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the Madi with their deeply incised volutes (fig. 28), the enormous dingbu of the Barambo used to hold termites to be consumed as food (fig. 21), the kede beer pots of the Bangba with their large bodies and high necks (fig. 29), the three-handled akoro used for food and water by certain Zande and Ababua groups of Uele (fig. 22), and the highly refined and rare canoe-shaped naengo of the Makere (fig. 27). A number of Kango examples are among the interesting ceramics that Hutereau collected. These specimens, such as the belima cooking pot pictured in figure 31, allow the opportunity to diverge a bit from dry collection information, if only to relate it to the writings of Alphonse de Calonne-Beaufaict. De Calonne-Beaufaict (1881–1915) was trained as an electrical engineer and a mechanic. He became director of the automotive transport services in Uele in 1905. His investigative nature became fully evident in his work there. He spent his spare time studying the cultures of the northeastern part of the Congo Free State to which he was adjacent. In 1912 he published a sensitive anthropological work titled Etudes Bakango. This book presents some of the most beautiful testimonies to the African love of ceramics through an interview he conducted with a female Kango potter in the village of Veregwange (de Calonne-Beaufaict, 1912, pp. 105–107): Beneath her trembling hands, the clay was transformed into vases of multiple shapes, almost always delineated with a sure and elegant curve. … I watched as, little by little, these mbeka (pots), which I had seen in use among all of the Bakango upriver, came into being. The creation of these pots and their decorations fascinated de Calonne-Beaufaict, and he asked the potter about the meaning of the decoration. Was he hoping for an answer rooted in ritual and deep iconographic meaning? Was he hoping for a utilitarian explanation like that advanced by Schweinfurth in the nineteenth century? Perhaps, but he didn’t get one. 106 (left to right) Fig. 21: Termite container, dingbu. Barambo, DR Congo. 45 x 41 cm. Collected in the early 1910s by A. Huterau. MRAC, inv. EO.0.0.11110. Fig. 22: Water pot, akaro. Karavungu Chiefdom, Zande, Uele Ababua, DR Congo. 23 x 32 cm. Collected in the early 1910s by A. Huterau. MRAC, inv. EO.0.0.14026. Fig. 23: Water or wine pot. Bwende (?), lower Congo, DR Congo. 23 x 22 cm. Collected before 1897. MRAC, inv. EO.0.0.3971. Fig. 24: Water carafe, nedekere, in the form of a gourd. Bari, DR Congo. 37 x 17 cm. Collected in the early 1910s by A. Huterau. MRAC, inv. EO.0.0.10104. Fig. 25: Pot, nedjirombo. Mangbele, DR Congo. 21 x 19 cm. Collected in the early 1910s by A. Huterau. MRAC, inv. EO.0.0.11592. Fig. 26 (right): Pot, naengo. Makere, DR Congo. 32 x 29 cm. Collected in the early 1910s by A. Huterau. MRAC, inv. EO.0.0.5992. The old lady’s response was simply, “My mother made them this way. … I have made so many of them, and don’t you think they are beautiful?” The encounter between the Veregwange potter and the Belgian engineer had an epilog. On the day after their discussion, de Calonne-Beaufaict found a group of lacquered pots in front of his tent, brought by the artist to this curious European, who, on that quiet day, had shown such interest in the making of these clay objects. Receptacles with Multiple Necks Some DRC cultures used pitchers with double necks for holding water or other liquids. Mesemano (fig. 32) are an interesting example, although most cultures used these atypical ceramics with multiple necks (from two to five) for ritual purposes. The Luluwa, for instance, had a fetish called mpamba that was embodied by a five-spouted pot into which certain tree roots doused with water were inserted. If a person wished to ensure his success in business, he paid the owner of the mpamba a small amount of money for the permission to drink some of the mixture from the receptacle. The Kete, the Luluwa’s neighbors, also used a charm that was realized in a five-spouted receptacle. This fetish was called kabumba and its function varied according to which orifice was used for pouring (fig. 33). Further east, among the Luba and the Luba-ized peoples of Kisale-Moero, G. de Witte collected a number of multi-necked ceramics (fig. 35). Their precise use remains unclear, but we do know that Luba chiefs had double-necked pots and that certain kinds of triplenecked pots were used in the context of libation rituals for ancestors (Huffman, 1992, p. 70). Photographs at the MRAC show ceramics of this type in the lakeside


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