Standing male figure
Description
wood, lusterless dark brown patina, arms akimbo, a flat face with ornamental facial features, flat head with small opening, collection number in white paint at the right foot: “M.H.1/5”, slightly dam., paint rubbed off, both foot tips missing, metal socle;
the Yela have adopted from the Mbole the institutional rituals of the “lilwa” society, and produce somewhat similar “okifa” figures for their own cult. But present figure indeed has hunched shoulders, but no hanging feet and no drilled holes in the back. So the figure either represents a clan ancestor or it was used for therapeutic purposes. The small hole on top of the head might have been filled with magical mass.
The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart congregation was founded in 1854 by Father Jules Chevalier at Issoudun, France, in the Diocese of Bourges. As a result of the anti-church policy of the French government, the congregation moved to the Netherlands, where it settled down in Tilburg in 1882. In 1881 the Holy See ordered the congregation to do missionary work and committed to it the groups of islands of Melanesia and Micronesia and the island of New Guinea. Finally, Dutch missionaries of the congregation worked in Congo, Senegal and Transvaal in Africa.