Power Figure: Standing Female Figure with Child (Wife of Mabyaala?) (Nkisi)
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.When a Dutch trader acquired this mother and child figure in Cabinda in the nineteenth century, it was documented as casi mabialla, the spouse of Mabyaala (Mabialla), one of the most powerful and revered coastal minkisi. The “Wife of Mabyaala” features cavities for medicine, or bilongo, in the stomach, back, and crown of the head. Her identity as a married woman is reflected in the prominence of the infant supported on her left hip who rests its hand on her breast. Their heads feature the fiber cap that is among the foremost attributes of an invested chief known as an ngunda. A long narrow band of cloth that extends from the crown has been related to an umbilical cord and to a chief’s belt.
Artwork Details
- Title: Power Figure: Standing Female Figure with Child (Wife of Mabyaala?) (Nkisi)
- Date: 19th century, inventoried 1885
- Geography: Cabinda, Angola, Loango Coast
- Culture: Kongo peoples; Vili group
- Medium: Wood, beads, glass, fiber, copper, resin
- Dimensions: H. 15 1/4 (38.5 cm), W. 5 3/4 (14.6 cm), D. 5 1/2 in. (14 cm)
- Classification: Wood-Sculpture
- Credit Line: Collection Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, Leiden, Netherlands
- Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing