A Songye "nganga", or religious specialist, has endowed this carved figure with spiritual powers by inserting symbolic substances—animal, vegetable, and mineral—into its head, abdomen, and shoulders, and by attaching bundles of similar ingredients to its chest, neck, and feet. Offerings to ancestral spirits who bestow fertility and provide protection against disease and misfortune are still visible in the sculpture's mouth. A power figure of this size is owned communally by the members of a Songye village, who consult it regularly at public ceremonies.
