Power Figures

Kongo

Among the most distinctive African sculptures of the nineteenth century are the Kongo power figures called nkisi n’kondi , such as the standing statue illustrated here, which depicts a man bristling with nails and blades. These images, consecrated by trained priests using precise ritual formulas, embodied spirits believed to heal and give life, or sometimes to inflict harm, disease, or even death. Each figure had its specific role, just as it wore particular medicines—here protruding from the abdomen, which features a large cowrie shell. The Kongo also activated every image differently. Owners appealed to a figure’s forces every time they inserted a nail or blade, as if to prod the spirit to do its work. People invoked other spirits by repeating specific chants, rubbing the images, or applying special powders. The roles of power figures varied enormously, from curing minor ailments to stimulating crop growth, from punishing thieves to weakening enemies. Very large Kongo figures, such as this one, which is nearly 4 feet tall, had exceptional ascribed powers and aided entire communities. Although benevolent for their owners, the figures stood at the boundary between life and death, and most villagers held them in awe. Compared with the sculptures of other African peoples, this Kongo figure is relatively naturalistic, although the carver simplified the facial features and magnified the size of the head for emphasis.^[1]

Baule Spirit Figures

The Baule of present-day Côte d’Ivoire do not have kings, and their societies are relatively egalitarian, especially in comparison with other highly stratified African population groups, but Baule art encompasses many of the same basic themes seen elsewhere on the continent. The Baule statues of a man and woman illustrated here probably portray spirits (asye usu). The sculptor most likely carved the pair of wood figures for a trance diviner, a religious specialist who consulted the spirits symbolized by the statues on behalf of clients who were either sick or in some way troubled. In Baule thought, spirits are short, horrible-looking, and sometimes deformed creatures, yet Baule sculptors represent them in the form of beautiful, ideal human beings, because ugly figures would offend the spirits, who would then refuse to work for the diviner. Among the Baule, as among many West African peoples, spirits not only cause difficulties in life but, if properly addressed and placated, also may solve problems or cure sickness. In dance and trance performances—with wood figures and other objects displayed nearby—the diviner can divine, or understand, the will of unseen spirits as well as their needs or prophecies, which the diviner passes on to clients. When not set up outdoors for a performance, the figures and other objects remain in the diviner’s house or shrine, where more private consultations take place. In striking contrast to the Dogon sculptor of the seated man and woman, the artist who created this matched pair of Baule male and female images recorded many naturalistic aspects of human anatomy, skillfully translating them into finished sculptural form. At the same time, the sculptor was well aware of creating waka sran (“people of wood”) rather than living beings. Thus the artist freely exaggerated the length of the figures’ necks and the size of their heads and calf muscles, all of which are forms of idealization in Baule culture.^[2]

Olowe of Ise

The Yoruba have a long history in southwestern Nigeria and the southern Republic of Benin, going back to the founding of Ile-Ife in the 11th century. In 1925, the British Museum acquired directly from the Yoruba ogoga (king) of Ikere (in exchange for a British throne) the elaborately carved and painted doors of the shrine of the king’s head in his palace in northeastern Yorubaland. At the time, the museum did not inquire about the artist’s name. Not until after World War II, when art historians began to document the careers of individual African artists, did the British curators learn that the master carver was Olowe of Ise, the most famous Yoruba sculptor of the early 20th century. Kings and aristocrats throughout Yorubaland employed Olowe to carve reliefs, masks, bowls, veranda posts, and other works for them, and he traveled widely in his homeland to execute those commissions. Between 1910 and 1914, he resided at Ikere while working for the ogoga. The palace shrine doors date from that time. Departing from convention, Olowe made the two doors of unequal width to accommodate a detailed representation of an important event in ten panels in five registers. Historical narrative has been a familiar genre of Western art since antiquity and is common in Asian and Mesoamerican art as well but is extremely rare in African art until quite recently. An early example, dateable to the mid-19th century, comes from Bamboo Mountain in South Africa. The Ikere door reliefs recount the 1897 visit of the representative of the British Empire, Major W. R. Reeve-Tucker, the first traveling commissioner of Ondo province. Litter-bearers carry Reeve-Tucker into the palace compound, where the enthroned king (who is far larger than the British emissary) and his principal wife receive him. The other panels on each door depict the entourages of the two protagonists, including, at the left, the king’s bodyguards and other wives and, on the right door, shackled slaves carrying chests. Characteristically for Olowe, the relief is so high that some of the figures project as much as 6 inches from the surface, which has a vividly colored patterned background. Olowe also carved the veranda posts of the courtyard in front of the shrine.^[3]