Wood - DR Congo - 20th century

The Old Yaka
Statue of the Khosi–Yaka cult, Yaka, DRC (Zaire)

The face is pigmented with white kaolin.
The hips are covered with a raffia or cotton skirt.

The statue is kept in a hut located within the chief's compound.

The Yaka sculptor is not a blacksmith. He practices the rites proper to his profession. He keeps his own bag of magical ingredients and, before starting a sculpture, makes an offering to the person who taught him his art.

When sculpting masks or statues, he works alone in a place forbidden to others. He maintains relative freedom within the context of traditional conventions.

These anthropomorphic figurines play an important role in divination and in providing remedies for individual or family ailments.

Fourteen types of statues have been identified. They are transmitted through paternal or maternal lines and correspond to spirits associated with specific ailments (sterility, cough, skin diseases, etc.).

Their nature is fundamentally ambivalent: they can both kill and protect human beings.

The ngaanga is a religious specialist who acts as an intermediary between the living and the spirits.
The sacrifices he performs are aimed at nourishing with animal blood a spirit that is "materialized" in a statuette to prevent it from devouring a human being.
(Based on P. Bourgeois, The Art of the Yaka and the Suku, Meudon, Chaffin and J. Denis, Les Yaka du Kwango, Tervuren, Annales du MRAC, no. 53)

Primitive art and African masks