The image above is subject to copyright.
Copyrights for Photographic Reproduction
Les feuillets numérisés des registres d'inventaires historiques sont soumise à un copyright.
Droits de reproduction photographique
Copie dactylographiée en 13 volumes de l'Inventaire original MEG manuscrit
Registres_inventaire_dactylographie/618.pdf
Registre d'inventaire original - non indexé
Registres_inventaire_original/Registre_05_013879_016638.pdf
Central Africa has countless facets and only a few are shown here through sculptures, ritual instruments, weapons and watercolours. In this immense territory, once controlled by powerful African kingdoms, court arts and rituals were asphyxiated first by the slave trade and then by colonisation. In Europe, the public shuddered at the sight of "nail fetishes" and were moved by the drawings of Congolese artists.
Considered to be sacred kings with supernatural powers, the chiefs of the Chokwe and related groups shouldered a symbolic responsibility in a magical-religious context in addition to their political, military and judicial duties. Until the advent of colonisation, which sounded the death knell for the great chieftaincies, regalia and prestige weapons were produced to demonstrate the opulence of the courts, stimulate trade and control the circulation of gifts and counter-gifts in a subtle system of allegiances.
© 2021 Musée d'ethnographie, Genève