ETHAF 044283

statuette féminine d'ancêtre

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044283
Female nkisi figure with a bilongo or magic charge
Congo, Niari valley, Mouyondzi district
Beembe (Bembe). Late 19th - early 20th century
Wood, shards of faience, horn, cloth and composite materials
Gift of the painter Émile Chambon in 1981
MEG Inv. ETHAF 044283
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A l’instar des « objets-force » kongo minkisi, les statuettes beembe portent parfois une charge magique bilongo, constituée d’éléments à valeur symbolique dérivés des trois règnes (animal, végétal et minéral). Cette « charge » qui donne son efficacité et sa puissance à l’objet, est placée sur le nombril, «porte close du ventre» et ancien lien avec la mère, au sommet du crâne (ancienne fontanelle), dans les oreilles, mais aussi dans l’anus. L’abdomen de cette figurine féminine est maintenant entièrement couvert de charges et de textiles. L’emballage contient la materia medica, il enveloppe également l’âme de la sculpture. Dans certains cas, plusieurs emballages et ajouts de charges successifs ont lieu.

Boris Wastiau

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Registres d'inventaires historiques

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Inventaire original MEG. Registres tapuscrits, volumes 19 à 59
Registres_tapuscrits/44283.pdf

 

Central Africa

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.

Receptacles for the Powers from the Hereafter

Of all the ritual objects in the Kongo cultural area, the mikondi "nail fetishes" perhaps most deeply marked the Europeans when they discovered Africa. Considered to be violent figures used in witchcraft, they fanned fantasies of an Africa of deep forests, plunged in obscurantism. Literally inhabited by a spirit, these anthropomorphic or zoomorphic "power objects" are made and handled by nganga ritual specialists. The agglomerated bilongo clinging to the wooden sculptures give the objects magical powers and they are invoked whenever a person or a community feels afflicted or threatened.

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