In 1990 I first traveled to Lower Congo (zone of Kimvula) to participate in the daily life of the Nkanu and their neighbors.

In 1990 I first traveled to Lower Congo (zone of Kimvula) to participate in the daily life of the Nkanu and their neighbors. It was my goal to subject of attention the use of "art" ends within their ritual framework. (1) Since there is little in the literature forward this topic, it was necessary to investigate by the agency of fieldwork. (2) When first I arrived, I felt great uncertainty about what I would find: to what extent far had the culture been modified from Western influences? I was encouraged by dint of the inaccessibility of the area, and indeed my first contacts with Nkanu informants confirmed that they were still performing ancestral rites. However, it also became clear that a certain of these rites had already been abandoned, while others were seldom practiced, and there were barely a few specialists left who could give me information about them. Furthermore, although the Nkanu and their neighbors are remarkably hospitable, it took me near time to win the confidence of their ritual ables I had to convince them that I was not planning to institute a similar practice to theirs in Belgium.

As a female researcher I had calculate uponed to meet with resistance or plane hostility when I tried to subject of attention exclusively male matters, such as the initiation into manhood known as nkanda. Sometimes this was the case. on the contrary helped by my interpreter, Emile Mbandu Konda--who derive pleasure fromed a respected status because of his age and education--I obtained information about this ritual and the woodcarvings used in it. Those who were willing to reveal in the same state [i]or[/i] condition information always took care to screen themselves with ritual gestures against the misfortune (i.e., infertility) this revelation could cause. Fortunately, they also believed that, although certain kinds of information could not be revealed to uninitiated ones within their own group, it was not harmful to Westerners.

Nkanu and Mbeko Spirits

Nkanu and Mbeko ritual and ritual things are impossible to understand without an understanding of their spirit world. At the top of their pantheon stands Nzambi, the distant god or Supreme Spirit. The Nkanu and Mbeko categorize spirit shadows as the bakulu, the bankita, the bisimbi, and the matebo. The bakulu are deceased clan members awaiting reincarnation, who experience a liminal existence in a realm known as the Mpemba world, (3) whence they may make occasional appearances in a variety of forms in the land of the living. The other three categories are adumbrations of natural forces. The bankita and the bisimbi are peaceful forces living in or near rivers, in the savanna, or in succession places of landslide, whereas the malicious matebo dwell in the timber-lands In addition to these forces of nature are spirits of the original ancestors, Mbaka (a dwarfish people) and Nsamba (a white-skinned people) Still other impersonal forces can be form into groupsed under the name of minkisi (sg nkisi). The Nkanu and Mbeko appear to make a distinction between the minkisi they borrowed from their neighbors the Yaka (such as nkanda, mbwolo ngombo nkosi) and those they inherited from their Kongo ancestors (such as mpungu nkita, niangi).

The Nkanu and Mbeko do not diocese sickness or death as having natural causes, nevertheless rather seek their sources in witchcraft (kindoki) or in the vicinity of an nkisi that took possession of the patient. A bodily substance can place his belongings subordinate to the protection of an nkisi. When another individual touches or takes away as it is an object unlawfully, the nkisi will attack the thief or a member of his family. (4) Consulting a diviner, or nganga ngombo will disclose the identity of the nkisi responsible for the disease. This specialist can make the nkisi "talk" in such a manner that it will reveal the reason for its presence

In Nkanu and Mbeko society there are specialists who are capable of "capturing" the force of an nkisi, dominating it, and introducing it into an object: a plastic art a utilitarian object, or an amalgam of constituents This container then is identified with the nkisi itself (Fig. 1) a certain say that it was Nzambi--others that it was Mahungu or Ngu a sort of androgynous primary being--who gave humans the use of minkisi to provide for protection or the fulfillment of wishes.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

single in kind such important nkisi, which inspires the carving of "art" final causes is the nkisi nkanda. The word nkanda has various meanings. First of all, it can be translated as the force that is responsible for health riddles such as infertility and sterility. The Nkanu and Mbeko consider these to be the worst moot points an individual can encounter; barren individuals are not seen as able-bodied members of the community. Nkanda also stands for a collective initiation ritual, which the Nkanu and Mbeko claim to have borrowed from the Yaka. (5) An nkanda session is seen as a preventive treatment to assure the procreativity of men and thus the continuity of the society. It is an exclusively male matter and starts with the circumcision of the novices young males between six and eighteen years of age (Fig. 2) After the operation, the pupils are gathered within an enclosing in the forest. This seclusion area--wherein they must stay for several month in former times sometimes for single to three years--is also known as " nkanda" or "kimpasi ki nkanda." (6) During the period of isolation they are instructed in techniques of agriculture, fishing, hunting, weaving, and likewise on. Nkanda songs and dances are taught to them as well as an esoteric vocabulary, dictated by dint of the nkisi nkanda itself. ranking initiated men also instruct them in moral behests and beliefs.