A Powerful Book for Powerful Purpose

Susan Cooksey, Robin Poynor, Hein Vanhee, eds.. Kongo across the Waters. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2013. Illustrations. xviii + 458 pp. $30.00, paper, ISBN 978-0-8130-4945-8.

Reviewed by Allen Roberts

Published on H-AfrArts (November, 2014)

Commissioned by Jean M. Borgatti (Clark Univeristy)

Following Kongolese logic, this book is an University of Florida’s Harn Museum with those nkisi—a “power object” sure to transform many of the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) in readers’ lives. Kongo across the Waters is heavy Tervuren, Belgium. The initiative began as a com‐ in substance and weight, and a testament to the plement to demi-millennial celebrations of the insight and hard work of the west-central frst-known European visit to Florida. When Africans and their diasporic descendants who Ponce de León sailed to (or happened upon?) the conceived, realized, cherished, and performed the peninsula in 1513, two Africans served in his brilliant objects illustrated and explained, as well crew. Very little is known of them, but because the as to the feet-on-the-ground researchers, students Portuguese had visited west-central Africa thirty and conservators of collections, and museum pro‐ years earlier and had then established notewor‐ fessionals who created the exhibition that this thy diplomatic relations and cultural exchanges volume is meant to accompany and extend. In‐ with Kongo kingdoms, might the sailors have deed, students of African arts might be directed to been of this cultural identity? A century later the the book’s unusually detailed acknowledgments frst enslaved Africans were brought to the Ameri‐ as a lesson in complexity and purpose: it has tak‐ cas to provide basic plantation labor and specifc en many behind-the-scenes contributors in many technological skills, such as cultivation of black lands at many institutions to make this project rice (an African cultigen) and ironsmithing. In en‐ possible. Again, like the efcacies of an nkisi, of‐ suing years, hundreds of thousands would be cap‐ ten what and who are not seen are as important— tured and traded in west-central Africa, many of and sometimes more—than what and who are in whom were Kongo themselves or who came to be immediate evidence. known as such because they were evacuated from The Kongo across the Waters program has the continent via Kongo ports of call. Established combined human and material resources of the and ongoing research has explored the deep aes‐ H-Net Reviews thetic impacts that Kongo and related people have scene, leaving one to wonder how the earliest Por‐ had on créole societies of the black Atlantic in‐ tuguese may have been depicted in Kongolese fg‐ cluding those of the United States, as documented ural sculpture. Given how adept Kongo artists and depicted in the more than 450 pages of this were in adapting Christian arts to their own styles book. as shown in catalog section 1, one can only imag‐ The volume is composed of a brief introduc‐ ine how European “energies” were redirected to tion by the editors; twenty-six scholarly vignettes Kongolese purposes via nkisi objects and chore‐ —that is, short and shorter “mind bites” rather ographies of these early times. RMCA curator than full-blown essays; seventeen “visual inter‐ Julien Volper ofers a suggestion of such in more mezzos” focusing on particular objects or genres; recent times, and one is reminded of Julius Lips’s and seven full-color catalog sections accompanied The Savage Hits Back, or the White Man through by signifcant captions. A great deal of ground is Native Eyes, which, although—or perhaps be‐ covered, then, regarding people of the Kongo con‐ cause—written in 1937 in wartime angst, remains geries of west-central Africa, as well as their dias‐ the best presentation we have of this sort of cul‐ pora throughout the black Atlantic. Kongo across tural adaptation. the Waters is divided into three parts: “Kongo in Research underway or recently completed Africa,” “Kongo in the Americas,” and “Kongo in features in several of these frst oferings, with Cé‐ Contemporary Art.” A mix of renowned and up- cile Fromont reporting from her fne studies of and-coming scholars provide the writing, most Kongo iconographical references in Portuguese based on their own feld and archival research. heraldry and other indices of early aesthetic in‐ Such a seemingly comprehensive list of contribu‐ teractions. The historian Jelmer Vos contributes tors inevitably raises questions of nzawu ( Lox‐ two valuable vignettes, one on impacts of the odonta cylotis, perchance?)—“elephants”—in the transatlantic slave trade on Kongo and related room, as will be discussed briefy below. Here fol‐ peoples, the other a chapter entitled “Kongo in the low a few highlights of the book’s many gifts. Age of Empire,” as written with RMCA curator Readers are frst introduced to Kongolese his‐ and collections manager Hein Vanhee, who is also tories through two pieces by Linda Heywood and an editor of Kongo across the Waters. These texts John Thornton, foremost scholars who have stud‐ are informed by Vos’s participation in the Trans- ied many aspects of earlier life in west-central Atlantic Slave Trade Database Africa and ofered much evidence of the region’s (www.slavevoyages.org) that has revealed such importance to Atlantic studies—and, indeed, to deep detail of the horrifc ravages. The pieces also world history more generally. Mbanza Kongo is provide readers with a sense of ongoing courage presented as the kingdom’s political center and and creativity amid tragedy of unthinkable pro‐ cultural capital described by a European visitor in portions, and of how local people rose to new eco‐ 1491 as “a fne town” rivaling in size and splendor nomic and political opportunities even as society Portugal’s own second city (p. 17). Mbanza Kongo itself was transformed. In a related way, John would become the continent’s frst site of mixed Janzen harkens to his strong studies of social African and European aesthetics, architectures, process over the years in a feeting reference to schools, literacies, and religions. The second con‐ the ever-updating idioms of Kongo religion. In tribution by Heywood and Thornton concerns equally short shrift, Wyatt MacGafey lends a Kongo/Portuguese diplomacy, and Francesco Ca‐ sense of Kongo “meaning and aesthetics” based porale’s wonderful portrait bust of Kongolese am‐ on his feld and archival studies of Kongo. bassador Antonio Manuel realized in 1608 sets the Whether “in most of Kongo the sculptural tradi‐ tion was dead” by the time he and other re‐

2 H-Net Reviews searchers reached them is debatable (p. 174), giv‐ Leone, and Mathew Cochran draw attention to en feldwork more recent than his own such as what Fennell calls “material manifestations of that of Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz (Kongo Graphic core symbols in Kongo” as discovered in excava‐ Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign [2013]). tions in the United States. Fennell asserts that “en‐ But on balance MacGafey has made distinct and slaved laborers ... from the Kongo continued to enduring contributions to Kongo studies and it is shape material culture in accordance with beliefs useful to have diferences of opinion presented. and practices learned in their homeland,” and Indeed, one wishes that more controversy had that a “core symbolic repertoire included an ideo‐ been put on the table through the book, exhibi‐ graphic expression, or cosmogram,” called diken‐ tion, and symposium—again as a point to which ga—the well-known X-marks-the-spot crossroads we shall return. Portfolios of historical photo‐ of the living and the dead that appears etched into graphs and color presentations of potent fgura‐ ceramics illustrated with his piece (p. 230). Read‐ tive and nonfgurative nkisi among other stun‐ ers will be interested in the complexities of such ning works (what remarkable woven mats!) com‐ fndings as reported in Fennell’s excellent Cross‐ plete the section. roads and Cosmologies: Diasporas and Ethnogen‐ Oferings following these shift the focus to esis in the New World (2007). In tantalizing brevi‐ Kongo artistic practices. The contribution by Nic‐ ty, the aforementioned team’s research in historic hole Bridges is derived from her doctoral re‐ homes of Annapolis, Maryland, is also mentioned, search on Loango ivories and their remarkable revealing “spirit practices,” including the dikenga spirals of historical depiction. Here she addresses and buried bundles that cannot but make one “transatlantic souvenirs,” for these magnifcent think of Kongo minds and hands at work to re‐ sculpted tusks as well as other artistic genres store some balance to the world (p. 242). were often developed for gifting or purchase by Kongo-isms in American language, cuisine, Europeans visiting west-central Africa; but the and “folk art” are introduced by Jacky Maniacky, same visual literacy was carried throughout the Birgit Ricquier, and Jason Yong, respectively; and black Atlantic by enslaved Kongolese as evi‐ the “Kongo connection” discerned in sweet-grass denced in the iconography of walking sticks, such basketry of the Carolinas is masterfully presented as the remarkable Emancipation Cane now at the by Dale Rosengarten. Kongo music and dance in Brooklyn Museum. A focused selection of illustra‐ New Orleans’ famed Kongo Square are mentioned tions provides further enticing objects, including in a few pages by Freddi Williams Evans, and carved tusks, stafs, scepters, whisks, and other Mathilde Leduc-Grimaldi brings readers’ atten‐ accoutrements and “curiosities” of Kongo royalty. tion to how Kongo people and their material cul‐ A catalog of musical instruments and masks in‐ ture were portrayed in nineteenth-century ex‐ cluded in the Kongo across the Waters exhibition plorers’ accounts. The latter piece would seem provides further evidence of surpassing artistry better placed in the book’s frst section than this from earlier days, and RMCA ethnomusicologist one, but introduces a strangely understudied top‐ Rémy Jadinot ofers a soupçon of how remarkable ic crying out for scholarship. The section ends Kongo music must have been and still is. with oferings by Grey Gundaker and Kellim In the second part of the book, readers are Brown on evocative Kongo-infuenced “yard taken into “Afroatlantis,” as Robert Farris Thomp‐ shows” in the American South, and a long catalog son has termed it, with similar treats in store. Ar‐ of “Kongo resonance” in African American arts to chaeological studies by Christopher Fennell and be experienced through the Kongo across the Wa‐ the team of Kathryn Deeley, Stefan Woehlke, Mark ters exhibition’s pieces. It is hard to get enough of these pieces and the term “resonance” is most ap‐

3 H-Net Reviews posite, for how can one view the yard shows or ris), Radclife Bailey (Carol Thompson), Édouard the two memory jars depicted without pondering Duval-Carrié (Donald Cosentino), and José Bedia broader central African mnemonic practices (Judith Bettleheim). The works illustrated are po‐ through which an accumulation of markers builds tent and pungent. For example, Haitian painter’s the efcacies of an object or a place? The shards Duval-Carrié’s La voix des sans-voix (“The Voice of and shreds festooning potent nkisi included in the the Voiceless”) depicts a spirit empowered Kongo exhibition may come most readily to mind, but reliquary called a niombo that mediates between why not look a bit beyond the exhibition’s focus to the living and the dead in “a testament to the per‐ lukasa (memory boards) and their choreogra‐ sistence of Kongo mentalité in Haiti” (Cosentino, phies among Luba people or Lega iconic displays p. 389). This painting and other works illustrated of the Democratic Republic of the Congo: isn’t sim‐ in this last section are also redolent of the ilar material/performative logic at play? courage, inventiveness, and resolve of Kongo peo‐ The third and fnal section concerns “Kongo ple on the continent and in its diasporas through inspiration in world art,” and is introduced by an the innumerable difcult days since those frst essay of this title by curator/editors Susan Cook‐ feeting encounters fve hundred years ago, when sey and Robin Poyner. Well-known historical ex‐ Kongo were “discovered” by Portuguese visitors amples of the phenomenon are presented through and deemed their equals. an account of European borrowings of Kongolese In sum, Kongo across the Waters’s brief over‐ themes and images. While it is useful to review views of cultural histories and expressive tri‐ how Apollinaire’s and Picasso’s studios included umphs will intrigue generalist readers, and are all objects from west-central Africa from which these the more welcome insofar as one must presume infuential artists drew expressive energy, of they will be unfamiliar to the majority due to how greater interest is how less-familiar African woefully little anything African is taught in our American artists, such as Hale Woodruf, integrat‐ nation’s K-12 curricula. The book presents “just ed Kongo references into their works, as illustrat‐ enough” to lead readers to gain an understanding ed by a striking oil-on-canvas mural now in the of many facets of Kongo and Kongo-infected cre‐ Harn Museum’s collections. Of equal signifcance ative life and still want more—and more there is, is the work of such Kongo artists as Steve Bando‐ of course, as a bountiful bibliography makes evi‐ ma, who left Kinshasa for the cosmopolitan art dent. The bottom line is that the book will be most scene of Cape Town some years ago. Two of his useful to those who know little of Kongo culture works included in the exhibition and illustrated and histories and this, I might add, may well in‐ in the book depict nkisi fgures which are updated clude Africanists who have specialized in other so that what were once tangible entreaties and parts of the vast continent to the neglect of west- votives become collages of hands, wanting and central Africa. Teaching from the book will be grasping in response to today’s consumerism and among its most important outcomes. political demands. So active is desire that the fg‐ As mentioned above, for all its breadth and ure in Trésor oublié (“Forgotten Treasure”) of depth, there are nzawu (“elephants” in some di‐ 2011 from Bandoma’s “Lost Tribe” series breaks alects of KiKongo) in the room—voices only heard free of its base as a most dynamic example of in echo, presences notable by their absence. The “African art in motion,” to borrow Thompson’s most obvious are scholars who are Kongolese haunting phrase (African Art in Motion [1974]). themselves or otherwise hail from Angola or the The section ends with four celebrated scholars Democratic Republic of the Congo, whether or not reprising their refections upon Kongo-infuenced they still reside there. The insights of the great contemporary artists Renée Stout (Michael Har‐

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Kongolese philosopher Fu-Kiau Bunseki are oft- more of life and assert agency against disempow‐ quoted in Kongo across the Waters, but although ering ignorance. If the book’s spirits fash in two he joined the ancestors in 2013, there are certain‐ or three pages allotted to authors rather than ly many other Kongolese and west-central-African through the sustained light of full essays, the tease intellectuals in the United States, Portugal, and is there: will you learn more? Will you follow up Belgium with plenty of wisdom to share. A more and read from the bibliography? An nkisi never local missing “pachyderm” is the Afro-Cuban art delivers everything one asks or close to it. Instead, historian Martínez-Ruiz, who is cited several it piques desire and leaves the work of social times but is not among the authors. It is valuable management to one’s own intellect and political to read a few words about Geofroy Heimlich’s acumen. Bravo to those who have given us the doctoral research on Kongo rock art, for instance, provocations of Kongo across the Waters. and perhaps Martínez-Ruiz’s monograph, Kongo Notes Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign, [1]. For example, see Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz, that features his remarkable research on just such “Flying Over Dikenga: The Circle of New Life,” in matters was in press too late to be cited in Heim‐ Inscribing Meaning: Writing and Graphic Systems lich’s several pages; but still, Martínez-Ruiz’s re‐ in African Art, ed. Christine Mullen Kreamer, search on Kongo rock art and related systems of Mary Nooter Roberts, Elizabeth Harney, and signs has been published elsewhere.[1] Given the Allyson Purpura (Milan: 5continents, 2007), goal to assist readers to locate resource people 186-194. and publications, Martínez-Ruiz’s absence from the collection is noteworthy. Jumbo—the greatest [2]. Allen Roberts, review of Sacred Arts of missing elephant of them all—is Thompson. His Haitian Vodun, by Donald J. Cosentino, African work is acknowledged as “groundbreaking” in the Arts 29, no. 2 (1996): 92. book’s introduction, yet it then seems dismissed insofar as “he often pushed his analyses into the realm of controversy” (p. 6). Does controversy ex‐ clude him from the pages of Kongo across the Wa‐ ters? I myself have written of Thompson as being “insightfully outrageous,”[2] but surely this quali‐ ty is a good thing, and an exceedingly rare one at that, as Master T, as he is known at Yale Universi‐ ty, has challenged convenient truths so very regu‐ larly for so very long. Who among scholars of Kongo expression and African art more generally has ever been so stimulating as he? I simply can‐ not understand his not being among the writers and symposium speakers unless, of course, he chose not to be. In guise of a conclusion, let us return to the initial assertion that Kongo across the Waters is an nkisi. Any misgivings aside, the book is certain‐ ly transformative as it fashes with spirits from days of yore and those of present times. Like an nkisi, it ofers its efcacies to any wishing to know

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Citation: Allen Roberts. Review of Cooksey, Susan; Poynor, Robin; Vanhee, Hein, eds. Kongo across the Waters. H-AfrArts, H-Net Reviews. November, 2014.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=42328

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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