SONGYE, DRC

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Songye sculptors are recognized for their vibrant carving traditions, particularly their powerful and immediately distinctive masks, known as kifwebe. These striated masks, with their exaggerated, abstract features and projecting mouths, belong to the iconic pantheon of African art forms for Western collectors. They served as emissaries of the ruling elite and related to a complex and esoteric knowledge of magic-working that influenced social control.

But masks were only one element of the Songye art corpus. Like neighboring tribes in the Congo, the Songye employed a range of power objects that were as important to their belief systems as their masks. Power figures (sin. nkisi, pl. mankisi) were a major class of carvings that were used to combat malevolent magic, promote fertility and success, and embody the force of good. Granted great potency through the workings of an nganga, or magic practitioner, they were adorned with an assortment of empowering items called bajimba. These included horns, skin, feathers, teeth, beads, hair, fiber, tacks, and other materials. Though mankisi were benevolent, they were considered dangerously powerful and were often not touched directly.

The carver of this nkisi has compressed the body to an abstract, roughly columnar shape, devoid of limbs and wrapped in bundles of fur. An expressive face shows direct reference to the design of the striated kifwebe mask, with large eyes and a mouth held open as if in mid-speech. A prominent horn is implanted vertically in the top of the figure in the same fashion as larger mankisi, contributing to its magical efficacy.