Congo: Baluba and Bakwele
The sculptures of the Baluba people of Congo are done in wood and ivory.
The works are not uniform in expression and style.
The sculptures show ancestral figures, head or neckrests, royal stools or seats and masks which always take the features of females.
The individual traits of the work are usually shown by means of the workmarks and insignia on them.
Two distinctive styles are noteworthy.
These are the Cascade and the Master Buli styles.
The Cascade styles show the female figures with soft, flowing, almost sensuous shapes with a refined image whose elegance is given more force or importance with complicated and highly sophisticated head-dresses.
The master Buli style show a more abrupt treatment.
The rendering of the head and the body is distorted.
The angular edges elongate the figure and display a
range of clearly differentiated profiles.
The predominance of the feminine appearance of the figures is as a result of outstanding political roles played by the mother and
sisters among the Baluba, while among the Bakongo, kings have been crowned from among the sisters or nieces of the maternal side of a king who died without leaving a male descendant to succeed him.
Some of the Baluba sculptures are used as impregnated fetishes which have received their strength through an operation carried out on them by a medicine man.
These are used for sorcery and as charms to bewitch others.
The Bakwele, on the other hand, carve facial masks which are
heart-shaped. The central area of the mask is slightly depressed so that the face stands out.
They are incised with harmonious closed-curves outlined by two horns bent around the plane of the face.
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