Female nkisi (power figure)

Kongo artist and nganga (ritual specialist)

Late 19th–early 20th century

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 344

Banganga (plural) are ritual specialists who protect their clientele against ailments and misfortunes of a mystical origin. They use minkisi (plural) as tools to diagnose and remedy such maladies, along with a related complex of songs and prescribed acts. Carefully selected medicines, or bilongo, composed of animal, vegetable, or mineral elements, are the source of a nkisi’s sacred power and efficacy. Such finely tuned instruments may be periodically reinvigorated through additions and offerings, linking nganga and client to the ancestral realm and its curative forces. In addition to secreting medicines into its interior cavities, the nganga who oversaw this figure’s activation inscribed a dikenga, or cross within a circle, on its belly pack. The dikenga is an ancient and many-layered symbol—a cosmological diagram for the perceived positions of the sun relative to the earth’s horizon, on another level it is a metaphor for the cycle of birth, death, spiritual realm, and rebirth. In that context, Christian imagery and ideology introduced in the late fifteenth century resonated at the royal court in Mbanza Kongo, the Kingdom of Kongo’s spiritual and administrative center. Contests between neighboring rival polities and the potential for alliances with the Vatican and a global network of Christian monarchs provided political and economic incentives for conversion. Embraced primarily by elites, Catholicism was adopted as the Kongo state religion in the early 1500s under King Afonso I. Missionaries translated Christian doctrine into the Kongo language, and thousands of devotional objects, requested from the Portuguese crown, were imported as prototypes for locally produced works.

Artwork Details

Overview

Provenance

Title: Female nkisi (power figure)
Artist: Kongo artist and nganga (ritual specialist)
Date: Late 19th–early 20th century
Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Culture: Kongo peoples
Medium: Wood, resin, glass, pigment, cloth, fur, string
Dimensions: H. 8 in. x W. 3 1/2 in. x D. 2 1/2 in.
Block: H. 1 in. x W. 3 1/4 in. x D. 3 1/4 in.
Classification: Wood-Sculpture
Credit Line: Gift of Carol B. Kenney, in memory of Jerome P. Kenney, 2025
Object Number: 2025.97.10
Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing

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