DRC, Angola – Congo River Region
Bakongo

Wood, Calabash, Braided Fiber
Late 19th Century

Height: 91 cm / Length: 33cm / Width: 22cm
Idiophone – Struck Directly

This impressive anthropomorphic object is hand carved from wood and shows usage traces and drying cracks. It is played with two wooden bats with three large calabash gourds used to generate the resonance. Estimated age is a minimum of 100 years. The Bakongo people are located in Southwestern Congo (Zaire), Angola, and Congo. Much of the art world knows them for their “nkisi” objects, which literally translates as “sacred medicine”. The supreme god to the Kongo Kingdom is “Nzambi.” The intermediary representations were in the form of “nikisi” objects representing the land and sky spirits, and the ancestor spirits. These “nikisi” objects were often nail fetish figures used to harness supernatural forces. This rare anthropomorphic carved balafon, in the form of a figure, is not a fetish object, but was most likely used to help summons the spirits of ancestors.