Art and Oracle: A Scholarly Resource of African and Rituals of Divination | Explore & Learn

45. Throne: Divination Scene (Ngunja)
Chokwe, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola
Wood; H. 99.1 cm (39 in.)
19th–20th century
Trustees of the British Museum, London 1951
AF 32.9

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45. Throne: Divination Scene (Ngunja)

In Chokwe society, a throne did not merely serve as a functional seat or a remote dais upon which a leader sat in splendid isolation. Instead, it represented a treatise on the breadth of a leader's concerns and responsibilities that was intended for his subjects' contemplation. This was achieved by distilling a comprehensive program of ideas into a lucid, well-structured sequence of images. The overarching theme expressed by this visual narrative is that social harmony and continuity can be assured only by the control of destructive forces through the strength and vigilance of enlightened leaders.1 As a consequence, the same concerns addressed by diviners are invoked through a shared visual vocabulary.

The integral relationship between divine insight and responsible leadership is the subject of the commentary that informs this sculpted throne. The term for "throne," ngunja (plural, ngunji) is used to describe the elaborately carved seats of office that belonged to Chokwe chiefs, headmen, or important elders. Among the ultimate emblems of authority, ngunji inspired respect for both their owners' influential rank and the figurative narrative that unfolds across their splats, rungs, and legs.2 The sum of a throne's images evokes an ideal of harmonious existence, which may be facilitated by enlightened rulers. Their ability to govern and perform their duties effectively enforces social order, thus preempting a need for excessive interventions by diviners. In society, the ambitious and encyclopedic visual program of a ruler's throne is comparable to the contents of a diviner's basket and suggests the parallel and complementary nature of their respective owners' roles as mediators with the spiritual realm (see cat. no. 23).

Chokwe chiefs share a common ancestry with their Luchazi, Lunda, Luvale, Lwena, Mbunda, and Ovimbundu counterparts, and conceive of their role as leaders to be a divinely ordained vocation.3 Rituals of enthronement render the chief's person sacred, establishing him as God's representative on earth and an intermediary with the realm of ancestral spirits. His title, mwanangana ("lord of the land"), carries with it the responsibility for the well-being of his constituents, which is ensured by his performing propitiatory ceremonies that commemorate and honor the ancestors.

It was in the context of such crucial mediation efforts that Chokwe leaders displayed their thrones. These seats of power often took the form of high-backed chairs composed of a series of independently carved and joined supports. This indigenous form of expression derives from the adaptation of a Western furniture design to conform with local aesthetic values. It appears that the European prototypes on which it is based were introduced to the region by Portuguese dignitaries at the beginning of the seventeenth century.4 Before that time, Chokwe thrones were probably elaborately carved stools with figurative supports. As innovative forms associated with power and prestige, European decorative arts were integrated into sub-Saharan leadership arts along the Gold Coast as early as the 1480s.5

During the 1930s, German ethnographer Hermann Baumann documented the process of creating ngunji and noted that their authors were not the artisans who designed utilitarian objects but rather professional sculptors (songi) responsible for ritual artifacts. Since not every village had such a specialist, leaders often considered the far-reaching reputations of regional artists when awarding commissions.6

While each of the scenes featured on a throne visually evokes some distinct aspect of Chokwe experience, as a unified series they convey a broader message. The component elements of each individual work juxtapose worldly concerns with spiritual ones.7 Each image addresses an event with which all members of a leader's constituency may universally identify and relate. These include birth, initiation, marriage, illness, hunting, divination, and death.8 Within this richly diverse body of imagery are a series of motifs found in diviners' baskets.

A number of works, such as the example shown here, feature a depiction of a divination consultation. In this scene, two men, who respectively hold a divination basket and a divination instrument in the form of a double gong (ngonge), face each other. It has been suggested that a comparable representation on another throne may be a commentary on a chief's ability to identify antisocial elements in his community.9 Just as divination scenes appear on the rungs of thrones, images of these seats of authority may be included in divination baskets. Baumann documents an element from a diviner's basket in the form of a miniature chair, associated with an ancestral appeal for the banishment of evil.10

1. Reinhild Kauenhoven-Janzen, "Chokwe Thrones," African Arts 14, no. 3 (1981), p. 72.

2. Ibid., p. 69.

3. Chokwe! 1998, p. 29.

4. Marie-Louise Bastin, La sculpture Tshokwe (Meudon, France: Alain and Françoise Chaffin, 1982), p. 251.

5. Roy Sieber, African Furniture and Household Objects, exh. cat. (New York: American Federation of Arts, 1980), pp. 158–59.

6. Kauenhoven-Janzen, "Chokwe Thrones," p. 69.

7. Ibid., p. 74.

8. Ibid., p. 71.

9. Chokwe! 1998, cat. no. 19.

10. Kauenhoven-Janzen, "Chokwe Thrones," p. 70.