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Wooden mother-and-child figure of the Yombe people, present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. The figure represents the founding ancestor of a kinship lineage and is thought to have been used in the treatment of infertility. Date: mid- to late 19th century. Location: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, USA.
via __shauntelle on instagram
Additional note from myself: I haven’t finish reading it yet, but I feel what is being spoken on in this video is also covered well and expanded upon a bit in the first chapter of The Congo: From Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History - if for some reason you can’t finish it, let me know and I will try to upload my PDF copy
André Hallet (1890-1959) - Princesse, Mangbetu
Oil on strong cardboard. 16.1 x 13 inches, 41 x 33 cm.
Estimate: €700-900.
Sold Hotel de Ventes Horta, Brussels, Belgium, 7 Oct 2024 for €700 + B.P.
After travelling widely in Europe, Hallet was sent by the Belgian Ministry of Colonies to the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1934, eventually settling in Kisenyi in what is now Rwanda, until his death.
The Mangbetu people of the northeastern Congo pursued a practice of what they called ‘lipombo’. New-born babies had their heads tightly wrapped with cloth and the soft, growing cranium would take on an elongated shape. The deformation didn’t affect the brain. Intracranial pressure remained the same as for a normal person, the brain simply growing into the new shape of the skull.
The Mangbetu believed the elongation denoted majesty, beauty, power and higher intelligence. The practice largely died out in the 1950s with increasing Westernisation and a ban imposed by the colonial authorities.
I've posted another painting by Hallet previously of a mother and child where you can see the binding on the infant's head.
Belgian Congo -> women with round plate in mouth / (1950s).
A 1900s colonial poster satirizing different kinds of European colonialism in Africa.
Audrey Hepburn at a local market in Kisangani by Leo Fuchs (1958) while on location filming The Nun’s Story
I think more people should learn about what happened to Congolese people while they were "a Belgian colony".
Because what happened is fucked up.
Reblog if you agree or want me to elaborate ig?
Belgian Congo
(Dmitri Kessel. 1953?)
