Nkisi (Power Figure)

Artist Songye people

Place of OriginDemocratic Republic of the Congo

Datemid 19th-early 20th century

Dimensions41 in. (104.1 cm)

Mediumwood, copper, glass beads, raffia fiber, and antelope horn

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1970.51

Not on View

Collections

Sculpture

Published References"African Art," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 16, no. 2, 1973, p. 46, repr. fig. 19.

Rice, Danielle, "A Basonge Fetish Figure," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, new series, vol. 17, no. 3, 1974, pp. 54-55, repr. p. 55.

Roberts, Mary Nooter, Facing Africa: The African Art Collection of the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, 1998, p. 49 and p. 54, repr. (col.) and p. 55, repr. (b/w.).

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 49, repr. (col.).

Comparative ReferencesSee also Wassing, Rene, African Art, its Background and Traditions, New York, Abrams, 1968, pp. 26, 27, 204, 238, pls. 7, 108, cat. nos. 22, 23, 24 (ill.).

See also Cornet, Joseph, Art of Africa, Treasures from the Congo, New York, Phaidon, 1971, pp. 237-247.

See also Wardwell, Allen, Primitive Art in the Collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Insititute of Chicago, 1965, cat. no. 52, fig. 52.

See also Trowell, Margaret and Hans Nevermann, African and Oceanic Art, New York Abrams, 1968, pp. 19, 142, 143, (ill.).

See also Leiris, Michel and Jacqueline Delange, African Art, New York, Golden Press, 1968, p. 238, pl. 270.

Label TextAn awe-inspiring presence, this large power figure (nkishi) once guarded a Songye community, protecting its health and fertility, punishing wrongdoers, and keeping witches and evil spirits away. Sculpted by a carver to represent a heroic ancestor, the figure became the repository for a powerful spirit when a ritual specialist inserted magical substances into cavities in the head and the abdomen and added the horn on top of the head to refer to the wisdom of the elders. Power figures were placed on an altar in a special house and were considered so dangerous that they were never handled with bare hands, only with sticks.