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Regents of the University of California 18Th-Century Kuba King Figures Regents of the University of California 18th-Century Kuba King Figures Author(s): Monni Adams Source: African Arts, Vol. 21, No. 3 (May, 1988), pp. 32-38+88 Published by: UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3336440 Accessed: 27-10-2016 15:08 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Regents of the University of California, UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to African Arts This content downloaded from 141.213.142.215 on Thu, 27 Oct 2016 15:08:27 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 18th-Century Kuba King Figures MONNI ADAMS The arts of large sub-Saharan African iar methods of iconographical and histor- of its culture and structure, as Vansina courts fit more readily into the famil- ical investigation. This can be demon- found during 1953-1956, when he con- iar categories of European art history strated by a description of the steps ducted an intensive study of the king- with regard to subject, purpose, and taken by scholars to identify and date dom. applicable method of investigation than five wooden figures from the Kuba The historical development of the the arts of small village polities do. In court. This example is of exceptional Kuba kingdom seems to fit the pattern of African courts, such as Dahomey, interest because of the quantity of several other, larger "empires" in Central Asante, Benin, and Kuba, images, cere- twentieth-century documentation on Africa, in which a conqueror organizes a monial insignia, and costume were dis- Kuba court culture that permits the number of agricultural village com- played prominently to enhance the ap- scholar to move beyond identification munities into a state having at its center a pearance of power. Such works share and dating to an interpretation of style in sacred ruler and a royal court with sup- characteristics that distinguish arts of terms of cultural values. porting officials. In the late nineteenth leadership elsewhere; they appear in The Kuba kingdom, which occupied century this aristocratic kingdom com- more precious materials, more complex the territory between the Kasai and San- prised eighteen different clusters of techniques, and more elaborate compos- kuru rivers in Zaire (see map), became people dominated by the centrally lo- itions than the arts outside the elite well known in Europe because the cated Bushoong. The hereditary chief of sphere. As in Europe, African court Britisharts Museum sent an expedition to the the Bushoong people was the acknowl- indicate the locus of authority, identify region in 1907-9, led by Hungarian edged sovereign of all other ethnic officials, and convey messages about ethnographer the Emil Torday. His descrip- chiefs. The strength of the kingdom pro- rights and powers of the elite to a wider tion of Kuba institutions in his folio- vided protection against outside slave public. The emblems worn or figures sized volume (Torday & Joyce 1910) re-raiders who increasingly in the represented are meant to be recognized mains an impressive account of the nineteenth century disrupted other Cen- and understood. Oral traditions pre- elaborately organized court. According tral African communities. Kuba society served by court archivists, combined to the historian Jan Vansina, Torday's seems to have been a stable and prosper- with descriptions by European explor- works carried the prestige of the Kuba ous so one in which values emphasizing ers, colonizers, and ethnographers far of that it led the Belgian Government, work and wealth stimulated a develop- their encounters with African courts in which after 1910 became the colonial au- ment of material culture of a richness and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thority, to respect the autonomy of such diversity not found among surrounding provide references to art of the past. As a"an old and civilized state" to an unusu- peoples of Zaire (Vansina 1967-68:13). result, the arts of these large courts are to ally large degree (Vansina 1975:137). Thus The Bushoong developed a rich constel- a considerable degree accessible to famil- Kuba society was able to maintain much lation of art objects: wooden sculpture, embroidered textiles, and decorated ar- chitecture (Cornet 1982; Adams 1978:24- 39, 106-7; 1983:40-55). Visitors to the capital, Mushenge, in Luenie the late nineteenth century found a planned court layout and a large popula- tion (estimated at 10,000), consisting of km the king with his hundreds of wives, re- latives, officials, and nobility, along with sa% n A Mukamba a number of specialized craftsmen such as tailors and sculptors. The Kuba main- 80 Mushengee* NGONWoG <4 O tained extensive trade links at border markets, but the king forbade the entry O - of foreigners under penalty of death. The first outsider to penetrate the capital of this well-ordered kingdom was a re- O Z _ ZAIRE markable black American Presbyterian PYAANG missionary to the Congo, William Shep- pard, who was received in 1892 by the king as a putative descendant of a past ruling family (Sheppard 1917:107-8).' Sheppard provides the earliest docu- . LueboKETE Lulua, mentation of the sculptures of Kuba kings, subsequently studied by several 32 This content downloaded from 141.213.142.215 on Thu, 27 Oct 2016 15:08:27 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 2. KING FIGURE, KOT A-NTSHEY (?), FORMERLY KOT A-MBUL. WOOD, 51cm. MUSEE ROYAL DE LAFRIQUE 1. KING FIGURE, MISHA MI-SHYAANG A-MBUL (?), FOR- CENTRALE, TERVUREN. MERLY MBO MBWOOSH OR BOM BOSH. WOOD, 49.4cm. BROOKLYN MUSEUM, GIFT OF MR. & MRS. ROBERT E. BLUM, MR. & MRS. ALASTAIR B. MARTIN, MR. & MRS. posture that is equally rare in African DONALD M. OENSLAGER, THE MRS. FLORENCE E. BLUM 3. KING FIGURE, MISHA PELYEENG A-NTSHEY FUND. sculpture. Each sits crosslegged on a square base from which a small wooden WOOD, 52.8cm. MUSEUM OF MANKIND, LONDON. object projects. Torday was informed of scholars. During his visit to the royal the figures' identities according to these numbers later proved to be erroneous, palace, he saw four wooden statues that emblematic objects. The one with the Torday was able to set a correct period for he said were "highly prized and sacred," gameboard (Figs. 7,8) he identified as the Shyaam's reign because of remarkably placed on an earthen platform near the king called Shamba Bolongongo. Ac- specific facts remembered of the reign of king in the council chamber. They repre- cording to later research, the name of this Mbakam Mbomancyeel, a king following sented former kings who were identified ruler is more appropriately represented shortly after Shyaam. According to Kuba according to an attribute carved in front as Shyaam a-Mbul a-Ngwoong or traditions there was a solar eclipse dur- of each statue: one, a gameboard, be- Shyaam a-Mbul a-Ngoong (Vansina ing Mbakam's reign. Because longed to a king whose name Sheppard 1963:294). meteorological records indicated an recorded as Xamba Bulngunga; another, Oral traditions at the Kuba court in- eclipse in 1680, Torday estimated that an anvil for a former king who favored clude an account of the kingdom recited Shyaam began his reign in the early the art of smithing (Sheppard 1917:112). by the king at installation, royal seventeenth century (Torday & Joyce In the troubled period that followed the genealogies (ncaam), and references to 1910:30, 36).3 beginnings of European commercial and past kings and queen mothers preserved Shyaam is a culture hero to the Kuba. political endeavors in the region, the in song form, which are chanted on According to popular tradition, he insti- mission failed and nothing was heard of ceremonial occasions, mainly by a tuted the political councils and taught the figures until sixteen years later, dur- chorus composed of the king's wives the use of new plants for food, the mak- ing Torday's expedition. (Vansina 1960:257-70). A list of kings is ing of cloth from raffia palm, and the cus- At the end of Torday's stay, the king not a traditional category, but Torday tom of carving the king's statue. He is Kot a-Pey presented him with four sought and obtained a long recitation of remembered for his cleverness, and his statues of former kings (Figs. 2,3,5,8) 121 rulers going back to the Creator and wise sayings are still quoted. In giving (Torday & Joyce 1910:33). Measuring including many leaders prior to the the statue to Torday, the king in 1908 about 48-55 centimeters in height, they founding of the Bushoong kingdom. In quoted Shyaam as saying to his people: are carved of hardwood,2 which is un- this list Torday found Shyaam to be the "When they look at this statue, they will usual in African art, and they are in a ninety-third name. Although these be able to remember me, and think that I 33 This content downloaded from 141.213.142.215 on Thu, 27 Oct 2016 15:08:27 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms watch over them, consoling them when Tervuren museum, assembled eighteen sun facing outward. The square base they are sad, giving them inspiration and statues, some of which he considered represents a padded rectangular fresh courage" (Torday & Joyce 1910:27).
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