Headrest - Wood - Luba neck support

Luba neck rests.
Collection of French African art.
The Luba are renowned for their statuary and, in particular, their neck rests and stools consisting of a figural caryatid. The figures adorning this neck rest, intended to preserve the owner's elaborate headdress, refer to Luba royalty and the tutelary spirits. But neck rests were also used to support the heads of the deceased, and sometimes, according to Albert Maesen, buried in their place. Satin brown patina.
The Luba (Baluba in Tshiluba) are a Central African people. Their cradle is Katanga, more precisely the region of the Lubi (Lubu) river, hence the name (Baluba, which means “the Lubas”). They arose from a secession of the Songhai, under the leadership of Ilunga Kalala, who caused the old king Kongolo, revered for a long time, to die in the form of a python. In the 16th century they founded a state, organized as a decentralized chiefdom, extending from the Kasai River to Lake Tanganyika. The chiefdoms cover a small territory with no real border, comprising at most three villages. Source: “Luba” F. Neyt