Central African History

Tumblr dedicated to Central African history, especially the kingdom of Kongo - its history, art, culture, people and legacy

[cma-african-art]

Prestige Chair, 1800s, Cleveland Museum of Art: African Art

The Babanki, one of the chiefdoms that comprise the Cameroon Grassfields, value elaborately carved chairs or thrones. They serve as memorials or visual records that have helped to mark kingships through the ages in the wider Cameroon Grassfields. As prestige objects and a high art form, thrones convey authority and royalty; a new king commissions a royal throne to commemorate his ascension. This example is considered by scholars as one of the finest in the United States. It is unusual because it features male and female figures mounted on stylized leopards, revered as the embodiment of stately power and sacredness. Other notable examples have only male equestrian figures. Five additional leopards frame the openwork back rest. The lower part of the throne is covered by three undulating rings bearing 24 heads carved in the typical Babanki style. Size: Overall: 80.7 x 53.3 x 44.5 cm (31 ¾ x 21 x 17 ½ in.) Medium: wood

https://clevelandart.org/art/1983.33

[cma-african-art]

Female Figurine, late 1800s-early 1900s, Cleveland Museum of Art: African Art

This female figurine may be a fragment of a spoon or spatula, but this claim cannot be confirmed. Although the iconography of the human image is not uncommon in the art of the Yombe and related Kongo-speaking peoples, it does not reveal the object’s function or purpose. The position of the arms has been interpreted as that of a bound prisoner while the head, tilted horizontally or at an angle, represents a broken neck or even a severed head, thus identifying the prisoner as a sacrificial victim. Yet, despite the large quantity of Yombe- and Kongo-attributed works in collections, as well as the vast body of literature on the subject, their culture, history, and art, many questions remain unanswered and our knowledge continues to be fragmented and superficial. Size: Overall: 12 x 2.5 x 4.5 cm (4 ¾ x 1 x 1 ¾ in.) Medium: ivory

https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.449

[cma-african-art]

Figurine, late 1800s-early 1900s, Cleveland Museum of Art: African Art

The Delenne’s stumbled upon this group of seven anthropomorphic figurines (2010.437–43) in an antiques shop in Nice during a holiday in the south of France in 1961. The carvings carry paperboard labels with inscriptions in French that indicate their ethnic and geographic provenance as well as some other details. Stemming from the Kongo region in West Central Africa, these seven sculptures feature a variety of gestures and poses, the use of mirror or glass for the eyes, and a red-white-black color scheme. They belong to the broad category of minkisi (singular nkisi), containers for medicines in which an ancestral spirit was believed to reside. Two of the group are minkisi of the nduda type, characterized by the attached “guns” loaded with gunpowder and used to shoot witches. Size: Overall: 29.5 x 12 x 16 cm (11 5/8 x 4 ¾ x 6 5/16 in.) Medium: wood and various other materials

https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.440

[cma-african-art]

Staff of Office, early-mid 1800s, Cleveland Museum of Art: African Art

The Luba kingdom flourished from about the 17th century to the late 19th century. The best-known Luba object types relate to ideas of kingship and the kingdom’s ceremonial and ritual life. Staffs are among the most important Luba regalia. During the investiture ritual, the new ruler holds the staff when he swears his oath of office. Aside from being a symbol of rank and high office, a staff also serves as a historical document and archive that can be “read” like a sculptural map, memorializing important events, places, and people. The rendering of women points to their political and religious significance in history and society; although Luba rulers were always male, their mothers, wives, and sisters acted as advisors and diplomats behind the scenes. On this particular staff, the Janus heads and female figures probably represent one of the many Luba tutelary spirit pairs. The metal point alludes to the kingdom’s stability and durability. Size: Overall: 170 cm (66 15/16 in.) Medium: wood, metal

https://clevelandart.org/art/2004.85

[cma-african-art]

Whistle, late 1800s, Cleveland Museum of Art: African Art

Carved out of ivory or wood in a variety of shapes, Chokwe whistles often bear miniature, stylized renderings of masks. Cikunza, the “patron saint” of the boys’ initiation into manhood, is depicted with a pointed extension imitating the horn of a road antelope, symbolizing the fertility spirit. Typically such whistles were used by men during the hunt to communicate with their co-hunters and to call their dogs. They were either worn attached to a string as a necklace or tied to a spear. Size: Overall: 8.6 x 3.2 cm (3 3/8 x 1 ¼ in.) Medium: carved ivory

https://clevelandart.org/art/1915.444

[cma-african-art]

Mother and Child Figure, late 1800s-early 1900s, Cleveland Museum of Art: African Art

The Kongo people inhabit a large territory now divided among the nations of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cabinda, and Angola. The mother and child theme is common in the carving of the Yombe, one of the many Kongo ethnic groups; this example is distinguished by the emotionally powerful expression of the mother’s gaunt face. The large size and soft wood of this sculpture indicate a funerary function and placement within a roofed ancestral shrine. The Yombe woman represented was clearly powerful; perhaps her fertility was critical to the survival and prosperity of her clan. Size: Overall: 64.7 cm (25 ½ in.) Medium: carved and painted wood

https://clevelandart.org/art/1997.149

[cma-african-art]

Crucifix, late 1800s-early 1900s, Cleveland Museum of Art: African Art

Consisting of a corpus cast in metal alloys and attached to a wooden cross, Kongo crucifixes were augmented with various decorative elements derived from Christian iconography, including small praying figures, like the one here set at Christ’s feet. The emaciated body captures the connection between death and regeneration, a concept central to both Christianity and the Kongo religion, while the combination of the crucified Christ and the cross constructs the Kongo cosmogram, a physical manifestation of the two-way passage between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Although Kongo crucifixes had become political regalia when they were acquired in the 1800s and 1900s, they retained their meaning as symbols of the otherworld, which served as the source for a ruler’s legitimacy and power. Size: Overall: 44.7 x 22.2 x 3.2 cm (17 5/8 x 8 ¾ x 1 ¼ in.) Medium: brass, iron alloy, wood

https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.444

[lostprofile]

TOMA LANDAI MASKS

The Toma tribe of Equatorial Guinea (and known as the Loma in neighboring Liberia) maintains social order through a secret society called Poro. This group conducts a month-long initiation ritual in the forest admitting boys to manhood. To hide their identity during the initiation, Poro members wear hand-carved masks. These masks, which combine the jaws of a crocodile, human eyes and nose, and horns, represent landai—the spirits of deceased ancestors. At the completion of the month, the landai symbolically devour the boys and spit them out as men. The severe abstraction and sinister blank stare of the landai masks surely made them an effective means of social control.

Landai masks can range from 60cm to 1.8m in length. Smaller “passport” versions were made as well.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Jeanne-Marie Ruth-Rolland

Jeanne-Marie Ruth-Rolland was born on June 17, 1937 in Bangassou, in what is now the Central African Republic. Ruth-Rolland campaigned on behalf of homeless children in the Central African Republic’s capital city of Bangui, and denounced corruption in the government of Andre Kolingba. She was imprisoned for her criticism of the military regime. After Kolingba stepped down, she joined the Cabinet and served as Minister of Social Affairs for two years.

Jeanne-Marie Ruth-Rolland died in 1995 at the age of 58.

[theimperialcourt]

Jean-Bedel Bokassa, Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Empire. His coronation cost $20 million, one-third of the annual budget and foreign aid of the Empire. His reign lasted from 1976-1979 before he was overthrown.

[bauzeitgeist]

The Prime Ministry of the Republic of Cameroon, Yaoundé. Mid-1960s vintage. Photo February 2019 Bauzeitgeist.

[historical-nonfiction]

The forest in Korup National Park, in Cameroon, is Africa’s oldest remaining forest at over 60 million years old! It is home to over 1,000 known species of plants.

And if you’re not into nature, there are over 90 plants with known medicinal value in Korup, and more that scientists are currently exploring – including one, Ancistrocladus korupensis, which may be able to fight HIV!

[diasporadash]

Roughly one of every four slaves imported to work the cotton and tobacco plantations of the American South began his or her journey across the Atlantic from equatorial Africa, including the Kongo kingdom. The KiKongo language, spoken around the Congo RIver’s mouth, is one of the African tongues whose traces linguists have found in the Gullah dialect spoken by black Americans today on the coastal islands of South Carolina and Georgia. 

-pg 11, King Leopold’s Ghost 

[lionofchaeronea]

Mwana pwo mask of the Tchokwe people, Angola.  Artist unknown; 20th century.  Now in the Museu Afro Brasil, São Paulo.  Photo credit: Sailko/Wikimedia Commons.

[kingdomofkongo]

Mwana pwo masks are super interesting and superbly crafted! They’re used in Chokwe masquerades and represent a female ancestor - but they’re always worn by male dancers. Pwo denotes a woman who has given birth, and mwana means “young,” so they represents a young mother - and watching the men dance and sway like women (often wearing wooden breasts alongside the mask) was believed to increase the village’s fertility. Mwana pwo also show traditional elements of beauty such as high foreheads, filed teeth and scarification. The scarification on this one seems to include a cingelyengelye pattern, a cruciform shape that may have originated with Portuguese traders but was popular throughout early modern Central Africa, appearing on cloth, caps, gravestones and in jewellery.

[peashooter85]

Songye axe, Congo, late 19th or early 20th century.

from The Cleveland Museum of Art

[armthearmour]

A wicked looking iron dagger, Sankuru, Democratic Republic of the Congo, ca. 19th century, housed at the National Museum of Scotland.

[peashooter85]

Ngulu sword, Congo, 19th century.

from The Cleveland Museum of Art