Hemba Ancestor Figure, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Singiti

Alain Guisson, Brussels
Jo Christiaens, Brussels
Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Munich, acquired from the above

Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Encyclopedia of African Art and Culture, Munich, 2009, p. 270

Farmers and hunters, the Hemba people are situated in the region in the southeastern part of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. They inhabit vast plains surrounded by high hills and bordered by streams, rocks, and marshes. It is only since the mid-1970s that Hemba statuary was identified as an original style different from that of the Luba (cf. Neyt 1977: passim). Petridis (2001: text to cat. 66) notes: "The art of both [Hemba and Luba] peoples is stylistically very closely related and the 'cruciform coiffure' identified by Olbrechts is found among both the Hemba and the Luba Katanga." And Kerchache (1993: 572) continues: "For a long time, the Hemba were subjects of the Luba empire, and their own cultural and religious identity, while ancient, was overlooked – although in the seventeenth century, Hemba societies were already developing to the east of the Luba." 

Hemba ancestor figures are regarded as one of the finest expressions of African art. "Because of their idealized realism and well balanced proportions – the incarnation of ideal beauty – some of the Hemba images have been compared to the kouroiof pre-Classical Greece [...]. These sculptures, known as lusingiti, represent the founder-ancestor of a section of the paternal line of descent. Like other 'spirit-invested objects' [...] they play a role in ancestor worship, acting as bridges between the ancestors and their living descendants" (Petridis, loc. cit).

The present figure bears the aged and worn patina of years of veneration in situ, and may be attributed stylistically to the northern Hemba regions, on the basis of its angular torso, tall columnar neck, and elegantly graphic facial features underscored with a geometric v-shaped beard.