Ethnographic notes on Kongo musical instruments.

The basic text on Kongo musical instruments is Bertil Soderberg's thesis (1956), which is based on an exhaustive search of the literature of the day, a good deal of museum research, and his field experience as a missionary. Soderberg takes many details from K. E. Laman's Dictionnaire kikongo-francais (1936), which itself derives musical terms from KiKongo manuscripts ("cahiers") written in 1915 by four or five of Laman's Kongo collaborators from Manianga and eastern Mayombe in what was then Belgian Congo. Extracts from these texts relative to music and musical instruments were included in the draft of a book that Laman intended to publish in KiKongo. A greatly reduced version of this draft, written in Swedish and then translated into English, appeared, but only in 1968, as the fourth volume of Laman's The Kongo, in which chapter 13 deals with song and music.

Soderberg made some use of "Laman's manuscript," probably the Swedish version. The posthumously published English text does not fulfill Laman's original intention of letting the KiKongo authors speak for themselves, and instead synthesizes their reports into a generally homogeneous view of Kongo culture, which the editor calls Sundi. For example, on page 83 we read, "The Sundi believe that music and musical instruments arrived with the first people"; this belief is in fact an opinion by Lunungu Moise of Nganda, in Manianga. The book also omits many details of interest. A full discussion of the manuscripts in relation to Laman's published volumes can be found in my Kongo Political Culture (MacGaffey 2000).

The present essay complements these sources with notes drawn from the original KiKongo texts of 1915, not only those in which the authors describe musical instruments but also the much more numerous ones in which instruments are mentioned in connection with particular minkisi (sing. nkisi). An nkisi is a ritual complex, centered on a focal object which is the nkisi proper, that is carried out in order to resolve some problem of health, misfortune, or injustice I have used the present tense when following texts that use it, although many of the instruments in question are more likely to be found in museums than in modern life. In the last eighty years the Kongo musical repertoire has been greatly impoverished, along with the ritual and ceremonial life it used to enhance; minkisi are still much in use but no longer take spectacular public form (Van Hee 2000). Chiefship too is effectually dead, though there are attempts here and there to revive it. Even for entertainment purposes, people rely more and more on "world" instruments or, in rural areas, on the radio.

Kongo musical instruments have many functions and significances besides that of making music. Soderberg remarks that there is a close link between musical instruments and art, including painting, sculpture, and pyrography (Soderberg 1956:221); I will explore the nature of that association. Music itself was and is thought to enable communication with the dead, often inducing spirit possession, "causing the spirit to descend." The presence of the spirit is recognized when everybody is carried away, having a good time. Parties and ritual events, which are often much the same thing, are enlivened by music, dancing, alcohol, ululation, and explosions of gunpowder. The only instrument that, so far as I can tell, has no ritual connotation whatever is diti, the "thumb piano."

Some instruments are so closely associated with particular functions and occasions that they give their names to these events, or are themselves named after them. Some dances, no longer practiced, were called by the names of the drums appropriate to them. The large, vertical wooden "trumpets" called ludi, played at funerals, are surmounted by carvings that may take the form of a woman in mourning (Soderberg 1956: fig. 22). A slit-drum, called mondo or mbudikidi, was and is made from a small log, with a short, narrow slit in the middle and a wider, rectangular opening at either end of the slit. It is played with two sticks whose ends are wound with rubber, giving the instrument a distinctive sound. This drum is used in eastern Kongo in association with judicial hearings; those who attend such hearings say they are going "to the mondo" (field-notes, 1966). The dance drum, ngoma, gives its name in this way to a complex of rituals of healing and renewal all over eastern and southern Africa (Janzen 1992; Van Dijk et al. 2000). In Kongo, ngoma was used when there was dancing and when ancestors or chiefs were being addressed, but it does not have a ritual named after it. The dance drum is carved from a tree of the same name, ngoma-ngoma. On the other hand, the word ngoma can refer to any kind of drum, sometimes any musical instrument. The dance drum may be engraved all over to decorate it (nwata, which also means to make cuts in the skin). (1)

A large standing drum called ndembo, with a single membrane and a heavy base, was closely associated with executions. It was expensive to make: the carver ate meat every day while he was at work, and was paid a pig and a slave when he finished. If a man was to be executed in the morning, ndembo was beaten all night (Laman 1968:80).

The uses of ngoma are also those of the long drum ndungu or nlambula, from the verb lambala, "to lie stretched out," because it is played while it lies on the ground, perhaps supported by a stand. This drum is more common in western than in eastern Kongo. "It is used for some minkisi, for judicial hearings and poison ordeals, to summon the people for war, and to announce the arrival in the market of a man who wants to become a slave of the chief" (Nsemi, Cahier 395). (2) Since both ndungu and ngoma were employed to salute chiefs, they might be played in concert with the double iron bell, ngongi, "the bell of kings" (Vansina 1969).

Nkisi Mbenza in eastern Mayombe, where it was associated with chiefship, the cult of spirits of the domain (bisimbi), and the begetters' cult, required all these instruments. The nganga (pl. banganga), or priest, of Mbenza goes into the forest, followed by an ndungu drummer, in search of a manifestation of a simbi, which turns out to be an old hoe-blade. He indicates his success by cries of ecstatic possession; "then the ndungu sounds vigorously, the ngoma and the ngongi-bell, and the banganga respectfully sing, `The simbi, the vision, the priest has seen it!'" When a novice being initiated into Mbenza enters the ritual enclosure, he leaps into the air and then stands upon ndungu to be painted with red and white marks. The priests dance, adding to the rhythm with their rattles (bimpambu) and iron bracelets (nkwangu) (MacGaffey 1991:58-62). Ndungu is painted red with clays and camwood "to make it look good"; the drummer and the dancers may also be daubed with red, if the party is really going well (na nza!).

The ngongi is associated above all with official announcements; this double bell is heard when the chief travels, "when he wants meat and sends messengers to collect the chief's tax," when a judicial hearing is to begin, and when the chief dances before announcing his verdict. It says, Kyangenge ngulu dia, kengongo-kengo, meaning that a pig will be paid over and everybody will eat well. A small number of ngongi are made with only one bell. Unlike similar bells in coastal areas from Ghana to Gabon, they are not surmounted by carvings or otherwise decorated, but can still be objects of prestige (DjeDje 1999:277-83).

A text from Mukimbungu in central Kongo says that no one but the the chief of the Nanga clan could sound the bell, which it calls munkunku (from kunka, "to salute respectfully") and says is "a very expensive instrument." It is reported of the chief Nsekoso Pwati in Mayombe that during his reign "he caused to be forged an ngongi that was more admired than that of any chief in the region, since it was a remarkable size, maybe two meters long" (MacGaffey 2000:201). There is an example around this size in the Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin (no. 33940). Welding the flanges of such a bell would challenge the skill of any smith. In at least one chiefship, a single bell was among the medicines buried in the nkisi nsi, the medicated shrine of the domain (MacGaffey 2000:169). Large judicial minkisi such as Mangaaka were treated as though they were chiefs, even carried in litters, and therefore sometimes wear miniature ngongi as earrings, a mnemonic of the respect due them. In the hands of a skilled player, ngongi can make remarkable music, but not such as is regarded as the voice of the dead; and whether single or double they were not filled with medicine as minkisi or amulets.

Drumming adds greatly to the excitement attendant on divination, and in so doing makes the result more convincing. Minkisi such as Mbola and Makwende (also called Ngobila) conduct divination by means of a pot set to boil on a fire.

   When Ngobila is composed, they begin by standing a pot upright. It is not
   stood [as usual] on [three] stones, but on three pieces of wood. It is set
   up only at night, after the evening meal. When everybody has gathered they
   send for the ndungu drum to be played, songs are sung and they stand the
   pot up. When it is upright, the people too stand up and sing the same song
   again, as follows: "Eh, not me at all but Kwangu [praise name of Ngobila],
   he did it."

(Makundu, Cahier 254)

Again:

   When the pot has been put on the fire he pronounces the spell: "Mbola, sir,
   test the women, test the men; if you find a witch, male or female, afflict
   him with many sores, man or woman, Lord Mbola." When the pot is on the fire
   the men and women dance around it, while the ndungu-drummer plays the Mbola
   rhythm, bukwimvi, bukwimvi, bukwimvi and they take up the song, "Eh, bring
   up whatever Mbola has seen."

(Konda, Cahier 116)

An account from another district, describing a different function, the composition of Mbola, specifies ngoma and assigns to it a different rhythm. It says that when they test whether the nkisi has been truly composed, or activated, the banganga tremble and the others sing the song: "Oh Mbola, revive the violence of the dead," while the ngoma plays ndebekete mbidimbiti "to aid the trembling" (MacGaffey 2000:126, 132).

A few minkisi are said to be composed not by the living but by the dead. For the composition of nkisi Mbongo, the nganga's assistants, the bamasamba, take two raffia cloths (mbongo), a figurine, and a mirror to the cemetery and leave them there. When the ndungu drum sounds in the village, the dead come to take these things and go to put together the nkisi. After two days the ndungu sounds in the village of the dead to let the assistants know it is time to come and get the bag and the figurine, already constituted with the appropriate medicines and tied up with leaves of matunga nyundu (MacGaffey 2000:95).

The handheld slit-drum nkonzi, often carved with a head at one end of it, is so closely associated with the Lemba cult group that it is called nkonzi Lemba even when it is used in connection with some other nkisi. An initiated Lemba couple receives an nkonzi drum as a sign of their status; it is "an object of prestige and beauty," which they display over the door of their house. It is so much a sign of Lemba membership that miniatures of it are worn as amulets and ornaments, and in Ngoyo (coastal Kongo) carved on potlids (Janzen 1982:142, pls. 15-17). Other small slit-drums called nkonko and the crescent-shaped ngoma Lemba are similar in function. They usually have carved heads. As amulets, these drums may be filled with medicines appropriate to Lemba; miniatures are made as charm-pendants (Janzen 1982: pis. 15, 16). They often appear among the accoutrements of minkisi; for example, on one in the National Museum of African Art (no. 91-22-1), which also carries a single iron bell (MacGaffey & Harris 1993: pl. 64a). (3)

Drumming of all kinds has sexual connotations in Bantu-speaking Africa. The slit-drum, because of its shape, particularly lends itself to this metaphor (Devisch [1995]). The erotic connection is not limited to the instrument itself; as in other parts of the world, ritual, power, and sex are closely related. Minkisi in general are usually gendered, even if they do not include anthropomorphic figures in their material apparatus. The nganga of an nkisi is often initiated together with his wife; the composition and activation of minkisi are often accompanied by erotic jokes and sometimes by sexual activity, which is also a regular element in the consecration of chiefs. Here is such a joke, in the form of a riddling song for nkisi Nsanda: "`I took two peanuts, put them in a bag, the next day I went to Mayombe. Head far away, feet under the long grass.' Then they blow the hunting whistle mwemvo" (MacGaffey 1991:152). In the course of the composition of the nkisi Mwe Kongo, toward evening, the initiand and his wife go inside their house.

   The other banganga surround the house completely and sing a song: "Papa can
   hammer it!" [Koma tata, komakani koma!] The man has intercourse three times
   with his wife, the mbambi whistle is blown three times; then they reappear
   outside. The apprentices fire two or three shots, for nkisi Mwe Kongo has
   come. Then they assemble to rejoice and sing, "My friends, the nganga of
   Mwe Kongo they laugh at, eh yaya, I have become stupid, they mock."
   Meanwhile, the kunda bell sounds, de-de-de.

(MacGaffey 2000:105)

The erotic significance of ordinary drums, and their association with the sinful temptations of dancing, has meant that indigenous "prophetic" churches forbid it and rely instead on scrapers, tabletops, rattles, a local version of a European cylindrical drum, and the friction drum kinkwinta (MacGaffey 1983: pl. 10; Soderberg 1956:148).

Retributive minkisi, especially those called nkondi or (on the coast) nkosi, are thought of as hunters who hunt down witches. Hunting whistles--nsiba, mwemvo, mbasa, nkwanana, mbambi or konki--are often listed among the attributes of these minkisi, both as musical instruments and as amulets. (The word siba, as a verb, means "to invoke an nkisi"; as a noun, it means a funnel, a hole in which to pour something.) They may be carved from wood or, more often, made from the horns of small antelopes such as nsia, nsuma, or mbambi. The point of the horn is often capped with a beautiful miniature sculpture illustrating a proverb (MacGaffey & Harris 1993; Soderberg 1966).

Nkisi Lunkanka carries a wooden whistle carved, like Lunkanka herself, in the posture of a grieving woman, to indicate the grief of those whom Lunkanka will punish (MacGaffey & Harris 1993: pl. 56d). This whistle is called ntoyo, the name of a bird whose call is believed to foretell death.

   Just as ntoyo, the bird, announces News of death, so do the whistles of
   Lunkanka. When Lunkanka strikes, her ntoyo goes "toyo-toyo-toyo-keke-ke!"
   Then everyone knows that Lunkanka has taken someone, for her ntoyo speaks.
   Therefore they will be much afraid, for they do not know who in our village
   has been seized by the ntoyo of Lunkanka. The nganga of Lunkanka walks
   about the village with his dog-bells (madibu) going dokolo-dokolo and
   wailing and keening as well. One night it will be dog-bells, another night
   the nsansi rattle, indicating that a magical attack is in progress.

(MacGaffey 1991:135)

Whistles are also used, at least in some minkisi, to summon the dead and incorporate them in the charm. Mayimbi is a formidable nkisi "that eats above and below and is greatly respected." It is carved in a very large statue together with its wife and children. "It is a male witch for whom a mbambi whistle is sounded at his grave, na-le-le-le! Then the ghost is carried off" (Konda Jean, Cahier 118). (4)

The components of minkisi, the "medicines," are mnemonics of the powers attributed to them and signs of the rules and procedures to be followed in activating them. Whistles and other musical instruments, or models of them, may be included, whether or not they are actually to be played. (5)

   The body of Mwe Mbuku is a figurine and a bag. The names of the things
   inside the bag are: yellow ochre, nkiduku, luyala, nsansi rattle, mpanzi
   fruit, copal resin, palm nut, a Lemba drum (mukonzi lemba), pangolin scale,
   stones from the water, fish, tonda mushroom, charcoal, lusaku-saku, knots
   on the outside, and white clay.

(Kionga, Cahier 90)

Instruments may have medicines added to them, so that although they are rendered unplayable they still function as amulets, reduced versions of the nkisi in question. After listing the medicines necessary to compose Makwende, which include hair and nails of those participating in the ritual, the text says, "Next they seal the compound into little mbambi horns that they may carry with them wherever they go" (Makundu, Cahier 254). A mbambi, like many much larger minkisi, may even have a small mirror attached to it. (6)

Like whistles, dog bells, or madibu (sing. dibu), are specifically associated with hunting, whether hunting game in the forest or witches in the obscurity of their sinister activities. (Dogs wear them around their middles to reveal where they are, since they do not bark.) They are made from borassus pods or carved from the wood of a tree which is itself called mumpala madibu, "for carving dog bells," and which is said in one text to be able "to put witches to flight."

Wooden bells are carved with handles, often in the form of miniature sculptures, sometimes very beautifully; these sculptures seem to be purely ornamental rather than representations of proverbs. (7) Such a bell was much too fine and too expensive to hang on a dog. Some examples are decorated with textile patterns, whose significance will be examined below (Fig. 1). Another example has as its handle a man and woman tied by their hands, back to back (Fig. 2); they may represent the nganga and his initiated wife, but their Janus-like pose surely evokes the divided worlds of the seen and the unseen, also represented by a cosmographic sign on the bell proper (DjeDje 1999:266).

[FIGURES 1-2 OMITTED]

Londa, an nkisi that requires dibu bells, comes in two forms: one is male, associated with the forest and with the pursuit of wealth; the other is female, associated with the savanna and with women and children. The male version is composed in the forest, in a party that lasts three days. On the fourth day, madibu, called "the voices of Londa,' are tied to the nkisi, whose amulets also carry them (MacGaffey 1991:44). The dibu pod may also be used as a container for medicines. In one example of nkisi Nduda, the principal medicines are stuffed into a dibu pod which is carried in a knitted bag. On the outside of the bag, among the stalks filled with gunpowder ("night guns"), there is a single iron bell (MacGaffey 1991:108).

The double bell, kunda (pl. bikunda), often beautifully carved, is perhaps the most interesting of all Kongo musical instruments. As a verb, kunda means "to pay homage to, to supplicate"; these are the principal uses of the bell, addressed to both chiefs and spirits. Musically, it does not amount to much more than a modest rattle, but the shape of it is clearly cosmographic, an expression of the opposition of the worlds of the living and the dead between which the kunda mediates, as do most musical instruments. The bells face in opposite directions and usually have two clappers each. The importance of dualism is such that a few bikunda have a pair of bells at each end, the whole carved from a single piece of wood. (8) Like other instruments, kunda can be an amulet. For nkisi Na Maza, "they hollow a piece of wood to make a kunda bell, color it red with tukula camwood, wrap it in a piece of cloth, add a cotton cord and hang it around the neck during divination." The bell in question, so wrapped, is in the collection of the Etnografiska Museum in Stockholm (MacGaffey 1991:81).

A fine kunda illustrated here makes this mediation between the living and the dead explicit by showing, on one bell, the figure of a seated man, evidently important, wearing European clothes and holding the conventional wine jug and cup of an elder or chief (Fig. 3a, top); his arms, akimbo, seem to radiate vigor into his environment--which is exactly the significance of the word vakalala that describes this posture. (9) On the back of this bell is the figure of a woman, his wife, whose hands draw attention to her breasts in order to make her gender clear (Fig. 3b, bottom). Opposite the chief, but on the other bell (and thus upside down), another figure shows a man in a constraining frame which may be a coffin or a grave; he may be the chief himself after his death (Fig. 3a, bottom). Opposite the wife is a counterpart figure, also constrained, posed not frontally but in a position that suggests a slave with arms behind his back, buried with the chief (Fig. 3b, top). These interpretations are derived not entirely from the piece itself but also from traditional ritual practice and the relationship between authority and death in Kongo thought.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

The function of supplication supported by kunda is called koma nloko, which also describes the process of invoking the powers of an nkisi by, for example, hammering nails into it to arouse it (koma, "to hammer"; also "to arouse"). Loka should often be translated "to curse" or "to bewitch," but like "witchcraft" itself (kindoki), this word is multifaceted; it could be glossed "to mobilize a force," including that of a chief whose support is sought (MacGaffey 2000:47). The texts for various minkisi make this clear.

   A man is ill because he has apparently broken some rule for which he is
   being punished by nkisi Makongo. The nkisi is in a raffia bag which the
   nganga obliges his patient to smell; then he shakes his kunda and recites,
   "Relax, relax, Lord Makongo, they have broken your rules, do not take him
   to the waterfall, do not take him to the gullies [do not cause anyone to
   die], sir." Then he has the patient drink a lemba-lemba mixture. His fee is
   only a chicken and palmwine.

(Babutidi, Cahier 7) (10)

Both Malwangu and Mbumba have multiple functions and are composed accordingly in multiple forms, but in each nkisi the form that serves the koma nloko function requires a kunda. Malwangu is made up for this purpose in a bag with red ochre and kaolin ground to a powder; "those that have this kind of powder have no statue, just the bag and the bell for the invocation" (Konda, Cahier 116). If anyone breaks a treaty that has been sanctioned by nkondi Mafula,

   he must take a pig and give it to the one who was attacked to restore
   peace. Then the old hairs [taken from the participants to the treaty] are
   removed from Nkondi and new ones put in so that Nkondi will not wreak
   vengeance on the people. The offenders take the wooden bell, kikunda, to
   admit their faults and then give palmwine to the injured party. They should
   be naked before him when they do this.

(Kwamba, Cahier 139)

On the other hand, the appeal may be less public-spirited:

   If a month should pass without any client of the nganga of Mwe Mbuku coming
   to him for help, at the next new moon he may take his kunda and invoke the
   nkisi so that it will make people ill and he can make money. While he
   sounds the bell, dekele, dekele, he speaks as follows: "Ah, Mwe Mbuku I
   summon, may he go on the land, hither and thither, may he go to the water,
   hither and thither! We sat together in the village, what did you do? Make
   them swell and swell, puff up their limbs and their bellies too!

(Kionga, Cahier 96)

The textile-like designs on the bell in Figure 3 may have had specific significance, but textile patterns have not been adequately studied. In Central Africa generally, the patterns woven into mats and cloths are regarded by their makers (in Kongo, usually men) as embodying "secret" powers and perhaps, like so many other aesthetically valued products, specific proverbs (Adams 1989). It may be a mistake, however, to suppose that the "secret" necessarily lies in some untold narrative referring away from the piece itself. The tendency of too much recent commentary on Kongo art is to overwhelm it with ethnographic detail (often unreliable, if not actually spurious) and reduce its aesthetic value in the eyes of the makers and users to expressions of supposed reverence for "ancestors" and "spirits." In sculpture, the discerning eye confirms Soderberg's insistence that delight in form and technique outruns the specific ritual requirements of many pieces; the artistic effect itself is the secret. Our sources also emphasize that carvers often enhanced their work with "meaningless decoration" (ntoko za naani), just to attract admiration for their skill.

The secret of decorative patterns is that the dynamic of part-whole relations within them seems to energize them. Although the mathematics of repetition, rotation, and the like is simple, the eye is not able to see just how the parts work on the whole, and remains intrigued, baffled, and entrapped. By inference, the eyes of ghosts, witches, and other dangerous strangers are supposed to be so taken with the insolubility of such designs that they are distracted from their nefarious intent. Worldwide, decorative patterns use this effect to ward off evil (Gell 1998:77-95). Woven basketwork turns up repeatedly in minkisi, as do knots, nets, and weaver-bird nests, all embodiments of the verb kanga, "to arrest, tie up" and intended to trap evil influences. Amulets in the collection of the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden, connect this function explicitly to music, since they have, as their principal components, pieces of basketwork attached to whistles. (11) One such example, described as the status symbol of a healer, was called ncikidi mindia, "swollen entrails," presumably the name of the disease the doctor and his nkisi controlled (Fig. 4).

[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]

The Leiden collection also has an item described as the badge of office of an advocate (nzonzi), in which a piece of basketwork is linked to a miniature bellows (Fig. 5). (12) At judicial hearings the owner would lick it, "the better to make his case." Its function was therefore identical to that of a whisk (mfunka), which was also a status symbol, described by Laman as protected against black magic by "magic knots." The handle of one of the whisks pictured in Laman's volume is carved with textile patterns (Laman 1957:128, fig. 61). We can conclude that the incised patterns of the kunda and dibu bells, like those of the whisk, combine aesthetic astonishment with apotropaic function. As Gell says, "Wherever one finds conflict there one finds abundant deployment of all kinds of decorative art" (1998:83).

[FIGURE 5 OMITTED]

The arts, including song, dance, music, sculpture, and bodily adornment, are essential elements of Kongo "therapeutic" practices, not merely adjuncts. The verb buka, often translated "to heal," should better be read as "to treat" ("to heal" is nyakisa). The aim of treatment is a better condition of life, including but not limited to freedom from physical ailments. Life conditions are the product of competitive manipulation of unseen forces made palpable by art. Treatment includes the application of "medicines," which are themselves mnemonics of the desired result rather than pharmaceuticals. They include decorations applied to the body and amulets for the client to wear, and rules to obey. Riddles, songs, puns, proverbs, lines, colors, rhythms, dance steps, and the sounds of instruments constitute a single artistic repertoire of complementary elements dedicated to the transformation of life.

[This article was accepted for publication in April 2001.]

(1.) Christine Stelzig recently inventoried the ornate Ngoyo style of standing drum, in connection with a remark about them by the German trader and collector Robert Visser (Stelzig 1998). She provides pictures and formal analysis of these extraordinary carvings, which are still little understood.

(2.) The translations of all quotes from the Cahiers are mine.

(3.) The same museum has a Yaka slit-drum of reduced size made as an amulet, stuffed with medicines and hung about with nkisi accoutrements (83-3-4).

(4.) This nkisi was recently put on the market from a private collection, but it was sold in separate pieces.

(5.) Soderberg has written separately on whistles, pointing out that they have often been mistaken for bottle-stoppers (Soderberg 1966). He misses the connection between whistles and both "hunting" for witches and sex; references to sex in these miniature sculptures he reads as reflecting a concern with fertility, which is not the same thing. Mwivi, for example, is an nkisi whose constituent medicines included whistles (zinsiba) and whose function was to bring its owner success both in hunting and in seducing women (Lwamba, Cahier 240).

(6.) Rijksmuseum veer Volkenkunde, Leiden, Congo 337/15.

(7.) A finely engraved dibu bell, surmounted by a carved monkey, is part of one of the oldest minkisi in the British Museum (55.12-20.103, before 1855), together with a single iron bell, pieces of basketry, and any number of tightly knotted little bundles (MacGaffey & Harris 1993: fig. 46).

(8.) British Museum 1905 11.11.59; Soderberg 1956:103, fig. 7.

(9.) The costume suggests a date of 1880 [+ or -] 10.

(10.) An nkisi of this name and description, with kunda attached, is in the Etnografiska Museum (Folkens Museum), Stockholm, 19.2.1132.

(11.) In an example of nkisi Ngovo, such constructions are called mavosi a bivotika, from the verb vota, "to braid" (MacGaffey 1991:110).

(12.) Miniature bellows turn up from time to time in minkisi. Their significance remains unexplained, although they are linked through smithing to the powers of simbi spirits. The "puffing" action of bellows (fula) is associated with the movement of spirits (mpeve).

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WYATT MACGAFFEY, an emeritus professor of social sciences at Haverford College, has written extensively on African politics, history, culture, and art.