Kiti cha enzi (chair of power)

Viti vya enzi (plural) were acquired and displayed to convey the wealth and authority of their owners in Lamu, Zanzibar, and other port cities along the Swahili Coast. Made from dark, precious hardwoods and inlaid with high contrast ivory, bone, or mother-of-pearl, their materiality underscored the owner’s access to and control over valued resources. Their high-backed forms with raised footrests and caned seats further underscored elevated status through visual references to important centers of trade across the Indian Ocean. Related thrones were created in Egypt, Iran, and India, among other distant locales, where they mediated wedding ceremonies, manifested royal authority, and facilitated commercial ties. These “exotic” associations were key signifiers of cosmopolitanism and erudition within East African coastal communities.


The earliest documented examples of viti vya enzi are all dated to the nineteenth century, when a burgeoning merchant class claimed authority through mass consumption of objects associated with foreign ports. Late nineteenth and early twentieth century photography in Lamu highlights how patricians frequently purchased viti vya enzi in pairs in order to create a symmetrical aesthetic that was complemented by lavish arrangements of imported glazed ceramics. While the majority of such “chairs of power” were produced for local consumption, late nineteenth-century European travelers and colonial administrators note their availability for purchase by any individual of means. In September 1884, the British Vice-Consul to Lamu, John George Haggard, remarked in a letter to his brother William that he was sending two “Lamu chairs” inlaid with bone and ivory as a gift for an “old Rider.” This kiti cha enzi likely left the region in the 1930s when it was purchased by a couple in South Africa who later bequeathed it to Phillip Tobias, a professor of paleoanthropology and human biology at the University of Witwatersrand, who referred to it as “the chair of medicine.”


Jenny Peruski, 2026
Assistant Curator for the Arts of Africa