Nkonde

I'm supposed to be writing but am endlessly distracted - so I've been reading about nkonde, or African power figures, on the grounds that there's one at the centre of the story I'm wrestling with at the moment.

I saw some nkondes in the Brooklyn Museum last year and they made my hair stand on end. One look at this picture shows why - the underlying carved figures themselves aren't that frightening, but once they've been worked on by the fetish expert, or nganga, who adds clays, cloths, nails, hair, and other materials they're transformed into repositories of power. They'll protect the owner from harm, chase down thieves, destroy someone who has broken an agreement, whatever the nganga has designed it to do - and power radiates out of them.

It seems strange to me that people buy these power figures to display as art - I can't imagine sharing my space with something to which such violence has done, and which seems so clearly malevolent.

This image is from a great essay at http://www.randafricanart.com/Nkisi_Figures_of_the_Lower_Congo.html