Figure magique "nkisi nduda"
Description
wood, brown patina, kaolin, tukula, mirror glass, plant fibre, container for insertion of magical loading in front of the body, closed by mirror glass and clay-like mass, further magical loading is added to the head (concealed underneath cloth and feathers), to the neck (wrapped in fabric) and to the figures buttocks (inserted in plant fiber netting), glazed eyes with painted pupils, slightly dam., cracks, base.
The “nkisi”-object is basically a container for animal, vegetable, and mineral materials known as “medicines” (“bilongo”) that expressed by their names, forms or provenance the aims that the “nkisi” was expected to achieve and the powers that enabled it to do so. In many “minkisi” (pl.) we might find leaves of the “lusakasaka” plant, that it might “bless” the supplicant. A single seed of “luzibu”, that it might “open” matters that are hidden or closed. “Kalazima” (charcoal) that it might “smite” evildoers, and always, white kaolin clay (“pemba”) to represent the presence of powers from the land of the dead. Most of the ingredients were first reduced to unidentifiable fragments or a powder. Besides its material apparatus, the complete “nkisi” entity included songs to be sung in its presence, invocations addressed to it, and behavioural restrictions observed by its “nganga” and the beneficiaries of the ritual. Lacking these, the figure itself is powerless.
Littérature comparée
Lecomte, Alain et. al., Bakongo, Le Fétiches, Paris 2016, p. 371Publications
Corporacion Cultural de las Condes (ed.), Africa, Santiago 2005, p. 18, ill. 80AHDRC: 0019194