Stunning Old African Kota Reliquary Figure - Gabon

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The reliquary figures of the Kota and Mahongwe of eastern Gabon, and of neighboring groups, the Obama and Mindumu, exhibit some of the most striking forms in African art. Rare and old, this guardian figure was inserted into a reliquary basket, known as as bwete . They originally served to protect the bones of deceased notables, and were inserted into the lids of the baskets in which these were kept. Housed on a shelf usually outside the village, the reliquary guardian figure ( mbulu ngulu ) was carefully polished to maintain its shining surface. The diamond shape at the bottom of the piece can be read as either arms or legs drawn up with the knees spread, a formally striking device. Too flat to serve as a mask and too masklike to be considered schulptures, such reliquary figures represent a hybrid form of the two genres. The most striking feature of these figures is their overlay of metal, in this case brass and copper. The valuable metal was not employed in solid form but in thin, hammered sheets spread over a wooden core (front only, in the present piece). This mbulu ngulu presents a powerful image. It has a dramatic, almost menacing, forcefulness due to the interpretations of the design elements with which it was composed, and the interplay among them. The elegance of the flat curved crescent, the sweeping side panels, and the slender neck and arms contrasts with the massive bulging brow, with its strong brow ridge. TheThe hypnotic gaze and open mouth add a finishing stroke of vigorous immediacy. Although examples of mbulu ngulu were first collected by explorers as early as 1883, and presented to the Trocadero Museum in Paris, they attracted little attention for a quarter of a century. Then, partly owing to the interests that contemporary artists took in them, they gained a place among the icons of African att that they have retained every since. The piece for sale here was obtained from an African collector in Cameroon, Africa. It was represented to originate from the early 20th century. It has some signs of use as the metal has a worn appearance and the wood is definitely aged but well preserved. This is an excellent piece! HISTORY The land of the Kota, numbering some 75,000, is situated in the eastern part of Gabon, extending slightly into the People’s Republic of the Congo. The Kota are actually a number of groups of peoples with common cultural traits. Although these peoples share many cultural traits, they are by no means homogeneous. The rain forests which surround the Kota are farmed with slash and burn techniques, combined with crop rotation. By moving crops from year to year, erosion and soil depletion is avoided. The main crops grown are plantains and manioc.The Kota live in villages comprising two or more clans. Clans in turn comprise several lineages or family groups that trace their descent from a common lineage ancestor. This is an important point related to their art, for like the Fang, the Kota revere the relics of ancestors. Ancestor worship formed the core of the family group’s religious and social life. At the death of a chief, the initiates would take from the body of the deceased various relics, which were then decorated with metal and rubbed with powders of multiple magical powers. The Kota have produced large quantity of statues of ancestors with the diamond-shaped lower part called mbulu-ngulu; these rather two-dimensional sculptures are in wood; symbolic metals were applied to the upper part in strips or sheets to add power. Copper in particular was identified with longevity and power. These statues stood guard in cylindrical bark boxes, on baskets or bundles called bwete that contained the skulls and bones of important ancestors. Bound into a packet and lashed to the base of a carved figure, the bones formed a stable base that allowed the image to stand more or less upright. Thanks to the diversity of the groups, scattered over a vast area, a great variety of different styles of figures has developed, some of them endogenous a... read more

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