The Chokwe
April 29, 2009
The Chokwe
Today I thought it would be a good time to introduce the third culture presented in Art and Power in the Central African Savanna, the Chokwe.
When the Luba prince Chibinda IIunga arrived in the Luunda region, married a princess named Lewji and founded a more centralized form of authority, some of Lweji’s brothers and other titleholders left the Luunda court and established themselves among the Chokwe at the sources of the Kasai and Kwango rivers. The immigrants transmitted some of their newly acquired customs and knowledge to their Chokwe hosts.
Male figure. Chokwe. Collection of Sidney and Bernice Clyman.
Although they never formed a kingdom, some Chokwe chiefs built large chiefdoms and ruled over vast territories. The development of these chiefdoms gave rise to a type of court art, while the import of luxury goods added to the refinement of court life. From 1850 onwards, the Chokwe left their homelands in Angola in search of beeswax and rubber to sustain their commercial activity and settled in parts of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia.
At the end of the 19th century, thanks to their involvement in the long-distance trace, the Chokwe overruled the Luunda Kingdom of which they had been vassals for nearly 300 years. However, internal war, famine, disease and the consquences of colonization, led to the decline of the great chiefdoms and their court art in the early 20th century.
The term hamba (plur. mahamba) – denoting a central concept in Chokwe region – can be considered the equivalent of the terms bwanga and nkishi which the three other peoples discussed in this exhibition employ for power objects and power figures. It also refers to a tutelary, nature or ancestor spirit that mediates between God and man and is visualized in different material forms, including wooden carvings.
The village chief keeps mahamba that safeguard the community in an enclosure behind his residence. The mahamba spirits receive prayers and offerings to ensure their protection or to soothe them. Interestingly, mahamba spirits sometimes cause illness by possessing an individual. The healing process is often a public event accompanied by music and singing during which possession is provoked in the patient. Ultimately, by crying out its name, s/he will expel the spirit through her/his mouth. The cure is consummated by initiation of the paient into the cult.
Often a carved figure, also called hamba, is created as a home for the spirit from which the patient has been freed. Although most mahamba sculptures are conceptual or abstract in nature, rendered in simplified and schematic forms, and crudely carved, some examples are meticulously and carefully carved. In the exhibition and its companion publication it is argued that the famous Chokwe figures representing chiefs and the culture-hero Chibinda IIunga, representing the culmination of Chokwe court art as it flourished in Angola in the 18th and 19th centuries, also belonged to the category of mahamba and functioned as power figures with protective and curative purposes. Intended to safeguard the chief’s authority and the well-being of his population, they were probably kept in a shrine within the enclosure adjacent to the chief’s residence.
Please come and see Art and Power in the Central African Savanna to learn more about this fascinating culture and its rich and varied artistic legacy before the exhibition closes its doors on May 31.
Costa
