(NAIL FETISH), CONGO
20th c.
Carved wood, metal
Without stand: 12" x 26" 9"
Provenance: Henri Kamer and Alan Brandt, Paris and New York
Allan Stone Collection, New York (acquired from the above in February 1965)
Literature: Dumouchelle, Kevin. Power Incarnate: Allan Stone's Collection of Sculpture from the Congo. Greenwich, CT: Bruce Museum, 2011, p. 31, cat. 7
Note: Some animal forms of nkonde, such as this one, have anthropomorphic features. This style is typical of what would be seen from Cameroon and not Gabon. It shows very little wear indicating use.
Throughout the Congo Basin in Central Africa, tribal peoples of the Bantu culture believed that spirits, whether benevolent or malevolent, would interfere in daily affairs. They used objects (wooden figures, clay pots, gourds) to contain these spiritual powers or spirits. An object became a nkishi or nkisi (pl. minkisi / mankishi / zinkisi) when empowered by a ritual specialist (nganga) who filled it with magic and with medicines (bilongo) that gave it the power to intercede between ancestral spirits and the living. The figures essentially served as containers for powerful magic and medicine conjured from organic matter added by the ritual specialists whose knowledge of flora and fauna, understanding of the social order and insight into human nature gave them - and still gives them - powerful ascendancy over the minds of the people and over the imagination of society as a whole. Minkisi safeguard a community’s well-being by assuring fertility, protecting against illnesses and witchcraft, providing success in hunting and generally keeping evil at bay. They could also be used for evil, to aid in the misfortune, sickness and death of foes. Collective consultations occurred following specific dreams or nightmares, and recurrently during celebrations. Central African power figures are among the most recognizable minkisi identified with African art. Power figures were collaborative creations of the sculptor and the nganga. The activity of carving was consider profane, and without many strictly proscribed aesthetic requirements, allowed for the sculptor’s invention and idiosyncracy. The nganga then applied medicines or ritual substances and offerings, typically through an animal horn inserted into the crown of the sculpture’s head or through a concave cavity in the stomach. The two main categories of magical figures, community and personal, differ in size and usually in the content of their covering paraphernalia. Personal figures are smaller than community figures and interact with the familiar spirits who are associated with same transitory, earth-bound realm as the evil, wandering spirits of sorcerers. For the most part the spirits invoked by the personal mankishi are benevolent. A figure like this one is called a nkisi nkondi (plural minkisi minkondi). It is a specific type of power figure in which the spirit was activated by hammering a nail into the figure. At the request of a victim of theft, for instance, a nail would be driven in and the nkisi-nkondi would punish the thief. (The noted scholar Dr. Théophile Obenga termed these ""nails of malediction"".) Important agreements could be sealed in front of the figure. For example, upon concluding peace between two warring villages, representatives from both sides could first take an oath before the nkisi nkondi, then hammer iron wedges or a knife into the figure. Alternatively, an oath sworn before the nkisi nkondi could secure a land transfer.


References

Dumouchelle, Kevin D. Power Incarnate - Allen Stone's Collection of Sculpture from the Congo. Greenwich, CT: Bruce Museum, 2011 Made in Central Africa, African Art, Collections, Yale University Art Gallery (artgallery.yale.edu) Picket, Elliot, "L'art africain conglomere", Arts d'Afrique Noire, no. 10, Summer 1974, pp. 29, 32

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