- Reduced price
Songye figure
€215.00
€107.50
Save 50%
Male Songye figure carved from dense wood with a lustrous dark brown patina. The figure stands in a frontal, hieratic pose, with both hands placed on either side of the abdomen above powerful, slightly bent legs. The face, with large almond-shaped eyes, a short nose and open mouth, conveys the expressive tension characteristic of many Songye sculptures.
Among the Songye, anthropomorphic sculpture is closely associated with ancestors, protection and spiritual forces. The celebrated nkishi power figures were activated by a ritual specialist, or nganga, who inserted potent substances known as bishimba into cavities in the figure and often added horns, fibres, hides, metal and other symbolically charged materials.
No ritual charge or additional attachment is currently preserved on this example. It is therefore more appropriate to describe it simply as a male Songye figure rather than to identify it definitively as an activated nkishi. It nevertheless remains possible that such a sculpture once carried perishable materials or ritual additions that were subsequently lost. Many Songye power figures now in Western collections have lost part or all of their original attachments.
You might also like
Male Songye figure carved from dense wood with a lustrous dark brown patina. The figure stands in a frontal, hieratic pose, with both hands placed on either side of the abdomen above powerful, slightly bent legs. The face, with large almond-shaped eyes, a short nose and open mouth, conveys the expressive tension characteristic of many Songye sculptures.
Among the Songye, anthropomorphic sculpture is closely associated with ancestors, protection and spiritual forces. The celebrated nkishi power figures were activated by a ritual specialist, or nganga, who inserted potent substances known as bishimba into cavities in the figure and often added horns, fibres, hides, metal and other symbolically charged materials.
No ritual charge or additional attachment is currently preserved on this example. It is therefore more appropriate to describe it simply as a male Songye figure rather than to identify it definitively as an activated nkishi. It nevertheless remains possible that such a sculpture once carried perishable materials or ritual additions that were subsequently lost. Many Songye power figures now in Western collections have lost part or all of their original attachments.
Content not available