Test test test 13015 FIG. 33 (above): Master of Kasadi, seated female supporting fi gure with clasped hands, phemba. Kongo peoples; Yombe group, Kasadi village, near Tshela, Democratic Republic of the Congo. 19th–early 20th century (inventoried 1937). Collected by Léo Bittremieux in Kasadi village, near Tshela, before 1937. Wood (Nauclea latifolia Smith), glass, kaolin. H: 27 cm. Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium (EO.0.0.37964). Kongo FIGS. 32a–c (left): Master of Kasadi, seated female supporting fi gure with clasped hands. Kongo peoples; Yombe group, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Republic of the Congo; or Cabinda, Angola. 19th century (inventoried 1898). Wood, metal, glass, kaolin, pigment. H: 27.5 cm. Ross Art Management, LLC, New York. dimension of the effi cacy of an n’kondi was to instill a sense of fear for the consequences of anti-social behavior and thus preempt transgressions. Accordingly, the outer form personifi ed the force within as commanding, aggressive, and omniscient. In cases when an n’kondi failed to deter the violation of established law, they were dispatched to the site of a crime, which might be a marketplace or the front lines of a battle.25 By the second half of the nineteenth century, not much was left of the once powerful historical states of Loango and Kongo. At the same time European traders were increasingly bypassing the precolonial chiefs situated along important trade routes.26 In the face of the collapse of centralization, the increasing penetration of European trading companies, and the rival emerging colonial claims by France, Belgium, and Portugal, Kongo chiefs and traders sought new mechanisms through which to uphold their interests. State-of-theart nkisi n’kondi were developed along the Loango coast as a last line of defense against European incursions. Their cost was proportional to their power and only the wealthiest chiefs invested in such measures.27 The most infl uential of these, known by the proper name Mangaaka, was considered “king and master.”28 Mangaaka’s power was reputed to afford unparalleled potential to succor petitioners and to visit destruction on their opponents. Its displeasure was manifested through symptoms of chest ailments and spitting blood, and it likewise had the power to cure these.29 This in turn made Mangaaka power fi gures the target of Western reprisals. Such was their perceived effi cacy that they were seized in colonial military campaigns and removed from the region by European concessionary companies.30 Today only some twenty electrifying Mangaaka fi gures survive, nearly all of which are in institutional collections (fi gs. 38–44). Careful analysis has suggested that the incomplete state of many of these may refl ect deliberate measures to decommission them before they were relinquished by their original owners. Among the most dramatic and monumental works in the African art canon, they are introduced in Kongo: Power and Majesty in terms of the specifi c circumstances and conditions that led to their creation. As the supreme adjudicator of confl icts and protector of communities across the Chiloango River region, Mangaaka was at once the most ambitious and monumental minkisi), or complex of songs, ritual actions, and physical matter. The material component consists of medicines, or bilongo, comprising an exacting formula of animal, vegetable, and mineral matter selected for their metaphorical signifi cance and ability to attract that spiritual force appropriate to the effective resolution of a particular variety of chronic complaint. This mixture is housed in a portable shrine that might range from a simple clay vessel to a customized fi gurative container commissioned from a sculptor.22 While European visitors commented on Kongo religious sculptures as early as 1491, they were not described with any specifi city. 23 Instead, these “idols” and the altars that contained them were frequent targets of destruction by European missionaries and Kongo Christians from the fi fteenth through the nineteenth centuries. With the incorporation of elements of Christianity into existing belief systems at the end of the fi fteenth century, Roman Catholic priests were also identifi ed as banganga in Kongo society and their references to the “holy,” “sacred,” and “divine” as nkisi.24 Although no known examples of Kongo fi gurative sculpture were collected earlier than the nineteenth century, rarely was information relating to a particular work’s original use recorded before it left the region. While those banganga that developed successful new varieties responsive to evolving and topical social needs were amply remunerated and thus innovation was highly desirable, in the West such works have for the most part been conceived of as primordial and timeless. Mangaaka The most infl uential class of Kongo minkisi, known as n’kondi (pl. minkondi), or hunter, served as instruments charged with assisting regional chiefs in maintaining public law and order. A call to action took the form of hammering a metal element into the surface of the carved wood receptacle. Each of the nails, blades, or screws that survive on extant examples relates to particular cases, whether between divorcing spouses, warring factions of neighboring communities, or disputing parties to a trade agreement. The addition of the metal marker signifi ed that an agreement resolving the matter in question was binding and that, as witness, the n’kondi would ensure its enforcement by the responsible parties. An important
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