Power figure "buti"

Description

wood, dark brown patina, trunk and arms tightly wrapped in cotton fabric saturated with mass and fixed by cord, three animal horns enclosed, the back dyed with camwood powder, slightly dam., crack (back of the head), rep. (foot tip right hand side, heel/shanks left hand side), socle;
the “buti” charms are equally numerous and diverse. Their employ encompasses all aspects of life: divination, protection against sorcery and negative turns of fate, acquisition of riches or a particular power wreaking vengeance, etc. The Teke distinguish three main functional categories of “buti”: those that intervene in diverse therapies (“buti bwampaam”), “fetishes” of the hunt (“buti bumbyuu”), and “fetishes” related to protection or acts of revenge (“ewo”). Differentiation of these fetishes may only be made on the nature of the symbolical substances applied to the statuettes at the time of their consegration, and sometimes according to the few subsidiary objects that surround them. In other words, for the figurines there do not exist distinctive morphological types permitting us to distinguish between one and another of the different functional categories to which they belong.