to it or express their gratitude to it, the entire community gathers in the large circular temple to offer it food' or blood sacrificesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;usually a chicken. When the matter is as grave as an epidemic or a drought,a goat is sacrificed or, in extreme cases, a cow. Sometimes the Great Spirit of the Earth is brought outside,for instance when a king dies or when the villagers migrate to a temporary place for the summer sowing. The Great Spirit's appearance varies according to the groups of islands. In the zones of Orango and Uno,it is concretized in a complex amalgam placed in an ordinary vessel. It is made of earth and crushed vegetable elements; or else the leaves of a mangrove, a sacred plant, plays an important part, as do such human materials as hair and nail clippings from initiates of both sexes. This mixture is the catalyst of the energies of the village. It is also a constituent of the anthropomorphic sculptures of other island groups. In Bubaque, Canhabaque, and the northern islands, the Great Spirit has a human face. In Bubaque, a face topped with an imposing hat (probably related to the hats worn by white sailors, soldiers, and missionaries) surmounts the 157 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

ringed neck, which is attached to a piece of branch that is hollow on its ventral side; in the lower third, we see a tray for offerings. In Canabaque,the sculpture presents the same human face on a round, heavy plinth. In Formosa,Caravela, and Carache, the figure is often seated, his hands resting laterally on a small, Ushaped chair of a type that usually belongs to elders. In certain rare older versions, the hands are on the knees. The face is usually elongated and has an undershotjaw, while the deep-set eyes under the brow ridges often consist of small bits of metal. The ears may be pierced,the chest scarified like that ofan initiated man,and the head may have bald patches that refer to initiation. Another type shows the face of the Great Spirit on a faceted pole placed on an egg cupshaped base. These representations of the Great Spirit of the Earth have no gender, except for the seated versions, which normally have a male body. Another type ofsculpture partakes of the nature of the Great Spirit. This is a flat triangular sculpture with two or three small horns on one angle and a cylinder at the other. Known in Creole as Ira de Mao or Mao de Ira, meaning "portable spirit"or "hand of spirit," the king holds it or carries it everywhere with him in a long, wickerwork sack, along with his fly swatter and a long metal pike with a trefoil end, much like a European halberd of the Renaissance period. The same sacred amalgam associated with other Great Spirit representations is placed under the cloth that covers this object. The Bidjogo are monotheists. They say that the Creator, named Nindu or Ianu4, is so unique and superior that it is inconceivable to turn to him for help in human affairs. Rather, the Great Spirit of the Earth is the intermediary between the earthly world and the spirit world. Each living being, even an animal, has a spirit. At death, this spirit goes to Ancaredo, the afterworld where the deceased fuse with the Creator. Although any artist can produce a sculpture of the Great Spirit of the Earth or its affiliated spirits (such as spirits of peace or of fecundity), the elders usually commission the most skillful craftsman, who is paid to leave his everyday work and go into isolation in order to devote himself entirely to this task. The quality of the materials depends on the sculptor. He is familiar with vegetation, medicine, and the characteristics of each tree species. He chooses the best wood so that the piece will be resistant to insects. In addition, when the sculpture has two parts, as in Bubaque,the artisan gives priority not to the head but to the belly, which will receive the libations. He uses his machete to chop down the branches after asking forgiveness from nature, and he also uses an adze and a small knife, both of which he made out of waste metal. Instead of the abrasive leaf(Creole: lingua ck vaca, literally "tongue of the cow") employed for the finishing, he may use an industrial file. He determines the proportions visually and works very quickly. Other responsible elders must be present for grinding and applying the sacred medicines or inserting them into the sculpture. These elders include the king, a private sanctuary guard who is known to be honorable,and a man entitled to enter the female initiation enclosure. The definitive consecration of the ira, involving a blood sacrifice, takes place in front of the gathered villagers.

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All these things are usually done by knowledgeable men and women who have gradually acquired their knowledge and authority in the course of their lives, after undergoing the crucial step ofinitiation (manratchein Bidjogo;fanado in Creole). In the Bissagos Islands, as in numerous African countries, the elders do not view the boys in terms of their real ages, which, until recently, were never recorded; instead they view the boys in terms of their age groups, which consist of the following phases from birth to old age.5 1. From birth to age three, the child never leaves his mother, who breastfeeds him. 2. Between ages three and seven, he plays naked,according to the agendas of the adults, but is not allowed to participate in conversations. 3. Between ages seven and twelve, puberty, he is called cadene and starts accompanying his father on hunts. From time to time the boys are gathered and endure a few strokes with a stick, which is meant to teach them respect for their parents. 4. During the period of adolescence, which lasts five years, the boy is part of the canhocas peer group. He begins to feel circumscribed by his peers and to understand that he must never transgress the moral code, in which theft and slander are punished. He learns that the ancestors must be served. The boy wears amulets and plays the drum. 5. At the cabaro age, which lasts for some ten years, the young man has the right to be stylish and even whimsical. During this phase he wears heavy animal masks at celebrations to show that he is still only a brutal beast. In the full bloom of youth and without regular work, he enjoys the best time of his life. He has romances with women and travels throughout the archipelago but his responsibilities increase as he ages. 6. The initiation phase begins with a dark period of labor and cruelty. For the new camabi, seclusion in the forest alternates with sojourns in the village, where he sleeps apart in a straw hut, is not allowed to return to his wife and children (if he has any) or to even approach his mother. He lives in fear that he may not be able to pay the elders for rice and palm oil. He also endures some physical hazingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;he is made to sit on a palm trunk during several tidal flows and ebbs, he is beaten, his scarifications are cauterized with acidic fruitjuice. And he receives a new and permanent name. 7. Having reached the stage of a cassukai, the man begins a new life of greater responsibilities and the right to command younger villagers. Abandoning all exhibitionism in his clothes, he wears a goat skin that passes between his lege. 8. Ten years later, after a second initiation, he assumes the status of obone. A little later still, together with all his peers in the same age group, he attains the ultimate grade of cabugna (or ocoto, meaning "great"): he is now an elder with all the prerogatives of that title. While performing a certain educational function, the initiation is indispensable for the spiritual health of each Bidjogo. If he fails to undergo initiation, he remains incomplete and immature vis-Ă -vis the Creator and he has no 159 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

claim to enter Ancaredo, the space of the ancestors, after death. Though his soul might take the road that leads to a secret place at the westernmost end of the archipelago, a beach where a boat gathers all the deceased and takes them to the next world, if he has not observed his contract on earth, his soul cannot leave. Instead it remains behind and threatens the earthly community,especially his mother. Prayers to the Great Spirit cannot alter this tragedy, which occurs often because ofchildhood mortality,and gives rise to a special role for women, who perform on behalfof those who died before completing initiation. Countless other features underline the singular status of Bidjogo women, apart from those already described. Only women have the right to paint the exteriors of temples and granaries with abstract motifs, especially triangles with opposing apexesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;although the men can help them illustrate scenes of everyday life or terrifying myths inside the sanctuaries'. Women play several drums, which is otherwise an exclusively male activity along the entire Guinean coast, and they wield an astonishing array of military equipment during their dancing celebrations: wooden swords, lances, axes, and shields. At such times they wear long, woven fiber skirts dyed black and offset with red ribbons and head ornaments which vaguely recall those of the male canhoca age group. Women also belong to female versions of the large initiation age groups, the cabaro, comabi, and cassukai. In certain circumstances the women are called defuntos, meaning "deceased" or "spirits" (Bidjogo: arebok). The priestess can order the women to drop everything, dress appropriately, and silently follow her for a sojourn in the sacred forest. When the priestess allows them to return to their domestic occupations, the villagers address the women with a masculine pronoun. In all of these various activities, women play male roles. They are understood to be adopting these transgender roles on behalf of males who died before completing initiation. They "stand in" for them, but at times that are not synchronized with men's activities. At such moments, the women, possessed by the spirit of the deceased, adopt a masculine comportment, even going so far as chanting amorous incantations to women and symbolically repeating past military exploits. When they dance in small steps, their eyes closed, they know that they are allowing a soul tojoin the eternal ancestors and the Creator. It is the women as intermediaries who bring about the fusion of male and female, young and old,living and dead'. THE BODY IN THE INITIATORY COSTUME Masks and Costumes The stages of initiation (Tana& in Creole) for boys or girls required a costume appropriate to each age group. Today,at the start of this millennium, the Bidjogo still hold highly expressive costumed performances during village festivals. The costumes, which are made in the forest at gatherings convened by the elders, vary by type according to the wearer's age, and the particular head

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ornaments, animal masks, and other accessories vary depending on the island or islands and the talents of the sculptors. Bovine masks are the most widespread animal depiction in these costumes. Adolescent boys wear arched hairdos symmetrically decorated with real horns (cat. 121, page 162 fig. 30); small calf heads, in which only the horns are menacing (cat. 122, page 162); or horned buffalo masks made of flat wood and often bearing a painted motif typical of the archipelago: two triangles with opposing apexes. All of these are embellished with pompoms of plant fibers. Men at the cabaro stage of maturity wear the heaviest costumes, comprising back ornaments, belts, bells, arm guards, and heavy masks carved from wood and painted. The most spectacular mask is a helmet mask called Vaca Bruto (meaning "wild cattle")(cats. 123, 124, page 163,fig. 31), worn with the sculpture's neck, articulated by corkscrew curls, resting on the wearer's neck and shoulders. The largest examples are found on the islands of Uno and Formosa. The dancer gives the object its most realistic presence by bowing and facing the ground. Its eyes of frosted glass, real horns, leather ears, and the rope through the nostrils are all animated by the bucking ofthe boy, who has undergone his physical ordeal. These features,seen through the dust and sometimes through a nocturnal bonfire, against a background of bellowing, drums, and provocative shouts by the crowd,convey the illusion of a real untamed animal. Fig. 30. Canioca head ornament. Village of Akoko, Ilha de Formosa, Guinea Bissau, 1972. Photo:D. Gallois Duquette. Fig. 31. Vaca Bruto kicking out. Celebration in Anceo, Ilha de Uracane, Guinea Bissau, 1978. Photo:D. Gallois Duquette.

This corresponds to the idea ofa man in full possession of his physical strength but still immature in his behavior because he has not yet undergone all the initiation trials, which will enable him to take on his new existence as a complete and responsible adult capable of supporting a family and making decisions in

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CAT. 121

Headdress: /sse Bidjogo peoples, Angumba, Ilha de Roza, Arguipilago dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

Wood, bamboo, horn, cloth, fiber, pigment. H. 30 cm. AD 582

CAT. 122

Mask Bidjogo peoples, Botai, Ilha de Chedia, Alguipelago dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

Wood, horns, fiber, leather, plant material, glass eyes, pigment. H. 20.5 cm. AK 832

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CAT. 123

Mask: Vaca Bruto Bidjogo peoples, Cabume, Ilha de Uno, Arguipilago dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

Wood, horns, fiber, cord, pigment. H. 41 cm. AK 841

CAT. 124

Mask: Vaca Bruto Bidjogo peoples, Caduna, Hha de Uno, Arguipelago dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

Wood, horns, fiber cord, pigment, glass eyes. H. 46 cm. AK 837

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CAT. 125

Mask: Dugh'be Bidjogo peoples, Ancadat, Ilha de Uno, Arguipelago dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

Wood, horns, fiber cord, leather, glass eyes, pigment. H. 34 cm. AK 828

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CAT. 126

Mask: Yare Bidjogo peoples, Ancope, Ilha de Uno, Arguipilago dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

Wood, pigment. H.93 cm. AK 830

CAT. 127

Mask: Yare Bidjogo peoples, Acuna, Ilha de Formosa, Arguipelago dos Bijoglis, Guinea Bissau

Wood, leather, pigment. H. 25 cm. AD 617

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the village. Once a young man has finished the entire initiation cycle, he dresses simply in a loincloth or a goatskin or gazelle skin passed between his legs. The extremely heavy hippo mask (cat. 128, page 169, fig. 32) disappeared from the archipelago during the 1970s (I photographed this fine example in 1972), probably because it is labor-intensive to make and perhaps also because the boys complained about carrying the weight.This mask type originated in the northernmost islands, Ponta and Maio, which amphibious mammals once reached from the mouth of the River Geba on the mainland nearby. The Bidjogo painted the mask red in reference to the color of the hippo's glandular secretions. Animal hair was fastened around the ears, eye sockets, and the articulated muzzle. Frosted glass brought the gaze of the mask to life. The enormous bulk of the mask forced its wearer to use two wooden crutches with flaring ends that suggest hooves. The equally impressive sawfish mask (cat. 129, page 170, fig. 33) is worn only at the cabaro stage. The creature's mouth is sculpted on the underside, while the eyes are on the back, which is the side most often seen by the audience when the dancer rests the weight by sticking the jaw into the ground, showing the spectators his back, trickling with sweat and usually sporting a pointed fin painted in contrasting colors (cat. 130, page 171, fig. 34) or a group of four engraved and painted wooden disks surrounding a bird (cat. 131, page 171). The top of his buttocks is squeezed into a double arc of engraved woodâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;typical, it seems, of this initiation phase, though the origin is unknown.

Fig. 32. Probably the last of the hippopotamus masks. Village of Nago, Ilha de Ponta, Guinea Bissau, 1972. Photo:D. Gall& Duquette. Fig. 33. Cabaro initiate wearing the magic sawfish mask and dorsal fin ornament. Village of Uno, Ilha de Angonio, May 1976. Photo:D. Gallois Duquette.

0Â°

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The masked festivals are peopled by other ocean animals, particularly those most feared. Sharks, relatively aggressive in the waters of the archipelago, are rendered with sharp-edged jaws recovered from other fish (cat. 132, page 172, fig. 35). The hammerhead shark is represented in different ways, sometimes simply by a plank attached perpendicular to a skullcap (cat. 133, page 173,fig. 36). The plank can also support a complex superstructure representing the heads of pelicans and toothed reptiles confronting a Mami Wata figure or the head ofa monkey. Since the cadene and the canlzoca (first and second age levels among boys) have not yet attained their full physical development, they are not allowed to wear gigantic masks. Instead, they produce extremely varied coiffures and head ornaments: wooden fish, engraved and colored appendages of hammerhead sharks, asymmetrical horns made of rushes, painted crosses, and fins and flippers of all shapes. The entire object is decked out in pompoms, tufts of fiber, or animal hair. Industrial elements, such as light bulbs, are ingeniously assimilated into these constructions. Flat wooden wings, placed above the biceps, are often decorated with such familiar motifs as boats, stars, and triangles, or such foreign images as a mosque or a military uniform (cat. 135, page 174). The coiffures of the d,efunto girls, who undergo their initiations before the Fig. 34. Young Caniocas wearing arm discs. Village of morel, Ilha de Canhabaque, 1978. Photo:D. Ga/lois Duquette. Fig. 35. Shark mask and dorsal fin ornament in painted wood. Nocturnal celebration in Abu, Ilha de Formosa, Guinea Bissau, 1972. Photo:D. Gallois Duquette.

boys,likewise evoke land and sea animals, but are more creative in their assemblage of realistic components. At the end of their period of seclusion, the girls dance in public, wearing long skirts made of plant material and adorned with

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red ribbons. In their martial choreography,they brandish stylized models ofsuch traditionally male weapons as the shield, axe,saber, or pike. Their male friends or brothers innovatively sculpt and arrange their coiffures, made of porcupine fish with bristling spikes or horns painted white like the girls' skin, which is tinted the color ofsand to conform to the requirements of male initiation. The girls may also wear hats made of metal scraps, mirrors to which tawdry Western scarves are attached, canoes with navigators and flags, braced boats (cat. 136, page 176), toothed crocodile jaws on a headband, or a pelican's graceful head (cat. 137, page 177) extending from a painted wooden skullcap.

Spatulas These implements are spatulas rather than spoons because they are never raised to the mouth (the Bidjogo still eat with their right hands). The spatulas are used for stirring food prepared by the womenâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;mostly rice with red palm oil and cooked shellfish that resemble egg cups, which are gathered from the sand of the beaches. Any young boy with an adze, a small knife, and an abrasive leaf can carve a spoon from the pith of hardwood; the handle is decorated with guilloches and triangles or surmounted by a hippo. The most elaborate spoons, however, were probably made by an older boy during his initiation period or by an experienced sculptor who received a commission from the village. The oldest spatulas, like those in the Lisbon Museum (cats. 138, 139, page 178), are complex. The spatula is flattened at one end to form a stirrer, while the other end forms a scoop. The handle is often carved

Fig. 36. Hammerhead shark mask and dorsal fin ornament. Village of AncaTo, Ilha de Uracane, Guinea Bissau, 1978. Photo:D. Gallois Duquetk.

with images relating to women,who manage the village's food supply by planting the grain ("wet" rice, which grows during the rainy season) and, with her children, watches the paddies, drives away predators, harvests and winnows the rice, stockpiles it, and,finally, prepares it. Handles are also carved with decorative or animal motifs. Until the 1960s, the priestess guarded the sacred effigies in the village temple, maintained the ritual fire, and nourishing the iras. This female role, both sacramental and economic, is revealed on the spoons in cat. 138 and cat. 139 (page 178). Cat. 139 shows a girl's head with ocher-covered hair, as photographed by Bernatzik (1933) during the 1930s, which suggests the age of the object. The girl's long neck and yellow chest express the sculptor's aesthetics. The other spoon (cat. 138) offers an abstraction of the same idea, since the scoop is surmounted on an arched bobbin that evokes the flexion of the neck, while two small cones in front of the spatula recall the breasts. If similar exam-

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CAT.128 Mask: Egomore Bidjogo peoples, Ilha de Nago, Arguipelago dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau Wood,fiber, leather, animal hair, metal nails, glass eyes, pigment. H.25.5 cm. AK 849

CAT. 129

Mask: Kaissi Bidjogo peoples, A ncope, Ilha de Uno, Arguipelago dos Bijages, Guinea Bissau

Wood, fiber, saw-toothed rostrum, pigment. L. 142 cm. AD 555

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CAT. 130

Dorsal fin adornment: Kumpass Bidjogo peoples, Aminde, Orango Grande, Arguipilago dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

Wood,fiber, pigment. L. 86 cm. AD 928

CAT. 131

Back adornment Bidjogo peoples, Ancadac, Ilha de Formosa, Arguipilago dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

Wood,fiber, glass light bulbs, pigment. L. 37 cm. AK 871

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CAT. 133

Mask: Yatala Bidjogo peoples, C,alem, Ilha de Formosa, Arguipelago dos Bijages, Guinea Bissau

Wood,fiber, palm leaves, pigment. H. 20.3 cm. AD 580

CAT. 132

Mask:0m a Bidjogo peoples, Ancaclac, Ilha de Formosa, Arguipilago dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

Wood,fiber, palm leaves, shark jaw bone with teeth, pigment. L. 30 cm. AK 855

CAT. 134

Headdress: N'tempa Bidjogo peoples, Ancope, Ilha de Uno, Arguipilago dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

Wood, fiber, raffia, cord, pigment. L. 46 cm. AK 860

CAT. 135

Bracelet: Nede Bidjogo peoples, Amino, Ilha de Formosa, Arguipilago dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau

Wood, glass, pigment. Diam. 34 cm. AD 535

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pies survive, made of hardwood that is seldom attacked by insects, they would be used exclusively in ceremonies. Military Symbols All the knobbed sticks, metal pikes, wooden assegais with sculpted shafts, decorated axes, and woven shields symbolize armed combat. Each is also the sign of a precise social status. Bidjogo oral tradition preserves the memory of ancient times, when the men rowed to the mainland to find cattle and even wives. Later they participated in selling slaves to Europeans.They behaved as warriors, whether fishing at sea, attacking coastal villages at night, or negotiating with white navigators. In the 1600s, Father Manuel Alvares described boats where "the captain stands in the prow,brandishing his buckler and his assegai and loudly chanting to the rhythm of the oars wielded by those infernal soldiers"(Alvares 1616). Today, the kings still hold a metal trident, roughly six feet long, thrust into the ground. The shaft is decorated with copper rings. This weapon is a sign of power and authority. A priestess can also possess such a trident if she is in charge of the group of women known as d,efuntos(a Creole word signifying "deceased" or "ancestor"), whose initiation activity involves male exploits. Several days before the end of their initiation, the young men at the co,baro stage, after adolescence, each sculpt an object that they hold when leaving the forest. To avoid recognition by their families (the boys have now become new men),they hide their faces, but their families can recognize them by their individual sculptures, which have been described to them.In the past, when the isolation period lasted longer, the carving was probably more elaborate,individual talent permitting. One such example is the Lisbon Museum's stick (cat. 140, page 179) that shows a young initiate wearing the Campende hoops on the buttocks and the ceramic slip hairdo adopted for the ceremonies. This type ofstick with a sculpted knob might have holes along its full length where bronze bells could be attached, which rang when the owner banged his stick on the ground. From the 1500s onward these sticks were traded to the Portuguese. The sculpted axes used by Bidjogo girls in their dances are fabricated by their brothers during their initiation retreat or, if need be, by a sculptor in the village. The dancer brandishes this small axe while holding a small woven shield with horsehair at its center. She bangs the ground to the rhythm of drums beaten by her companions,and sometimes she chants a warlike melody or a love song, thus substituting for a male child who died before his invitation and never lived to perform thus. The axe in the collection of the Lisbon Museum (cat. 141, page 179) perfectly reflects the gender ambivalence of the original rite. Adorning the upper part of the handle is a girl wearing the traditional fiber skirt; her heavy legs and graceful neck satisfy the local canon of beauty; the blade is inserted in a cylinder surmounting her coiffure. Organically phallic and feminine at once,the axe recalls the time when women bore arms and accompanied their warrior men all the way to the beach.

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CAT. 137

Mask: Kaioguna Bidjogo peoples, Binia, Rho de Caraxe, Arguipelago dos Bijageos, Guinea Bissau

Wood, pigment. L. 78 cm. AK 850

CAT. 136

Back adornment: Matalda Bidjogo peoples, Aninda, Orango Grande, Arguipelago dos Bijagris, Guinea Bissau

Wood, metal, cloth, fiber, light bulbs, plastic cord, pigment. H. 50 cm. AD 804

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CATS.138/139 Spatulas: Uotoate Bidjogo peoples, Eticoga and Anthuduco, Orango Grande, Atguipilago dos Bijag6s, Guinea Bissau Wood. L. 49.5 and 45 cm. AD 643 and AD 646

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CAT. 140

CAT. 141

Figural staff finial: okpopoke Bidjogo peoples, Ancaguma, Orango Grande, Arguipekigo dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau Wood. H. 58.8 cm. AD 903

Axe: Nokube Bidjogo peoples, Angodigo, Ilha de Uno, Arguipilago dos Bijagos, Guinea Bissau Wood, metal. H.41 cm. AK 892

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Sacred Sculptures In the Bissagos archipelago, the Creole word ira is used for any natural or man-made object containing a sacred energy that is either beneficent or malevolent (cats. 142, 143, pages 154,fig. 37). The term is applied,for example,to a wild goat's horn containing harsh-smelling plants to ward off snakes, and to the Great Spirit of the village as well as the filial spirits. Not every sculpture is an ira. The soft-wood objects sold to tourists (including facsimiles of the Great Spirit mask) are called boneca, a Creole noun meaning "doll, decorative statuette, powerless exterior form." The most important ira object in terms of meaning is the Ira Grande do Chao, an ira phrase that translates as "Great Spirit Possessor of the Earth"; the Bidjogo term is Orebok Ocoto. This figure is the intermediary between the sole Creator(whom one never invokes) and the world ofancestors, all ofwhose spiritual particles were concentrated in that object when it was fabricated according to custom, then nourished by food offerings and the blood of sacrificed animals. This object is also called Unikan Orebok (meaning Spirit Medicine), which accentuates the ingredients necessary for its makeup,in which mangrove leaves play a large part. This object does not have the same appearance in all the islands. In Bubaque, Canhabaque, Caravela, and Carache, it is anthropomorphic. Elsewhere it is a sacred amalgam filling an enamel basin placed on the temple altar or sometimes divided and placed into large seashells. Sometimes it sports a pair of horns, though the artisan was not aiming at any animal semblance. Confusion can arise about the identity of an ira, because a person can commission a sculpture that completely resembles the Great Spirit for private use, and keep it in his home or in a straw hut meant for worship. By contrast, the true Great Spirit is honored in the spacious circular sanctuary used by all the villagers and guarded at night by the priestess, who maintains the fire. Nowadays the Great Spirit may also be kept in the king's house, where there is less likelihood of theft. Older Great Spirit sculptures observed in temples today vary according to geographic regions. In Bubaque the Great Spirit is presented as a hollow cylinder, approximately sixteen inches in height. The bottom quarter is filled with elements representing the vitality of the village: crushed plants, nail clippings, body hair of initiates, and other secret medicines, then covered with a colored cloth. Over the years the object accumulates sacrifices of broken eggs, animal blood, and expectorated alcohol. At the initiation or the death of a king, however, the cloth had to be burned and the ira covered anew. The head is adorned with a double or triple hat, which used to establish the conqueror's status: foreign navigator, soldier, missionary, or administrator. The eyes are hammered into the metal. The whole thing is attached to the sculpture's body by a long ringed neck. The wood is stained with a dark vegetable dye. As so often in Africa, it is not the head but the belly of the spirit that is the most important zone,requiring the best wood. Another object with the same significance as the Great Spirit is carried by 180 COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

Fig. 37. "Eraminios" at the foot of an altar. Temple of the village of Eticoka, Ilha de Orango, Guinea Bissau, 1976. Photo:D. Gallois Duquette.

the king whenever circumstances make it difficult to bring out the sculpture. This object is a flat and elongated triangle terminated on one side by a cylinder and on the other side by two or three ash-blackened wooden horns,which give the object a bovine appearance. The wood is ofa particular species, and under the cloth that covers it we find the same amalgam as the one introduced into the Great Spirit during initiations: unikan oranko, which means,literally,"hand medicine" or "portable spirit." Each man and each defunto fabricates the same thing during initiation, and it is always of the Great Spirit, albeit in a fragmentary form. Each person will show his devotion to it by means of sacrifices in the course of his life, and when he dies it will be handed down to his family,so that numerous examples are found in sanctuaries. In Bubaque, we recently found highly figurative Great Spirits, male or female, with their hands placed symmetrically on the edges of the U-shaped seat typical of the elders. On the island of Canhabaque, the sculpture is heavy, the relatively realistic head likewise has a hairdo,and the body is presented as a thick cylinder rounded toward the top, which receives libations less easily. The artisans of the northern islands of Caravela and Carache, which were the ones most plundered, produce highly varied sculptures. Aside from the rare and very old pieces depicting a personage seated on the low chair of the elders, with hands on knees,feet turned inward, and with the scarified back of an initiate, we also find more or less abstract figuresâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;virtually flat horizontal tables extended by a cylinder and a sphere, which may deliberately resemble a head and a neck. The residue of successive sacrifices cover the upper part of these iras. Other pieces show the Great Spirit as a vertical, slightly arched stele: its base is shaped like an egg cup, with a small shelf for receiving offerings. The stele supports a very stylized prognathous head decorated with ritual bald patches. We do not know whether the clay altars in the sanctuaries result from Christian influences. In any event, the Great Spirit of the village is surrounded by filial spirits, which may be regarded as "the peace of God,""the Fecundity of God,""the ira of travelers," etc. Such a spirit can be shaped very much like the Great Ira; it can be a simple piece of wood surmounted by a small cylinder or it can be some sort of receptacle containing the essential matterâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;pharmaceutical elements, traces of sacrifices, and human traces. In light of these comments the meaning of the term Unikan Orebok ("Spirit Medicine") can be fully appreciated: it symbolizes the material and spiritual union of all Bidjogo,living or dead.

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The different versions of the origin of the world all agree that God created the island of Orango first. Called a bombalon, the horizontal slit drum rests on a sculpted support; the sound produced by the drumsticks transmits orders understood by the initiates. ' It is then consumed by the villagers. "Nindu" means "sky" and "ianu" means "day"â&#x20AC;&#x201D;both implying "what is overhead." Once again, variants complicate the system, whether because the initiation frequencies vary according to the islands, or because sub-classes are taken into account, or because the terminology differs. Moreover, government pressure tends to shorten the initiation periods to keep down the interruptions in schooling and the activities related to food. 6 The African print, locally called wax print, loincloth and Western trousers are worn more frequently today. The red pigment comes from ocher drawn from the sea, the black pigment comes from coal or tree sap or mud drawn from mangrove roots, the white pigment comes from limestone or powdered eggshells, the green pigment from macerated leaves. Until the 1970s, it was difficult to question the inhabitants about this phenomenon because they believed they would die if they spoke about it. My understanding of it was greatly helped by my observation of their sculptural culture (see my Dynamique de l'art bidjogo, Lisbon, 1983). Today the inhabitants are willing to talk about it.

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Contributors

Elze Bruyninx, who has been with the University of Ghent since 1970, wrote her doctoral dissertation on the brass art of the Dan and the We (Ivory Coast-Liberia). She has been head of the Department of Ethnic Art at her alma mater since 1991. Elisabeth L Cameron is Curator of African Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. She curated "Ancestors: Art and the Afterlife" and "Music for the Eyes: The Fine Art of African Musical Instruments" at the Los Angele County Museum of Art and "Isn't S/He a Doll? Play and Ritual in African Sculpture" at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Art. She has published widely on initiation arts in Zambia and the Sala Mpasu peoples of the Democratic Republic ofthe Congo. William J. Dewey teaches African Art at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Major recent publications iclude Legacies ofStone, Zimbabwe: Past and Present, Vol. I, 1997 and Sleeping Beauties: TheJerome L.Jo.ss Collection of Headrests, 1993. He holds a Ph. D. and MA. in Art History. Frank Herreman, the Director of Exhibitions at the Museum for African Art since 1995,was formerly Associate Director of the Historical Museums of the City of Antwerp and a Professor of the Arts of Africa and Oceania at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. He has curated numerous exhibitions of African and Oceanic art including the acclaimed Face of the Spirits; Masksfrom the Zaire Basin, 1994, which premiered in Belgium and traveled internationally. Mr. Herreman has lectured and published extensively on African art. Manuel Jordan is Curator of the Arts of Africa and the Americas at the Birmingham Museum ofArt. He is considered a foremost scholar of Chokwe art and culture, having lived among the Lunda, Luvale, Chokwe and related groups of northwestern Zambia for over two years, and visited Angolan museum collections. He has organized numerous exhibitions,among them, CHOKWE! Art and Initiation Among Chokwe and Related Peoples, and has published and lectured extensively on related subjects.

Gerhard Kubik, cultural anthorpologist, ethnomusicologist, and psychoanalyst, is professor at the Universities of Vienna and Klagenfurt. He earned his Ph.D. with work on the mukanda boys' initiation school in southeastern Angola and has carried out fieldwork in 18 countries of Africa, Brazil, and the United States. He has published extensively and has been guest professor at several universities in Europe, Africa and the Americas. Frederick Lamp is Curator of the Arts of Africa, Asia, the Americas & Oceania at The Baltimore Museum of Art and Professor of Art History at the Maryland Institute, College of Art. Specializing in the art of Sierra Leone and Guinea,he has conducted research on male and female initiation, chieftaincy ritual, and movement as ritual, with fellowships from several national institutions and foundations. He is author of Art of the Baga: A Drama of Cultural Reinvention, and La Guinee et ses Heritages Culturels, and numerous articles. Wyatt MacGaffey, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Haverford College, has written a number of studies of Central African history, social organization, religion and art, focused mainly on the BaKongo of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 1993 he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. Mary Nooter Roberts is Chief Curator of the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. She served for ten years as Senior Curator at the Museum for African Art in New York, where she conceived and curated several acclaimed exhibitions and accompanying catalogues, including Secrecy: African Art That Conceals and Reveals (1993), and Memory: Luba Art and the Making ofHistory (1996, co-authored with Allen Roberts). The latter won the College Art Association's Alfred Barr Award for museum scholarship. Annemieke Van Damme obtained a Ph.D. from the State University of Ghent on the art ofthe Nkanu,Mbeko and Lula(Lower Congo) people,based on her fieldwork among them in 1990 and 1991, thanks to the support of Foundation Dapper (Paris) and the Royal Museum of Central Africa (Tervuren). She presendy organizes exhibitions and contributes articles to various scientificjournals.

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Staff MUSEU NACIONAL DE ETNOLOGIA,LISBON Raquel Henriques da Silva Director; Portuguese Institute of Museums, Ministry of Culture Joaquim Pais de Brito Director; National Museum of Ethnology Rita Si Marques Executive Coordinator; Editor; National Museum ofEthnology

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Joan Banbury Coordinator of Volunteers Anita Burrows Ingrid Castillo Peter Chamedes Mark Chenault Nojamba Filomena Cornelio DePrator Gillian Dillard Dallas Fuentes DeLinda Harrison Katherine Harrison Lois Henderson Rebecca Herman Cherre L. Himmel Merle Hollley Joanna Hunter VincentJennings StephanieJohnson Hassan Adam Jojo Nzinga Knight Zainab Koroma Christopher Logan Elinore Longobardi Shirley Marc Eileen McGinn LewEleanor McNeely Brenda McQueen Dena Montague Margaret Ngunang Maalik Ausaar Obasi Geraldine Poon Luicie Poulain Latoya Purifoy Justine Reyes Xavier Rivera Tanya Serduik Nicole R. Smith Anthony Snowdon Josana Salcedo Tonda Claude L Winfield

donors CURRENT DONORS Corporate, Foundation & Government American Express BP The Buhl Foundation,Inc. The Chase Manhattan Foundation City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs Colgate-Palmolive Company Consolidated Edison Company of New York,Inc. Credit Suisse First Boston Fleet The Ford Foundation Fundacio Calouste Gilberildan Fundacao Luso â&#x20AC;&#x201D; America para o Desenvolvimento Institute of Museum and Library Services Keyspan Foundation Lannan Foundation The LEF Foundation Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc. Metropolitan Life Foundation National Endowmentfor the Arts The New York Community Trust New York State Council on the Arts Prudential The Reed Foundation,Inc. The Rockefeller Foundation Texaco,Inc. United Way of New York City U.S. Department ofHousing and Urban Development Zeneca Pharmaceuticals ABC,Inc. AXA Foundation Bell Atlantic Foundation The Chase Manhattan Bank/de Coziart Charitable Trust Fund for the City of New York Helena Rubinstein Foundation Henry van Ameringen Foundation The Irene Diamond Fund Jill & Marshall Rose Foundation J.P. Morgan Charitable Trust The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation,Inc. May & Samuel Rudin Foundation Noah-Sadie Wachtel Foundation,Inc. The Peninsula Foundation Philip Morris Co. RJR Nabisco Foundation

Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation,Inc. William H.Kearns Foundation Ambac Assurance Corporation Aquavit Restaurant Beads ofParadise Belfer Lighting Calvin Klein,Inc. The Carlyle Columbus Citizens Foundation, Inc. Dime Savings Bank Discover Discovery Communications, Inc. Donald Morris Gallery, Inc. Gallery DeRoche Goldeneye The Gordon 8c Laura Gund Foundation Harpo Productions,Inc. The Late Show with David Letterman Marshall Frankel Foundation Merrill Lynch & Co. New York City Ballet New York Council for the Humanities Oceanie-Afrique Noire Premier Party Servers,Inc. Tiffany & Co. Toyota Motor Corporation Wittnauer International Individual Mr.& Mrs. Charles B. Benenson Jane & Gerald Katcher Ms. Kathryn McAuliffe Lynne & Robert Rubin Daniel Shapiro & Agnes Gund Cecilia & Irwin Smiley Mr.Jason H.Wright Mr.& Mrs. Armand P. Arman Bernice & Sidney Clyman Mr.& Mrs. Richard Faletti Mt Irwin Ginsburg & Caral G.Lebwordi Drs. Marian & Daniel Malcolm Mt Don H. Nelson Mr.& Mrs.JamesJ. Ross Jerome & Ellen Stern Mr.& Mrs. Victor Teicher Denyse & Marc Ginzberg Marion Greene Mr. Rodney M. Miller Dr.& Mrs. Bernard M.Wagner Harold & Maureen Zarember

Mr. S. Thomas Alexander,III Robert& Helen Bernstein

Katherine D.Cline Charles & Kent Davis Kurt & Mary Delbanco Dr. Barbara Eisold Drs.Jean & Noble Endicott Mr. Lance Entwistle Ms. Felicia Fanar Ms. Meredith Finch Dr. Suzanne Frye Mt & Mrs.Jacques Germain Ms.Janine M.Gordon Myrna & Stephen Greenberg Mr. Lawrence Gussman Mr. Geoffrey Holder Mr.& Mrs. Stephen Humanitzld Ms. Ellen Kaplowitz Helen & Martin Kimmel Gloria Kisch Mr.Jay T. Last Mt & Mrs.Sol Levitt Felice &Jordan Miller Donald & Florence Morris Mr.Amyas Naegele Mr.Tony Nigel Mt Michael Oliver Ms. Veronica Pollard Mt & Mrs. Marvin RossGreifinger Mrs. Harry Rubin Mr. Fernando Sanchez Mr. Merton D.Simpson Ann & Paul Sperry Mr.& Mrs. Saul Stanoff Ms.Julie Taymor Mt Guillaume Vranken Frederic & Lucille Wallace Mr.& Mrs. Abraham Weiss Mr. Richard White Mr. Ryann Willis Mt William Wright Mr.& Mrs.Paul L Abbott Mr.& Mrs. Gerald D.Abrams Mr.& Mrs. Arnold Alderman Ms.Susan Allen Robert R. Banks Walter & Molly Bareiss Ms.Joan Barist Ms.Saretta Barnet Dr.& Mrs.Samuel Berkowitz Dr.Jean Borgatti & Dr. Donald Morrison Mt Edward R. Bradley,Jr. Mr. Ernest P. Bynum & Mr. Dennis M.Costin Ms. Linda Cahill Dr.& Mrs. Oliver Cobb Mr.Jeffrey Cohen & Ms. Nancy Seiser Martha Cotter Ms. Annette Cravens Lisa & Gerald Dannenberg Ms. Gail Yvette Davis Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee Ms. Margaret H.Demant

Dr. D. David Dershaw Toni G.Fay Mr.& Mrs. Steve Felsher Ms. Nancy D.Field Ms. Vianna Finch Mt Gordon Foster Ms. Diana R. Gordon Dr.& Mrs. Gilbert Graham Rita &John Grunwald Mr. 8c Mrs.Jack Hartog Mr. Anthony Haruch Ms.Joyce A. Kuykendall Haupt Ms. Mary L Heider Ms. Barbara Hoffman Mr. StuartJackson Mr.& Mrs. Bernard Jaffe Mr. Lloyd SheldonJohnson Teri Kearney Mt Lawrence Klepner Mt Alvin S. Lane Mr. Luciano Lanfranchi Mr.& Mrs. Guy Lanquetot Mr.J. Thomas Lewis Diane & Brian Leyden Mr.& Mrs. Samuel Lurie Ms. Michelle Mayes Mt Patrick McMullan Mrs. Kendall A. Mix Mr. Marshall W.Mount Dr. Werner Muensterberger Mr.Peter Mullett & Ms. Heather Heinlein Mr. Dikembe Mutombo Ms. Linda Tuero Paul Mt Michael Price Mt Michael Rhodes Mr.& Mrs. Fred M.Richman Ms. Beatrice Riese Mr. Richard Rink Mt Eric Robertson Holly & David Ross Mt & Mrs. Arthur Sarnoff Mr.Sydney L.Shaper Ms. MaryJo Shepard Dr.& Mrs.Jerome Siegel Cherie & Edwin Silver Mr.& Mrs. Kenneth Snelson Kate Spade Howard Tanenbaum Mt Lucien Van de Velde Ms. Kathy Van der Pas & Mr.Steven Van de Raadt Ms. Mary Wagner Dr.& Mrs. Leon Wallace Mt Bill Watson Mt Wallet Weeks George &Joyce Wein Ms. Margaret L Wells Ms.Phyllis Wilhoite Mr. Edward Wilkerson Michelle & Claude Winfield Ms. Ruth Ziegler Mr.John F. Zulack Current as ofJune 30, 2000

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In the Presence of Spirits: African Art from the National Museum of Ethnology, Lisbon Edited by Frank Herrman, Director of-Exhibitions, Museumfor African Art, New York with contributions from Eke Bru.yninx, Elisabeth Cameron, William Deur, Danielle GaNis-Duquette, Manuel Jordan, Gerhard Kubik, Frederick Lamp, :Innen/1(4w thn Delmore, Matt McGaffey, Mary Nooter Roberts Photography by Dick Beaulieux The strategy of the National Museum of Ethnology is aimed primal* at collecting objects which broadly represent the various cultural aspects of one or more peoples. The acquisition of objects that we would characterize as works of art is only part of this goal, not the core of the collecting philosophy. Still, the National Museum of Ethnology has organized or participated in several exhibits of African art. ISBN 0-945802-27-7

In the Presence of Spirits brings together well-known, littleknown and even unknown types of masks. figures and other -sculpted objects from Africa, many never on teW this side of the Atlantic. This book and .exhibition once again reveal Me many different faces of Africa's artistic heritage, which neN el- ceases to amaze and delight us.

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