Crown and Ritual: The Royal Insignia of Ngoyo 9781442673649

Table of contents :
Contents
Foreword
Editor's Note
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction and History of the Investigation
2. The Insignia
3. The Shrine
4. The Sacred
5. Copper
6. Conclusions
APPENDIX I. Catalogue and Comparative Analysis
APPENDIX II. Documentation of the Identified Inventory of the Lusunsi Shrine
APPENDIX III. Scientific Analyses
APPENDIX IV. Historical Documents
APPENDIX V. Historical Tables and Charts
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Citation preview

CROWN AND RITUAL

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ZDENKA VOLAVKA

Crown and Ritual: The Royal Insignia of Ngoyo Introduction and Conclusions by Colleen E. Kriger Edited by Wendy A. Thomas

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1998 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-4227-9 (cloth)

Printed on acid-free paper

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Volavka, Zdenka Crown and ritual Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-4227-9 I. Ngoyo (Kingdom) - Civilization. 2. Regalia (Insignia) - Ngoyo (Kingdom). I. Thomas, Wendy A. (Wendy Anne). II. Title. Dr665.N46v64 1988

967.51

c98-930755-7

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Contents

FOREWORD Jan Vansina ix EDITOR'S NOTE Wendy A. Thomas ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

xi

XV

1 Introduction and History of the Investigation Colleen E. Kriger 2 The Insignia 9 a) Cap/Crown 13 b) Neckpiece 22 c) Band or Belt 24 d) Double Bells 26 e) Knife Blades 34 f) Pick, Hammers, and Ring 38 g) Basket 45 h) Summary and Preview 53 3 The Shrine 57 a) Site 67 b) Seat 75 c) Other Objects 85 d) Shrine and Royal Investiture in Ngoyo 87 e) Concluding Discussion 98 f) Queries no 4 The Sacred 113 a) God and His Kin 117 b) Lusunsi and Bunsi 120

3

vi

Contents c) d) e) f)

nsi and Mother 125 Fire and Marriage 135 Sacredness and Regalia 139 Mboma and Ngoyo 145

5 Copper a) b) c) d) e)

149

Material Properties of the Insignia 149 Manufacture of the Insignia 166 Mining and Smelting 180 Copper Production and Copperworking 196 Exchange 210

6 Conclusions Colleen E. Kriger 225 APPENDIXES

I Catalogue and Comparative Analysis 235

a) Catalogue of the Insignia 235 b) Analysed Materials - Insignia, Comparative Set, and Ingots/Currencies 250

II Documentation of the Identified Inventory of the Lusunsi Shrine 255 III Scientific Analyses 257

a) Technical Studies U. Franklin and Z. Volavka 257 b) Provenance of Copper-rich Metallic Artifacts from the Congo, Based on Chemical and Lead-Isotope Concentrations R.M. Farquhar 272 c) Analyse spectrographique de cinquante six objets provenant du Congo appartenant au Musée de 1'Homme / Spectrographic Analysis of Fifty-six Objects from the Congo Now Belonging to the Musée de l'Homme (43 copper and brass objects; 13 iron objects) J. Françaix 283 d) Report J. Riederer 287

IV Historical Documents

289

a. I) Archives Générates des Péres du St-Esprit, Dossier Tastevin, 1:297. 'Ka binda. Un récit historique.' 289 / a.2) 'Ka binda. A Historical Account' 291 b.I) Archives du Musée de l'Homme, Dossier Tastevin, 34.28. 'Culte des génies. Ba kisi ba n'si' - C. Tastevin 292 / b.2) 'Spirit Worship. Bakisi ban'si.' 293

Contents vii c.I) Archives du Musée de I'Homme, Dossier 34.28. Lettre d'un vieux chrétien de 78 ans, baptisé á Loanda á 20 ans, au P. Lourenço Mambuku, au sujet de la remise du matériel de Lu Sunzi par le prêtre païen KonKo, au P. Tastevin. In Portuguese 295 / c.2) French translation by C. Tastevin 295 / c.3) 'Letter from an old Christian aged 78 ...' 296

V Historical Tables and Charts

298

a) Consecration of the Royal Candidate in Ngoyo b) Ngoyo States 304 c) Dates Related to the Ngoyo States 308 NOTES 311 WORKS CITED INDEX

387

367

299

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Foreword

One day in 1976 while she was in the ill-lit bowels of the Musée de 1'Homme in Paris, trying to find objects from Ngoyo, the small Kongo kingdom just north of the mouth of the river Zaire, Zdenka Volavka came upon an unappetizing sight: a jumble of fragments of metal objects placed in a big bowl, plaited in strips of copper. The hoard had lain there for more than forty years labelled as a 'fishing basket,' no doubt neglected as just one more bit of 'material culture.' And yet the study of this unattractive jumble became the focus of her whole further working life and resulted in this book. Thanks to the experience accumulated during three years of previous research in Ngoyo and the written documentation accompanying the accession of the objects, she soon recognized that these things were part of the regalia of Ngoyo kingship: not the insignia worn by the king but the permanent material expression of kingship. These objects represented the kingdom itself. They were stored in a sacred shrine and used only for the installation of kings. As such, they were unique. No permanent regalia from any kingdoms in the whole of Central Africa have been recovered, and only one set had ever even been seen by a foreign researcher. Hence the extraordinary historical importance of these remains. This book is the result of her quest. She set out to study the following questions: 'a) the material uniqueness of the objects and ensuing scepticism of their authenticity; b) the high spiritual value attributed to the shrine inventory by the informants; c) the reintegration of the objects into their original context; d) the varying physical condition of the objects, provoking questions about their coevality; e) the provenance of the objects' material and locus of their manufacture; f) the historical and territorial effects exercised by the shrine relics." By 1981 she had completed the first version of this book. But she continued to probe further ramifications of the issues posed by the regalia until the last days of her life. The text which follows represents the state of the manuscript at that time.

x

Foreword

Why is this book of exceptional importance? First and foremost, because it goes much further than any previous work in the study of materials and technology. The metallurgical studies will be a bedrock for later comparative work all over tropical Africa and her approach a model to be followed by others, be they archaeologists, historians, or art historians. Second, this book is a lesson in method. Volavka shows in an exemplary way how objects, written evidence, and oral evidence can be used together to reconstruct a history of royal ideology. While it is true that many of her specific etymological arguments are weak because she was no linguist, still the incorporation of this material along with ethnographic parallels points a methodological way for others to follow. The originality of her approach as compared to the current practice in the field of art history must be underlined. In essence, this originality lies in her special concern to place the object of research in the flows of history, rather than reduce the study to an analysis of shape, a timeless analysis of 'context,' and a peremptory assignation of symbolic meaning. Third, this is a signal contribution to the history of royal ideology in one of the former Kongo kingdoms. She did establish beyond doubt that the objects were permanent regalia and that the fishing basket represented the royal cap (or crown) of Ngoyo, the mpu, a word which also refers to the notion of authority itself in Kikongo. She also gives us the first in-depth study of any regal shrine in Central Africa. She abundantly establishes Kongo royal ideology as an emanation of the religious concerns and ritual practices of Kongo common folk which it transcended and to which it in turn gave new direction. Finally, from now on specialists on Ngoyo, Kakongo, Loango, or the mining district in the Niari valley will find her work invaluable. Indeed this book will soon be an obligatory work of reference for anyone interested in the earlier history of much of West Central Africa. Zdenka Volavka will be long remembered for this work, her precious legacy to both the people of Ngoyo and her colleagues alike. JAN VANSINA

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Editor's Note

At the time of her death in September 1990, Zdenka Volavka was revising the text of Crown and Ritual. In addition to the material published here, two additional chapters were in progress: one on authority and the other on ritual. The former extended the chapter on the sacred and leadership; the latter was an extrapolation of the chapter on the shrine, examining in detail the investiture. Because the state of completion of these two chapters was not known and because it was clear that the author had not worked on them for some time before her death, they have been excluded from the present text. In the chapter on authority, one finds numerous references to and analyses of the work of such scholars as John Janzen and Wyatt MacGaffey. This, then, may help explain the absence of references to their publications in Crown and Ritual as it stands. Chapter 5, 'Copper,' has been edited from the manuscript and typescript version which the author was in the process of revising. Occasional illegible words are followed by [?]. The editor has subtitled each subsection of this lengthy chapter to help the reader to follow the flow of the arguments and documentation. The text refers to fifty-six objects which were chemically analysed, the results of which appear in Appendix Ib, 'Analysed Materials.' Although every effort has been made to match the objects which were tested with those discussed in the text, there remains some ambiguity in the versions of this appendix, particularly those objects in Goteborg. At issue is the total number of objects tested, not the data themselves. The findings published in the appendix correspond with the discussions in the text; the conclusions drawn by the author are based on the data as they are presented. Most of the citations and bibliographic sources were complete; efforts have been made to verify those which were incomplete. The documents in Appendix IV have been transcribed; gaps due to the lack of clarity are indicated by a dash and a question mark.

xii

Editor's Note

Photographs of the insignia are essential and are found following page 112. The selection and labelling of photographs had not been completed, and the selection was made by the editor. It would have been preferable to have many more images; however, references are provided to lead readers to the collections housing objects cited. Volavka had planned an extensive glossary. A month before her death, she asked me to begin the arduous task of assembling her notes to enable her to work on the glossary. Partly because there were voluminous references for some terms but only fragmentary references for others, and partly because there was no clear plan for its format, the glossary has been omitted. Those terms specifically identified in the manuscript for inclusion in the glossary have been placed in the notes. In editing the manuscript, I made an effort to retain the author's voice in the text. During the course of editing this manuscript, I received the help of several people: Larry Landa, Zdenka's husband, supported the project throughout. In making all of Zdenka's papers available, in helping to locate elusive sources, and on a very practical level, in providing funding for the editing, Larry contributed to the completion of this work. In his drive and enthusiasm, Larry affirmed his love for Zdenka and his commitment to her work. Zdenka Volavka was greatly helped in her early days at York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, by her research assistant, the late Charlotte Carol. Charlotte tracked down many publications sought by Zdenka and organized an extensive filing system with meticulous cross-referencing. Zdenka once told me that this work would, in part, honour Charlotte's memory. Paul Lovejoy read the manuscript and offered numerous helpful suggestions. Paul was instrumental in arranging for the manuscript to be published. As his former student, and as editor, I appreciate his enthusiastic encouragement and guidance. Zdenka had left several outlines and notes for the conclusion. Colleen Kriger took on the task of revising and expanding the introduction and writing the conclusion. Colleen succeeded in capturing not only the essence of Zdenka's major arguments but also the spirit in which Zdenka approached her studies. Deep scholarly study, the use of all relevant disciplines, and the form echoing the content: these are some of the hallmarks of Volavka's work, echoed in Kriger's introduction and conclusion. It has been such a pleasure to work with Colleen. I would also like to thank Ursula Franklin and Ron Farquhar, who met with me to clarify some of the points in their scientific analyses and tables. Jan Vansina took the time to write the Foreword. I thank him very much for his support and encouragement.

Editor's Note

xiii

John Thornton read the manuscript in its first edited version. I appreciate his comments, which were useful in clarifying several points. Linda Dmytryshyn and Elyse Greenberg, of Inter-Library Loans, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, were indefatigable in their search for the farflung publications cited in the text. Beverly Giblon typed the original manuscript. Catherine Browne translated several of the historical documents from French to English, and corrected my errors in transcription. Emanuel Freitas corrected my transcription of the Portuguese historical document. I thank them both very much. Richard T.S. Wilson provided the artist's conception of the shrine site, for which I am very grateful. Finally, I thank my husband, Zav Levinson, and our sons, Eli and Jake, for their patience and understanding during the editing of The Manuscript.' WENDY A. THOMAS

July 1997

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Acknowledgments'

I acknowledge the granting of a sabbatical year of absence in 1976-7 by York University as well as a Canada Council Fellowship with tenure for the period of the sabbatical year. Acknowledgment is given for the Canada Council research grants and the Sam Sarick Ltd grants which helped to cover the expense of field trips in 1972-8 to Zaire, Cabinda, the Republic of Congo, and Gabon. I am indebted to Le Musee national de la republique populaire du Congo as well as the Za'irian colleagues of the Institut de recherche scientifique, republique du Zaire, for technical assistance with research in their countries. Professor Jean Guiart, director of the Laboratory of Ethnology, Musee de 1'Homme, and Mme Francine N'Diaye, maitre assistant of the Departement de 1'Afrique noire, Musee de 1'Homme, gave their encouragement to my project. Mr R. Liensol, attache of the Laboratoire d'ethnologie of the Musee national d'histoire naturelle, helped me in the handling of the researched objects. Acknowledgment is also given to the late Mme J. Delange-Fry, former assistant and chargee of the Departement de 1'Afrique noire, for her invitation to join the Musee de 1'Homme in 1968-9. This was made possible through my association with the Centre national de la recherche scientifique. Cooperation with Professor Ursula Franklin, University of Toronto, on the technical examination of the copper insignia was supported by the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada through a grant awarded to Professor Franklin. I am also pleased to acknowledge extensive correspondence with Professor Frank Willett, [then] director of the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, in the matter of the Ife royal crowns, which were useful to my conclusions on the contrasting Kongo case. The acknowledgments are incomplete, having been found in note form among the author's papers. - Ed.

xvi Acknowledgments I am also grateful to R.P. Bernard Noel, archivist of Archives Generates des Peres du St-Esprit, Paris (hereafter referred to as AGSE), for his patience and his understanding of my archival research. The sincere professional interest of the entire team of the Research Laboratory of the French Museums was an important stimulus in my work. My gratitude there is owed mainly to: Mme Madeleine Hours, conservative en chef of the Musees nationaux, who directed the Laboratoire de recherche of the Musees de France; Mme Juliette LiszakHours, coordinator of archaeology; and M. Jacques Fran9aix, metallurgist, who did the analyses of all the discussed metal objects. Dr Kurt Krieger, director of the Museum fur Volkerkunde in Berlin, and Dr Angelika Rumpf, curator, gave me efficient assistance in the research, and Dr Josef Riederer, scientist at the Rathgen Forschungslabor, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, did the analyses of the objects in the museum in Berlin. Pere Bede of the monastery at Bouenza, republique du Congo, whose work on the lithic archaeology in the Niari region is not yet published, shared with me his deep knowledge of his field. Dr Daniel Normand of the Bureau de recherche geologique et miniere, Orleans, provided me with valuable bibliographical references in the field of geology. Dr Didier Normand, director emeritus of the laboratory of wood anatomy of the Centre technique forestier tropical, advised me on botanical matters, and Ms Judith Eger, from the Department of Mammalogy, Royal Ontario Museum, answered my queries about the identification of zoomorphic motifs. Dr Heather Lechtman, director of the Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, helped me greatly in my further initiation into metallurgy.

CROWN AND RITUAL

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1 Introduction and History of the Investigation COLLEEN E. KRIGER

One of the last times I saw Zdenka Volavka, she advised me that in writing history one cannot explain, one can only convince. She sets a prime example in the chapters that follow, where she dissects and examines royal power in the west central African kingdom of Ngoyo,1 one of several small, very old kingdoms located along the coast just north of the Congo estuary. Overshadowed throughout much of its history by powerful neighbours, Ngoyo became a prominent exporter of slaves through its port of Cabinda in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.2 What Volavka demonstrates so convincingly here is that Ngoyo was important historically for other reasons. She argues that kings derived their authority through carefully created secular and religious processes, and were not considered legitimate rulers until they had been ritually invested by priests in Ngoyo religious shrines. This study is a history of one of those shrines, covering a period of over four centuries, from the establishment of centralized government sometime before the late fifteenth century, until 1933, when royal insignia were removed from it and taken to Europe. The shrine was called Lusunsi, and Volavka focuses especially on the set of insignia that were kept there for the ritual investiture of political leaders - hence the title of this book, Crown and Ritual. A host of questions radiate outward from the shrine and insignia, leading into a number of usually separate academic disciplines, including art history, history, religious studies, metallurgy, and anthropology. The research endeavour is interdisciplinary in scope and intensively historical in method. Volavka amasses a wide range of visual, oral, and written evidence, much of it previously unpublished, which she then scrutinizes with a piercing and sceptical lens. By keeping us oriented towards the shrine all the while, she is able to steer us through these myriad investigations, thereby constructing for us a richly detailed interpretation of the reasons for its existence and its place in Ngoyo society.

4

Crown and Ritual

Volavka's very specific inquiries into the histories of the shrine, insignia, and investiture ritual become something of far greater significance than a case study of one particular religious institution. She unearths precise details of what the shrine consisted of at one time, how the insignia were made, and the series of events that unfolded during the ritual of royal investiture, providing us with invaluable historical texture and much more. Together, these details document the act of making a leader in Ngoyo, and allow Volavka to address fundamental issues surrounding the creation of political authority and its legitimation in precolonial West Central Africa. She argues strenuously against employing the notion of divine kingship here,3 demonstrating that it was the consecrated authority of Ngoyo kings that was considered divine, not the kings themselves. Her analysis of the entire process of making and investing a leader in Ngoyo reveals it as a structure that was designed and orchestrated in order to bring about his metamorphosis. He was not born a king: he was made royal. The leader began as very much a human being, elected to his position by other mortals, and was then ritually transformed by investiture ceremonies into an exceptional individual capable of ruling over all. Successful completion of this elaborate process, including what took place at the Lusunsi shrine, was therefore a crucial matter to society at large. Although this study concentrates on a shrine in Ngoyo, the geographical terrain it embraces and concerns is region-wide. Ngoyo and its immediate neighbours, Loango, Bungu, and Kakongo (not to be confused with Kongo), all probably predated the arrival of European traders on the coast in the late fifteenth century, as did the Tio (Teke) kingdom, centred on the plateaux around Malebo Pool to the east, and the much larger Kongo kingdom, which stretched southward from the river.4 Intriguing but so far unverifiable are the stories that tell of their related beginnings. Oral traditions from Kongo, Tio, and Loango sources state that Kongo, Ngoyo, Loango, Kakongo, and Tio were the siblings of a common 'mother,' suggesting they all had ties of some sort to an earlier polity.5 Genealogical idioms such as the one above were used in oral traditions to describe past events and contacts among societies that had long been heterogeneous and complex. Kinship and the descent group were guiding ideological and social principles, not indicators that central African societies were the accretion of simple family groupings. Polygynous and exogamous marriage, various residence options, matrilineal reckoning of descent in several possible ways - say, along either one's mother's or one's father's line-plus the increasingly preferred use of patrilineal reckoning by titleholders in Kongo, for example, made the social reality behind kin-group ideology very complicated indeed. Moreover, the houses of free and wealthy men, especially, were not made entirely by marriage

Introduction

5

and filiation. Some could grow large quite quickly, through the incorporation of other dependents such as clients, debt pawns, and slaves. What is most important to keep in mind here, however, is the idea of kin group in the abstract: how it was cherished as a unifying principle for society, and how it was often invoked, appearing in many guises as symbol and metaphor. Some readers may be unfamiliar with the different ways larger groupings of peoples are referred to in this book - that is, variously by their polity, ethnicity, or primary language (see maps 3 and 4). 'Peoples' and polities were neither equivalent nor conterminous. Smaller kingdoms came to be associated with the core ethnic groups within them, such as the Woyo in Ngoyo or the Vili in Loango. And in the Tio kingdom, for example, although it is sometimes referred to ethnically as Teke, other groups lived there as well, such as the Kukuya and Ngungulu.6 Kongo was an even more elaborate kingdom, with a variety of provinces and ethnic groups such as the Nsundi. Some of these ethnic terms were derived from commonalities people shared other than language, being based instead on geographical areas of settlements, or occupation. Seemingly sharp divisions of peoples into distinct polities and ethnic groups could be softened by language, as was the case for the Vili, Yombe, and Woyo, who all spoke Kongo languages that were closely related. Accordingly, Volavka often refers to 'greater Kongo' or 'the Bakongo,' by which she usually means the Kongo-speaking areas both north and south of the river as a regional culture zone. 'Greater Kongo' is also a historical term for the Kongo kingdom at the time of its greatest extent, that is, before the decline of its centralized organization in the late seventeenth century. The waxing and waning of Kongo, its expansion and consolidation, then fragmentation and reconstitution as smaller political units, is only one of the major transformations that took place in the region over the more than four hundred years spanned by this study. A pivotal development during this time in world history was the rise of the maritime shipping system in the Atlantic basin, which brought ports along the west coast of Africa into an intercontinental trading and communication network. Profits from this trade presented opportunities of new wealth and power for some, but they were accompanied by increases in conflict, enslavement, and the rapid building of large slave followings, all of which amplified local and regional political rivalries. The turning point in Kongo history, for example, came with the ascendancy of its breakaway coastal province, Soyo,7 at a time when the central government had been weakened and divided by recent military losses to the Portuguese. Changes in the balance of power were felt acutely in Mbanza Kongo (Sao Salvador) during competitions for succession to the throne. As Soyo grew in strength, its leaders became more effective at placing their own

6

Crown and Ritual

candidates at the head of Kongo government, sometimes by force. Intrigues and reprisals by supporters of other candidates inevitably followed, escalating into the civil wars of the 16705. These protracted, unresolved conflicts and the destruction of the Kongo capital brought the centralized kingdom to an end.8 While Kongo was still in its period of expansion and consolidation, Catholic missions were established there as a necessary condition for official relations with Portugal. Already in the late fifteenth century there were royal baptisms in Soyo and Mbanza Kongo that brought Kongo elites into the Portuguese diplomatic and trading spheres. From then on, Christianity added new dimensions to social diversity and religious pluralism in the region. In Kongo towns and cities, ambitious merchants and political leaders used Catholicism and literacy in Portuguese as effective tools in their quests for favour and advantageous alliances. And over the next hundred years, imported artifacts and Christian imagery were incorporated into official displays of splendour at the Kongo court, lending them international stature and legitimacy.9 Volavka interprets these changes as indications of a gradual shift in values, with kings of Kongo supported increasingly by mercantile wealth, sometimes at the expense of values based on deeper, enduring principles. Important though these major effects of the Atlantic trade were, this book makes only indirect reference to them. As Volavka points out, the external trading sector was not a uniformly strong presence all over the region, nor were its repercussions uniformly felt. She contrasts the striking visual evidence of international relations at the Kongo court with the relative absence of it in the Lusunsi shrine. On the Loango coast, commerce with European merchants began as a limited transit trade in slaves and an expansion of regional exchange of African-produced goods such as cloth, copper, ivory, salt, and wood products. Not until the seventeenth century did its ports supply slaves in any great numbers, and only in the eighteenth century did they come to dominate over other exports. Then, reversals in the balance of power took place among the northern kingdoms as they had in Kongo. Loango was weakened by internal conflict and declined, and Ngoyo had replaced it as the larger and more dominant of the kingdoms by the nineteenth century.10 However, one significant difference between Kongo and the Loango coast was the relative inactivity on the part of Catholic missionaries north of the river, and the scant evidence of Christian imagery in royal insignia. Although Catholicism had made early inroads just across the Congo estuary in Soyo, it never took hold in Ngoyo outside of the international enclave and port of Cabinda. The primary focus here is on the persistence of religious belief in West Central Africa, especially in Ngoyo, and the continuity of certain deeply rooted social and cultural values during times of fundamental change. Ngoyo, besides

Introduction

7

having been one of the earliest kingdoms in the region, occupied a special position among its neighbours as a sacred place. It was the site of a number of temples and priesthoods, among them important religious centres where priests ceremonially consecrated and legitimated newly elected kings. Until now, only one of them, the Bunsi shrine, has been acknowledged as such in the literature. It was considered to have been the most powerful oracle along the Loango coast, and ancillary shrines dedicated to this deity proliferated in the Mayombe hinterland. None of them could compare, though, with the central Bunsi shrine in Ngoyo, whose priests invested the kings of Loango, and perhaps others as well.11 In this book, Volavka offers further evidence of why Ngoyo was venerated as the home of powerful priests. She establishes that there was an even more important shrine dedicated to another spirit, Lusunsi; that it was one of the most sacred religious centres in Ngoyo; and that the shrine of Lusunsi had played an essential role in the rituals of royal investiture. Volavka argues, furthermore, that the Lusunsi shrine was significant to peoples of the greater Kongo region beyond the kingdom of Ngoyo. She bases this aspect of her case mainly on her exhaustive analyses and interpretations of the shrine's contents. Each one of its constituent elements, whether man-made or chosen from nature, is shown to have resonated with social and philosophical ideas that were understandable region-wide. The shrine was indeed a sacred place. All the ideas that were harboured within it, when combined together, render the sacredness of the Lusunsi shrine undeniable. It is therefore plausible that neighbouring kings would have been invested there as well. Moreover, it resonated also with historical references. Volavka's analyses of the copper and iron insignia, especially the royal cap, and of the allusions to smithing and to gender, suggest that the insignia were either literally or figuratively grounded in a period that was older than kingship itself. She interprets the imagery as yet another symbolic record, like the process of selecting and investing kings, of an ongoing ideological tension in Ngoyo. In other words, the contrast between Kongo and Ngoyo in the degree to which foreign ideas had been apparently welcomed and absorbed did not mean that Ngoyo society was resistant to change. Integrated into the Lusunsi shrine were references to both change and continuity, an interaction of external political pressure with internal social structures. Depictions of blacksmithing, and the centrifugal tendencies of its organization and trade, were countered by the centripetal concept, as represented by the generating ancestress. Volavka sees these references as a version of early Ngoyo history: before kingship there were two periods; the earliest one, when associations of blacksmiths were the founding political elite; and the one directly preceding kingship, referred to as the 'princess epoch,' when matriclans were created to hold society together.

8

Crown and Ritual

A major portion of this study is devoted to issues concerning metalworking in the region and the exploitation of the rich copper deposits of Mindouli-Boko Songo. Although historians have customarily proposed the copper production there as a crucial factor in the development of regional trade and the early rise of principalities,12 more precise details about the mining, smelting, smithing, and trade of copper have not been available up until now. The Lusunsi insignia provide Volavka with opportunities for pursuing this important history through analysis of their source materials and techniques of manufacture. She unlocked a wealth of data from the objects themselves and from copper currency units that once circulated in the region, and she also gathered oral testimonies from smiths and guardians of the ore deposits to establish more fully the complex sets of operations that were involved in the exploitation and use of copper. In the end, her argument takes us well beyond the obvious issue of control over ore deposits. It is based not only on the economic importance of copperworking, but also on its social dynamics and how metalworking was integrated into ideology. Above all, it illuminates for us in a compelling way the logic of why smiths would have continued to play symbolic roles in making kings.

2 The Insignia

The set of sixteen objects or fragments (listed in Appendix la) has been made from two metals. Three of the objects are of copper; in three other fragments, copper is combined with iron; and, finally, ten items preserved in uneven condition are made of iron. Of the ten iron items, five are compatible with objects customarily used in a number of African cultures as tools, such as the pick, or as regalia, such as double bells or knives. Five iron items, on the other hand, pose more problems of interpretation, as their analogues in the inventory of the surviving customary implements are not evident. A reasonably well-matched description of the shape and function of two of them may, however, be traced in European accounts on the Kongo royal investiture dating to the seventeenth century. These two iron objects, showing a remarkable morphological affinity to lithic double-ended picks, seem to represent, within the set, samples whose antiquity induced the transition from a profane to a devotional function. In contrast to the iron components of the set, the three copper objects are not proportionate with human size. They have superhuman dimensions. Apart from their dimensions, however, what makes the copper items even more distinct is an obvious discrepancy between their visual references to certain customary objects, such as a cap or basket, and their most unconventional material properties. Moreover, the handling of material does not follow the usual pattern. Copper is used here to create coiled or plaited fabrics. These visual and material metamorphic characteristics conspicuously intensify the striking appearance of the copper objects, which are unique within the body of African artifacts as far as they are known to date. Of the set of regalia, the large dome-shaped object created entirely of copper (Appendix la, no. I) is an exquisite work of art. After turning it from an inverted to the correct upright position, one notes that the slightly irregular circle of its bottom rim has an average diameter of 36.5 centimetres. The dome is coiled with

io Crown and Ritual thin copper strips which are wound over circular copper bars. More than eleven kilograms of copper1 were used for its manufacture. To the wall of the dome are attached sixteen curved extensions, as well as four concentric bands of ornament made of the same metal. Pieces of copper binder, which are now loose and extend from the wall of the dome, suggest that an appendage in a more ephemeral material was attached around the dome. The top of the dome is left open. Its large size and weight themselves convincingly attest that the dome was not an object of everyday use and that, on the contrary, it fulfilled a most uncommon function. The material properties of the dome are matched by those of a large ring (Appendix la, no. 2) whose circumference is 136 centimetres and whose weight amounts to some 4.5 kilograms. Material, manufacture, and the attached curved extensions of both objects are identical. There can be little doubt that the dome and the ring created a unit. They also differ in their condition from the rest of the objects. Although their surface is now covered with an even layer of green patination and a number of curved extensions are missing, both the dome and the ring are relatively well preserved. While still in situ, they presumably received special care and, unlike the rest of the objects, they seem not to have been handled too frequently. Also, they probably were preserved in a shelter and were not directly exposed to climatic conditions. The four remaining items in copper or copper-with-iron are either damaged objects, such as a disc (Appendix la, no. 3), or are fragments (Appendix la, nos. 4, 5, 6). In principle, they are consistent with the dome and ring in the method of manufacture, being either coiled or plaited in copper strips. However, the mode of coiling the disc is different from that of the dome and ring. Moreover, unlike the dome and ring, the three plaited fragments have an armature created of iron instead of copper bars. The discrepancy in the condition of the dome and ring, on the one hand, and the four other copper or copper-with-iron items, on the other, raises the questions of whether all the objects and fragments are coeval and all from the same place, and whether their functions served a common goal. All ten iron items show a high degree of mineralization, as does the iron armature of the fragments coiled or plaited in copper strips. As well, most of the iron objects are fragmentary, thus materially demonstrating a most advanced aging process. The problem of coevality of the items will be addressed later in the chapter dealing with technical evidence and manufacture. The query about their provenance and locus of their function can be met most aptly by a critical analysis of the documents partly published by and partly preserved in the estate of Pere Constantin Tastevin. He witnessed the forced removal of all the objects from the place of their use, seized them, and brought them to the Musee de 1'Homme.

The Insignia

11

Constantin Tastevin (1880-1962), a missionary belonging to the Congregation of St Esprit, visited the shrine of Lusunsi in July I933-2 After having gained a reputation in ethnography during his seventeen years of missionary work in South America,3 he became professor of ethnology at 1'Institut catholique and at the Seminaire des missions du St-Esprit in Paris and was sent by the French Ministry of Education on a field trip to Africa. Studying African religion, he travelled in Senegal and other countries of the former French West Africa and visited Central Africa.4 There, he first stayed briefly in Loango and Landana and for three weeks in Cabinda. His Cabinda sojourn, although short, was rather efficient, as it benefited primarily from the local experience of an indigenous Catholic abbe, Lourenc.o Mambuko. It was also due to Abbe Mambuko that Tastevin met the priest of Lusunsi, who brought both of them to the shrine.5 According to Tastevin's account, the Lusunsi priest Konko (Nkonko) was frightened of Abbe Mambuko, who seems to have forced him to stop maintaining the shrine and performing the Lusunsi cult. The awe which Mambuko enjoyed among the Bawoyo in Cabinda was based most probably on his holding for several years, with evident impunity and without revenge by the deities, the most powerful Ngoyo religious objects. That is how it is conceivable that the priest Konko, helped by two young men, brought the transportable objects from the shrine and gave them to Tastevin. This action subsequently caused some agitation among the elders and the community. One of the local elders, Domingo dos Nsangu, who identified himself as a Christian and the only surviving son of the chief of the town, wrote a letter to Abbe Mambuko (see Appendix IV) urging him to ask Pere Tastevin not to remove the sacred objects from the grove. The circumstances pertaining to the removal of the objects from the Lusunsi shrine not only have obvious ethical implications but are also of crucial importance for assessing the veracity of Tastevin's dates, several of which seem to be most inconclusive. His informant, the priest Konko, undoubtedly tried to protect the key transportable object of the shrine - which, I shall argue, was the dome - by misleading disclosures. Also, there must have been one part of the shrine and presumably a large non-transportable object or objects of deep religious significance which the priest Konko did not want Tastevin to see.6 They were located where the lozenge-shaped pieces of iron were stuck in the earth, creating a circle and possibly outlining an elevated place. According to Tastevin's manuscript notes of 1934 (see Appendix IV), which were handed over to the museum together with the objects, the dome is 'a basket in well plaited brass wire with a border of metal ivy, and with a hole at the bottom: fishing basket of Lusunzi.' The same source designates Lusunsi as one

12

Crown and Ritual

of three principal genii of Goyo (Ngoyo), apart from Kanga and Bunsi. Referring undoubtedly to the disc, Tastevin writes about 'the bottom of another basket, which had no hole, and served Lusunzi to collect manioc in the fields of her subjects.' Furthermore, describing the large high ring of wound copper strips, Tastevin writes about 'a circle plaited in bronze wire (with attached bracelets) which represents a crown.' Moreover, he mentions further objects deposited in the place from which the objects were removed: two iron circles, one containing the throne of the king of Ngoyo and the other that of the king of Lusunsi; two large iron anchors of European boats; as well as shells, bottles, and dishes. The place is designated in the manuscript as the Lusunsi temple. The cited manuscript of 1934 gives one of the four preserved descriptions of the Lusunsi shrine by Tastevin; two others were probably written later, sometime in the mid-19308, and are also kept in manuscript form (see Appendix IV), while the fourth was published in I935-7 The three later accounts, in essence, repeat the list as well as the explanation of the objects in the Lusunsi shrine as described in the museum notes, adding, however, some more items and a few pieces of supplementary information. A knife and an iron double gong are spoken of as well as a dozen or, in one instance, half a dozen lozenge-shaped pieces of iron stuck into the earth. The former objects are undoubtedly identical with the fragmentary knives and double bells included in the collection of the Musee de l'Homme. On the other hand, some items mentioned in Tastevin's later descriptions apparently were not collected: an iron bell, a long bar of iron as thick as a wrist, and, finally, fragments of a pot used for smelting. The cited letter by the elder Domingo dos Nsangu is a valuable source which throws much light on the function of the objects. The Lusunsi shrine was the place, so the letter states, where the future king of Ngoyo had to undergo two ceremonies after he had been elected and before he was allowed to assume his royal responsibilities in the Ngoyo capital. He is said first to have taken the oath and then the 'blessed' water at the place where 'that object in bronze' was situated before its removal. The elder undoubtedly refers here to the key object of Tastevin's collection, that is, the dome. Then, according to the letter, the second ceremony was conducted. This was the ceremony of Lemba, which was also the conditio sine qua non for the future king, according to the elder's statement. Moreover, the letter explains the presence of the objects in the shrine as vital for the investiture of the king should he be elected in the future. The omission of the ritual, which is inseparable from the objects, is described as generating catastrophic consequences. The same source asserts that only after these two ceremonies - the one with the holy water and that of Lemba - was the king allowed to be crowned. Of the objects removed from the shrine, the large ring in wound wire

The Insignia

13

(Appendix la, no. 2) was identified in Tastevin's account as a crown, presumably because it recalled a headband. However, the head ties, while used as crowns in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, such as in the Akan or by the Ngoni,8 do not seem to have played this role in the Kongoland. The leopardskin band recorded at the end of the nineteenth century9 as part of the paraphernalia of the deceased Ma Loango, the Loango king, or of the royal dignitary Ma Ngovo, was worn on the head concurrently with the royal cap. On the other hand, the dome can be linked very closely to the cap belonging to the customary Kongo panoply. In 1873, °ne century before the Woyo informants revealed information to me about the insignia - which, though kept in Ngoyo, bore significance for the rest of the Kongoland as well - the German ethnologist Adolf Bastian10 recorded the existence of a crown kept in Ngoyo. When he arrived in the Ngoyo capital, the existence of royal insignia was brought to his attention. Originally kept in the capital, the insignia supposedly had been moved into the village of the Puna family, whose members served as royal administrators. Bastian described the regalia as an ivory tusk, a sceptre, and a crown. However, from the vernacular designations he recorded, it is clear that he only heard about the regalia and did not actually see them. Simpunji [zimpungi] are ivory blowing tusks; a chimpava [chimpdba] is not a sceptre but a special knife that gives the chief the right to sentence people to be executed; isoko lumtino may be transcribed as nsoko lu ntinu, which are armlets of the king or headman, not a crown. In any case, Bastian's informants referred unquestionably to parts of the ceremonial outfit transmitted from one Ngoyo king to another for personal use. Thus Bastian's account does not refer to the objects removed from the Lusunsi shrine, nor did he see a crown. These items of personal royal panoply as specified by Bastian were subsequently found and published by Fathers Jose Martins Vaz and Joaquim Martins.11 a) Cap/Crown The copper dome removed from the Lusunsi shrine (Appendix la, no. i) corresponds in shape to the large, round, and rather deep chief's cap. However, as stated, it is of superhuman scale, double the size of a cap of a substantial adult man. There are numerous examples of the Kongo chief's dome-shaped cap remaining in use, although a greater number of them are now probably in museums. Early-twentieth-century writings frequently record the widespread use of these round chief's caps. By 1909, for instance, the Swedish missionary S.A. Floden had collected a considerable quantity of dome-shaped caps in the Manteke region, north of Matadi.12 In the 19708, I encountered several versions of

14

Crown and Ritual

quite elaborate caps in current use only in the Zaire part of Kwakongo, mainly around the Kwakongo kingdom's old capital, Tchienchele. Examples of a simpler type, however, are still not rare in most of the Kongo regions. All specimens of dome-shaped caps surviving as an integral part of the chief's insignia are necessarily at least two generations old. Not a single case of their customary production was registered in my records. Oral tradition refers to their manufacture consistently, in all investigated parts of the Kongoland, as a male occupation. Yet all the men who knew how to make them are dead, the tradition insists. The case of the young chief of Tende, a Woyo village on the southern border between Cabinda and Zaire, is exceptional and not typical. In 1973, in an effort to resurrect the ancient tradition, he made his dome-shaped cap and wove part of his ceremonial garment. However, both the preparation of the material and the manufacture were most rudimentary, in contrast to the refined work of the old caps. The caps are made by knotting and looping.13 The material used for those caps which are still in use is thin raffia fibre, called mpusu or vusu. A few specimens, encountered more rarely, were made of pineapple fibre called mafubu, while some more recent caps were knotted in imported cotton. The fine material and the way the fibres were knotted or looped make the caps cling to the skull. The elaborate specimens encountered in Kwakongo have a rich design in their surface texture made either by the cut-pile technique or by the raised stitches of the knots. The most frequent ornament on these caps is interlace; rarely placed in the centre, which is called bdndu, it usually creates a circumferential band. Sometimes the band has only a zigzag motif. It is this type of dome-shaped cap with a design which is often on the heads of both male and female Kongo ancestral sculptures, of which most can justifiably be considered as of a reasonable age and originating in a number of Kongo regions, not only in Kwakongo. After all, fine, artistically 'knitted' caps which smoothly cling to the head, spoken of by Samuel Braun and Dapper14 as occurring in the seventeenth century in the kingdoms of Loango and Soyo, were doubtless also of this very type. The chief's dome-shaped cap with designs is called ngunda in the area of its present incidence in Kwakongo. For the coastal part of Kwakongo, the dictionary of the Landana mission of i89O15 recorded the designation ngundu. The Bakunyi, Bakamba, and Badondo of Central Niari and Manyanga gave me the name as ngunda or ngundu used interchangeably for a dome-shaped cap with or without designs. Both denominations have been confirmed in the twentieth century also for Mayombe, Cabinda, and the old kingdom of Soyo.16 A frequent synonym used mainly by the northern Bakongo for the ngundu is kibudu or budu. The most generally known designation of a chief's or king's cap is mpu and its phonetic variations, such as p'u or mpo.11 Its use seems to have

The Insignia

15

expanded over the entire Kongoland, extending also over a reasonably long period of time. European documents of the seventeenth century18 mention it on a number of occasions. However, unlike ngunda, the mpu seems to have been a general name for chiefs' and kings' caps of various shapes and functions. The ngunda's domelike round shape may vary slightly throughout the regions; made of harder palm fibre, the dome takes on a more angular form and conforms less to the roundness of the head. However, ideally it is supposed to cover the chief's unshaved scalp entirely. Thus, its user would sometimes refer to it as kimpene, stemming from mpene, which designates nudity and sexual organs. Kimpene is also frequently used in reference to the chief's simple unpatterned loin cloth as well as the loin cover of the nkisi figures. Even when the ngunda was made smaller so that its dome would not cover the entire unshaved scalp, there is one spot on the skull which it must without exception protect, informants asserted, and that is where the hair grows in a circle. They referred to that spot as nzita, 'knot.'19 It is there that the central design of interlace is sometimes placed on the patterned ngunda or where an unpatterned cap may be provided with a cylindrical protrusion.20 Moreover, it is in this spot that the place for a receptacle is made, should a male or female nkisi figure contain magic substances in its head. Some authors21 denote one of the chief's caps or even the chief's ceremonial cap as mpu nzita or simply nzita. However, led by the recorded field data, I tend to suppose that nzita, like kimpene, is a designation for a structural function of any chief's or king's cap rather than for a particular type of cap. Indeed, I recorded only one case in which nzita was given as the only denomination for a cap. It was a small patterned cap, square at the top, covering mainly the critical spot on the skull. It was not too dissimilar in shape to the small caps of the Kuba royal officials, and its use within the Kongo seems to be of considerable antiquity. As reported by Pigafetta, the Portuguese merchant Lopez,22 who, after 1579, stayed for several years at Mbanza Kongo at the royal court, referred to such small caps, square at the top, as worn by the king and his officials, mainly in ancient (that is, pre-Portuguese) times. The small, square, yellowish cap which I encountered in the field was worn by the customary advocate/orator in communal or individual disputes which took place in the area between Kai Ndunda and Kai Situ in Kwakongo. The concerned mpowi, 'advocate/orator,' alluded to an assumed link between his covered nzita and his justice or efficiency in disputes. Thus it is justifiable to see the denomination nzita as pointing out the cap's protective function of this sensitive spot on the head. The copper cap/crown from the Lusunsi shrine is left open precisely on the spot where, if ever worn by a person of superhuman scale, it would have covered the nzita. An interpretation of this aperture can be corroborated by the

16

Crown and Ritual

iconography of some works of art and by written records. European accounts of the seventeenth century23 registered a special hairdo for women of high rank in the coastal kingdoms: either the head was shaved except for a circle at the top, or the hair was bound at the top. In either case, clearly the spot nzita was supposed to be covered. A representative number of sculptures of female figures in wood and ivory demonstrate both types of hairdo. A wooden sculpture of remarkable quality from the museum in Leiden24 even displays a combination of this hairdo with the ngunda. The function of the sculpture as expressed in its vernacular name nkazi mabiala was closely related to the chief's investiture. It is a female figure carrying a small person. Both of them wear a patterned ngunda from whose round aperture protrudes the cone of bound hair. At this point, it would be premature to push the argument about the sex of the copper ngunda's wearer any further. The wearer was of a conceptual rather than a physical nature, in any case. It is, however, important to note that the round aperture at the top introduces a certain female aspect into the semantics of the copper ngunda. In the past, both Kongo chiefs and Kongo kings had several caps for various occasions. In some regions, the chiefs still keep a set of caps and hats together with other items of their insignia in the private part of their house called lumbu. These headcovers may include an old European sun helmet or imported military hat.25 Customarily, the set of the Kongo king's and chief's headcovers seems to have comprised indigenous hats also: a black one or one painted in white.26 The ngunda, however, has played a particularly important role, as it was the cap with which the chief was traditionally invested. Conclusive field records as well as lexical evidence attest to that. Both variations of the cap's denomination in use, ngunda and ngundu, contain the root ngu- which designates mother. However, its meaning is not mother in the colloquial sense, but mother in the sense of an inception. The substance of the chief's investiture is in a symbolic activation and renewal of the tie with the origin, with the assumed female founder, as will be discussed later. It is this link which generates authority. Informants said that the original colour of the ngunda with which the chief was invested was red. One of the finest examples, collected between 1890 and 1911 near Banana in the southwestern tip of Ngoyo by the Reverend T. Hope Morgan and now housed with his collection in the Royal Ontario Museum, is still partly covered by red powder called tukula. Woyo colour symbolism relates red to suffering and potential danger that may, however, generate life. It connotes blood27 and is associated with female forces.28 With minimal change of emphasis in other Kongo regions, such as the colour's connotation of fire and passion by the northern Bakongo, these associations seem to be valid through-

The Insignia

17

out the Kongoland. Red is also the colour of copper, in contrast to the second most important Kongo non-ferrous metal, lead, designated by the Bakongo as white. The copper ngunda is now covered with an evenly distributed coating of green patination as a result of age and exposure. However, in concept, it is still red. The Kongo word most frequently used for copper is nsongo, and by extension it also means red or red metal. It is a homonym for extreme suffering and for pain in childbirth.29 According to metalworker and smelter informants, copper is female, as is lead. Thus, its shape with the top aperture, its name, colour, and material define the copper ngunda as female. The taxonomy of objects, charms, and nkisi figures, as well as some important behaviour habits such as gestures, according to their genders, is typical of the deep Kongo sense for a most overt distinction between and balance of male and female sexes, their preoccupations and areas of interest. In the case of the paramount religious object, the ngunda, its sex reflects its symbolic value and expresses its sacral function. The copper ngunda has attached copper semicircles. The placement of the sixteen remaining ones and traces in loosened copper binders of those now lost helped to determine that there were originally twenty-four semicircles. The largest of the fragments obtained in 1975 in Moanda perfectly matches the semicircles attached to the copper cap, thus morphologically constituting a piece of evidence of the relationship of the regalia and the group of metal portions and chips collected in a bundle. The specimen of a semicircle acquired in 1975 is some two centimetres shorter than those attached to the copper cap/ crown as it seems to be broken. Also, its green patination is totally washed out. The semicircles are not bracelets, as assumed by Tastevin; there can be little doubt that they stand for leopard claws, zingolo tsi ngo. Again, a direct connection can be drawn with the chiefs' knotted caps. A mpu with appended leopard claws has in this century become a rarity due to the extinction or very low incidence of leopards in the Kongoland, whilst caps with a cognate symbol, a crest of red rooster feathers, now occur more usually. The latter, however, do not seem to be only a modern substitute. In some regions, mainly in the northern Kongoland between the Congo and Niari rivers, both types seem to have coexisted in the past century.30 The Reverend W.H. Bentley31 calls the pineapple fibre cap covered with leopard claws a Mayomba cap, but its incidence has by no means been restricted to Mayombe. Its use was recorded in the twentieth century by De Donder and Chapeaux among the central Bakongo; K. Laman collected examples made of raffia fibre in the north; de Cerquiera saw the caps in the south; and J. Mertens encountered them in the east.32 Moreover, for the core of the central Bakongo in the region of Noki on both banks of the Congo/Zaire River,

18

Crown and Ritual

there is abundant iconographical evidence of chiefs' caps with leopard-claw motifs occurring on both female and male figures of tombstone sculpture.33 Chiefs' caps knotted in pineapple or raffia fibre may exhibit one appended claw used as pars pro toto, or more frequently, four claws. Four is the number of strong claws in a leopard's footprint. If the number of appended claws is higher, it is divisible by four, provided that the object has not been damaged. One infers from informants' explanations that, despite obvious knowledge about a leopard's fifth claw, either one or four claws stand for a leopard in Kongo symbolism. The same number symbolism was also reflected in a tradition recorded by Laman34 in Kimbenza, Manyanga. There, four leopard claws and two teeth are said to have been buried in the forest in memory of the first chief, Manyanga Manika. The monumental copper ngunda from the Lusunsi shrine was fully consistent, in its original state with twenty-four attached claws, with this number symbolism. The meaning of four copper bands also attached to the copper cap/crown and repeating, with minimal variation, a motif consisting of a projection flanked by two shorter points was difficult to decode. The bands encircle, as stated, the circumference of the dome at various heights on its wall. Whereas the motif, at first glance, seems to recall morphologically a botanical item - a leaf, a fruit, or a flower - thus resembling a corona, a wreath, there was no similarity found with plants used in Kongo symbolism and herbal medicine. Morphological comparisons and consultations with botanists and mammalogists finally eliminated this explication and established grounds for the conjecture that the motif represents leopard molars. This interpretation would also explain why the points of the lower band are facing the points of the upper bands: together they symbolize a leopard's jaw. Traditionally, leopard incisors have been integrated into Kongo chiefs' necklaces. However, there exist chiefs' caps with appended leopard claws and animal teeth as well. In some areas of the Kongoland they persisted until recent times. In 1869, for instance, the young French trader Jeannest35 saw this type of cap on the head of the chief Nemlao, who was the head of the intruding Solongo diaspora on the north bank of the Congo/Zaire River. Later on, during his four-year Kongo sojourn, he was able to observe a similar cap with leopard claws and teeth worn by a Solongo chief whose authority applied to the region north of Ambrizette. A century later, Father Troesch36 referred to the cap with leopard claws and teeth as the paramount Solongo ensign. Perhaps the best example is the already mentioned cap collected between 1891 and 1911 in Ngoyo near Banana by T. Hope Morgan.37 Mgr J. Cuvelier38 registered another fine specimen with claws and teeth in use as part of the panoply of the chief from the Nsaku Lau family of former rulers of Mbata, the foremost southern province of the Kongo state.

The Insignia

19

A cap with leopard claws and teeth has undoubtedly been the most prestigious type of mpu and, as implied by oral tradition, its existence goes back to the very beginnings of Kongo society. The primordial link between the chief, mfumu, and the leopard, ngo, is reflected in Kongo fables in which the leopard is referred to as mfumu. The tie between the Kongo chief and the leopard also has its analogue in the tradition of the western Baluba.39 Within the Kongoland, the killing of the leopard is said to have been an infrequent event and was accompanied by an exquisite ritual, mentioned in early European accounts, and surviving in the memory of Kongo hunters. A leopard's death would be as costly as a big chief's (mfumu nene) funeral, I was told repeatedly. The leopard, ngo, is clearly female according to the Kongo taxonomy of animals. Leopard skin, one of the indispensable items of the chief's insignia, plays a significant part in his investiture, in which it also overtly stands for female. At a certain stage of the chief's investiture, the candidate for chiefship is given a leopard skin. It is then sat upon by the chief or is displayed with a large knife or sword (mbele a lulendo) placed upon it. The knife and sword are said to be explicitly male parts of the insignia. The interrelation of female leopard skin and male sword is also a leading motif of the act of leopard-skin consecration, which is the apex of the ritual following the killing of a leopard.40 Performing a ceremony called the knife dance, the chief approaches the skin, which is spread on a bed. The chief's behaviour is supposed to demonstrate virility. For that purpose, the sword is carried in his right hand, which is the male side and which connotes strength and virility, among other attributes. In concluding the ceremony, the chief places his foot on the skin. Consistent with its name, material, colour, and shape, the iconography of the copper ngunda is manifestly female. The extent to which this iconic character was still complemented by ephemeral and ad hoc attributes remains a matter for speculation. On ceremonial occasions, they were presumably attached to the cap's wall by the copper binder, remnants of which remain, extending around its circumference. No particle was found which would indicate the nature of the attached materials. Worn by the chief only on exceptional occasions, the cap with leopard claws and teeth was seldom seen by outsiders. That is undoubtedly why it was not registered in the early European accounts on the Kongo state.41 These documents, on the other hand, recorded quite accurately the headdress of the king and royal nobles. The sixteenth-century chronicler Rui de Pina42 noted the feather crests worn on the heads of the nobles at the court of Soyo during the welcoming ceremony for the Portuguese in 1491, not mentioning whether the crests surmounted some kind of cap. Moreover, Rui de Pina's chronicle alluded to the Soyo suzerain's

2O Crown and Ritual pointed cap with a snake ornament, 'hua carapu9a, em que andava hua serpe mui bem lavrada,' and made it clear that the Kongo king, Mani Kongo, at his reception of the Portuguese in the same year, also had on his head such a pointed cap made of palm fibres. Identical information appears in the seventeenth-century chronicle of Garcia de Resende.43 Joao de Barros44 in the mid-sixteenth century, also on the occasion of the royal reception of the Portuguese in 1491, referred to the king's headdress as a high cap like a mitre, 'hum barrete alto come mitra,' as Padre Francisco de Santa Maria later repeated in his account.45 In 1642, when receiving the Dutch, the Kongo king is said46 to have worn a 'pretty white nightcap,' which applies again to the high type of cap described by the Portuguese sources. The comparison of the long, sometimes raised and sometimes also overhanging cap with a nightcap subsequently became popular in the accounts of explorers of the nineteenth century47 who encountered this type of headdress as part of the outfit of the kings and royal officials in southern as well as northern parts of the Kongoland. Although it is rare, its use persists to the present. When I witnessed its appearance in Kwakongo in the 19705, it was accompanied by a short looped mantle called kinzembe. The cap was explained as a status symbol of the administrators of the Kwakongo king, Ma Kongo, as well as his own headdress. The then recently elected successor of Ma Kongo, referred to as Ma Kongo Ma Nkafi, the regent of Kwakongo, wore it when he officially received me in his village in 1975. The most remarkable specimen of a high cap, one of fine quality, is in the National Museum in Copenhagen. It was already in the collections of the Danish king in i674-48 Made of pineapple fibres, it displays an elaborate large motif of an interlace band and strapwork in quatrefoils. Another specimen of this type of cap is in the Museo preistorico e etnografico in Rome.49 It is a museum acquisition of 1876. Its interlace of more simplified patterns is placed in horizontal and vertical bands around the wall of the cap. The motif of an interlace occurring on the samples of this type of cap, as well as on those of the elaborate ngunda found in the field, is one of the bisono, the term used by Bakongo to designate an array of customary signs which convey particular meanings and may be applied to a variety of objects.50 The high cap also sometimes constitutes part of the outfit of female sculptures usually treated in the literature under the misleading title of maternity. There the interpretations of this headdress have stimulated rather vivid discussions. J. Maes,51 for instance, suggested that it is a cap called mphemba used by the 'mothers of the clan' when officially appearing in village disputes, basing his opinion upon the information of the colonial administrator from southern Mayombe. E. Roosens,52 on the other hand, interpreted the same motif as a prestigious headdress with which one wished to represent the mother. This sta-

The Insignia 21 tus symbol is neither an explicitly female cap nor is it a hairdo. It occurs in both Kongo female and Kongo male iconography. The wooden figures, for instance, from the Museum in Rotterdam and from the Metropolitan Museum in New York53 representing males of rank shooting guns to discourage the evil of the dead are shown with high caps. Their iconography suggests the relationship with a ceremony performed in connection with respect-giving to the male founding ancestor. Female figures with high caps like those depicted with a ngunda are functionally also tied to the ancestral cult. The difference between the two latter types of female sculptures was explained by informants as a contrast between a kin group activated by the chief's authority and another associated in the past with kingship. In sculpture, the high cap is consistently represented with no designs, unlike some of the sculptures with a chiefs domeshaped cap. The ornament sometimes showing below the high cap and above the neck is to be read as a piece of decorated scalp. Ideally, the long cap, like the ngunda, is also a kimpene, that is, one that should cover the whole unshaved scalp. While referred to sometimes as a kimpene, its name is, according to informants, ngola. Field inquiries conducted mainly in the region of its continuing use, in Kwakongo, conclusively have shown the ngola to be distinctly related to the state organization and worn by royal officials. The ngunda, a dome-shaped cap either decorated with designs or covered with leopard claws and teeth, does not seem to have a direct analogue in African cultures other than Kongo ones or in those cultures which became affiliated, in history, with the Bakongo, such as the Dembo culture. Several types of chiefs' dome-shaped caps, observed between 1877 and 1880 by Capello and Ivens in their exploration from the Benguela port up to the Kwanza River, differ from the ngunda in both their decoration and attributes. The ngola, a high and often overhanging cap characterized in ethnological writings sometimes as a Phrygian cap, on the other hand, is closely akin to caps used in the Islamized states of Central Sudan and recorded also among the Cross River Ekoi.54 That is why Schilde55 viewed its occurrence in the Kongo and Loango states as an importation. Assumed to have been disseminated along the coast by Islam, it is said to have been assimilated in the Kongoland as a status symbol of the Ma Fuka, the royal dignitary who supervised trading transactions. In the absence of further historical evidence, Schilde's idea appears hard to maintain. However, one cannot rule out completely as a working hypothesis the possibility of the pre-fifteenth-century introduction of the ngola into the Kongo. The dichotomy of the ngunda and ngola reflects the contrast of two organizing principles of Kongo society: the authority of the elected and consecrated chief, mfumu, and the centralized supremacy of the king. The chief's authority

22

Crown and Ritual

(kimfumu) has been based upon and supported by the continuity of the group's kinship which is assumed to be infinite. On the other hand, the king's efforts to assume the totality of political and economic powers unsupported by clear rules of succession made Kongo kingship centripetal yet impermanent. Like the contrasting chieftainship and kingship, the ngunda and ngola are not interchangeable, in my view. It is essential that the copper cap/crown conform with ngunda, which manifests its non-state character. The function of the copper ngunda in the investiture of suzerains of the Ngoyo state, documented in the cited letter by Domingo dos Nsangu, is then to be interpreted as a borrowing or integration of religious procedures from an older institution. b) Neckpiece The copper cap/crown from the Lusunsi shrine is accompanied by a large ring of copper strips (Appendix la, no. 2) coiled over nine copper bars. The shapes of the ring, averaging 45 centimetres in diameter, and of the colossal head (36.5 centimetres in diameter) are congruent. The collar was to slip over the giant's head and rest on his shoulders. The neckpiece, like the cap/crown, is also double the size of an average collar used by the chiefs. A human analogue of such a neckpiece meant to sit on the user's shoulders is an open, solid, and undecorated copper ring from the Musee de I'Homme once worn, according to the collector's records,56 by the chief of the kin group in the area of Boko (Republic of Congo), in the north-eastern Kongo. Its recorded name, kwangu, also has been the designation for thin copper armlets of the same thin cross-section as this neckpiece. A similar solid neckpiece appears sometimes on both ancestral and magic male sculptures of wood. However, whereas abundant comparative material was available to identify the cap clearly, to my knowledge there is no example in Kongo status insignia, recorded or currently used, or in iconography, to match this type of collar accurately. Coiling does not seem to have a direct analogue in a knotted or woven collar, unless one considers the necklace in wound fibres worn by Yombe women or the neckpiece made of plaited elephant-tail hairs with attached leopard claws. Both were recorded in use or in the oral tradition at the end of the nineteenth century.57 The neckpiece in elephant hairs was part of the chief's and Loango king's insignia. As the elephant assumes the second-highest ranking after the leopard as a Kongo heraldic animal, it seems reasonable to postulate the frequent incidence of such neckpieces in the past. The elephant connotes the physical strength which a king or chief has to have in abundance. Finally, yet another plausible analogue might be a large neckpiece on some male nkisi figures, prepared by the diviner from a piece of cloth in either raffia fibres or imported cotton, called Idka or eldka. Its

The Insignia

23

name was communicated by informants who stayed until 1975 as Angolan refugees in Zaire, in the region of Kimpese. European records have frequently noted the use of metal chains as royal necklaces in various parts of the Kongoland. In 1668, Dapper58 mentioned triple gold chains as part of the Kongo king's outfit and a brass chain worn by the Ma Loango, king of Loango. In the seventeenth century, Capuchin missionaries59 in Soyo saw the suzerain wearing a chain with a cross of gold during the festivities. The Dutch visitor Pieter van den Broecke60 also reported a triple gold chain worn by the Soyo ruler upon his visit in 1608. The golden chain, however, might have been an importation,61 as were other items of insignia of the Soyo suzerain, as can be inferred from van den Broecke's description. In the absence of further art-historical and historical evidence, it would remain mere speculation to suggest that the chain necklace was originally part of the customary regalia made of copper prior to the sixteenth century, when Portuguese and Spanish importations started flooding the country. A few preserved specimens of chain necklaces collected at the end of the nineteenth century are brass.62 On the other hand, a stronger case can be made for the customary use of iron chains as a king's and chief's emblem in the Kongo. In his report on the investiture of the Kongo king Pedro II of 1622, Andre Cordeiro,63 canon of the cathedral of Sao Salvador, refers to an iron chain with iron pendants as an antique Kongo ensign vested only upon leaders whose authority is of major ancestry. Iron chains with pendants in the shape of rings the size of a man's small finger were described by Lopez64 as hanging on the necks of Kongo headmen as military pomp. Well-worked indigenous iron chains worn by Kunyi headmen were recorded in i8y4.65 Several times I saw an iron chain hanging in the chief's lumbu, the private part of his house, together with insignia. Two meanings were given by informants: the chief's strength and responsibility, and the chief's right to enslave. Both interpretations are not dissimilar to the meaning recorded by Lopez. Various names recorded by different authors in the twentieth century as designations for the neckpiece used as a chief's ensign indicate that there was no uniformity throughout the Kongoland in this regard. Ntanda, for instance, was recorded by Troesch in Soyo, mengo was registered by Laman in Manyanga, manga was given by Tshungu, and kitaka was found by Mertens among the south-eastern Bakongo. All the latter are names for a chief's neckpiece composed mainly of beads, sometimes complemented by appended teeth of various animals. Thus, colour could be the only characteristic comparable with the copper neckpiece from the Lusunsi shrine, because, among the beads, all or at least some ought to be red.

24

Crown and Ritual

The copper pendants of the large copper ring are neither bracelets, as assumed by Tastevin, nor animal teeth. In an identical manner of stylization they display the motif of leopard claws like those of the copper cap/crown. The claws of the crown are slightly shorter and less curved than those of the collar. The thirteen remaining claws on the neckpiece and the distances between them, averaging two centimetres, allow the reconstruction of some sixty-eight claws originally tied to the rim of the coiled neckband. The symbolism of the collar is consistent with that of the commonly used chief's necklaces in communicating, as does the cap, a link between the chief and the leopard. Although leopard incisors as attachments on the chief's collar can still be found in use quite frequently, the claws also occur among both the Bakongo and their southern and south-eastern neighbours as pendants of this emblem.66 The same can be stated about copper as the material of the chief's collar. The incidence of copper neckpieces as a status symbol was still recorded in the twentieth century, although very rarely, as in use by both the Bakongo and their southern neighbours.67 However, they differ in form from the superhuman neckpiece from the Lusunsi shrine. How then does one explain the shape and method of manufacture of the large copper neckband? Is the shape of this collar a relic of an ancient emblem which was later replaced in the Kongo by various new types? In some of the Bantu cultures, such as the interlacustrine Baganda, fine close fibre coiling was the method of manufacturing supple necklaces. They reminded late-nineteenthcentury European visitors of 'a golden carcanet with small meshes.'68 It is tempting to hypothesize that the copper neckband from the Lusunsi shrine epitomizes a similar emblem which was coiled and which has not been seen in the Kongoland since the fifteenth century. In the past five centuries, in contrast to the cap, the shape and form of the chief's neckpiece and the inclusion of the neckpiece itself in the chief's outfit do not seem to have adhered so imperatively and evenly to the tradition in all Kongo regions, as attested also by the variety of its names. c) Band or Belt A fragment made in dense copper-strip coiling was also removed from the Lusunsi shrine (Appendix la, no. 4). It will be argued that it relates to the copper cap/crown and neckpiece. The similarity in manufacture and basic material allows one to assume that the original object also played a part in the superhuman panoply. However, structurally it clearly differed from both the cap/ crown and the neckpiece. In the fragment, the remaining pieces of the bars are not curved, thus indicating that the original object was flat. Also, the rods used

The Insignia 25 here are approximately three times thicker than those of the cap and neckpiece, and they are of iron. Moreover, the copper strip, whose cross-section is oblong, is approximately double the width of the copper strip used to coil both other insignia. As a consequence, the coil differs in texture. Stitches appear as straight and parallel, showing no twist, although they are interlocked like the coil of the cap and neckpiece. The flatness of the fragment and the evident effort to suggest, in its material, the quality of strength or weight led to the speculation that the object could originally have been a belt or band. Unlike the neckpiece, it seems to have been wound over short and straight rods. The belt or band would thus be endowed with a certain degree of elasticity and could, ideally, be bent into a ring whose rods would be turned into a vertical position. The belt has been an indispensable part of the chief's outfit to the present. Any time the chief appears in his loin cloth, called nlele or nsala diyola or the more modern term mama mpene,69 he holds it in place with a belt. Lopez,70 in the second half of the sixteenth century, described belts fastening the robes of Kongo noble warriors as examples of exquisite craftsmanship, as was also the belt made of raffia fibres worn by the Kongo king. Two centuries later, the nobles in the northern coastal part of the Kongoland were said to have belts made of silver chains wound eight or ten times around the hips.71 It seems that even in the seventeenth century, in some areas exposed to direct contact with intercontinental trade, as for instance the Loango kingdom, the customary material was partly replaced by imported fabrics used to beautify the double and triple belts.72 The red and black colours of these imported fabrics may suggest a connotation of copper and iron. Whatever their past splendour - either customary or imported - the Kongo belts did not survive as a noticeable status symbol to the twentieth century, unlike, for instance, the ceremonial belts of the Bakuba or Basongye. Nowadays, the most frequent Kongo chief's belt is a rope, as was the case among Kongo commoners in the past.73 The name for the belt I recorded in a number of regions is mponda. It corresponds to the seventeenth-century designation pondes given by Dapper.74 Yet the customary Kongo insignia also involved a belt or band whose name in the twentieth century was recorded as ndembe a nleze.15 It crossed the chest, and was interpreted as simulating a cord worn by mothers during the period when they suckled their babies. Troesch thus perceived this emblem as employing a chief-and-mother affinity and suggested the possibility of a parallel between authority and motherhood. In connection with the corollary of female characteristics of the chief's cap discussed above, this parallel seems most plausible. A seventeenth-century illustration76 depicting Loango nobles and chiefs, as well as Redinha's modern studies77 among the Dembo, show that the band or

26 Crown and Ritual belt crossing the chest has been worn by some, while some used only half of such a band. It hung from the chief's shoulder down to the opposite hip. In the investiture of the Kongo king Pedro II in 1622, this ensign was said to be an iron chain.78 Canon Cordeiro in his report was explicit about the meaning of the regal emblem, which he referred to as being most antique. As a woman carries her sons on her back, the king is to carry his people: so Cordeiro recorded the message conveyed by this ensign in the investiture of 1622. Equally, the Kwakongo chief Lelo Sala, in July 1975, clarified for me the significance of the woven raffia belt which hung, improperly, around his neck, as he insisted on receiving me in a European jacket. The band, if properly hung from the right shoulder down to the left hip, would not have shown. One infers conclusively that the belt or band had an identical meaning as an emblem, whether worn over only one shoulder or crossing the wearer's chest. Furthermore, it seems to be evident that, like the cap/crown, this symbol introduced a female accent into the chief's ceremonial panoply. One can speculate that this meaning might extend also to the belt around the waist. To support such speculation one ought to take into consideration the most common female behaviour. Any time a Kongo woman wants to carry her child, who may be rather grown up and not just a nursing infant, she unties her wide multiple belt wound round the waist. To conclude the discussion pertinent to the fragment from the Lusunsi shrine, a parallel can be drawn between its material properties and parts of the chief's insignia. Red and black belts have colours which are associated by the Bakongo with copper and iron. The iron chain used in the 1622 investiture is of the same type of material as the fragment's bars. Both the material, copper, and its red colour have been found to connote female elements. Consequently, they conform to the meaning of the belt worn on the shoulder. Finally, the belts or bands woven in fibres converge, in their style of manufacture, with that of the fragment, as the knotted chief's cap did with the coiled copper cap/crown. It seems justifiable, therefore, to establish that the fragment was originally part of an object which represented a superhuman epitome of the long belt or band. d) Double Bells Of all three superhuman insignia, it is evidently the human version of the cap which shows the most persistence in customary use and the most resistance to importations up to the present. In both its tenacity and incidence within the entire Kongoland it is matched by the iron bells. Two basic types of iron bells that is, double bells and a single bell - occur among the Bakongo. They appear in two modes of manufacture. One mode subsumes bells made of two iron

The Insignia 27 plates bonded together along the sides of each bell with the help of annealing to create a seamlike sharp edge. Double bells are connected by a handle made of narrow strips in two iron sheets also joined together. Neither single nor double bells have clappers. When used they are beaten with a wooden stick. The second method of manufacture includes single and double bells made of one iron plate which is folded to create a cone with a slit on the side. The bells produced in this way do not have clappers either. The double bells brought by Tastevin from the Lusunsi shrine (Appendix la, no. 13) have sharp flanges; they belong to the first group. They are now fragmentary; most of the resonant parts of both bells have vanished. However, the fragment allows for their identification beyond doubt. The size of these fragmentary double bells attests that they were not of superhuman scale, in contrast to the cap/crown and neckpiece. The width and length of the fragment of the resonant parts are wholly comparable to those of specimens of double bells still in use in Kongoland in the 19708. A safe guess can be made, therefore, that the original length of the object from the Lusunsi shrine was some 25 to 30 centimetres, with the width not substantially exceeding 13.5 centimetres, which is now the width of the fragment. By their size, material, and manufacture, the double bells from the Lusunsi shrine coincide with the double bells used by some Kongo leaders to the present. The are called ngonge or tchingonge, ngongi, ngongo, ngongodi. It is noteworthy that the method of manufacture is not acknowledged lexically. The eastern Bakongo on the Nsele River who made and used folded conical double bells with slits designated them also as ngongi, as recorded in the 1930s.79 The root -gong-, which appears in the designations of the double bells, is frequent in Bantu words denominating this object.80 It is absent, however, in Kongo terms used for the iron single bell, kinkoto, nkunku, or nkunka*1 These designations presumably derive from the Kongo verb kinku, to strike, to beat.' According to Tastevin's notes, one can assume that the insignia as preserved in situ and not removed from the shrine included a single bell. The incidence of either single or double bells as leadership emblems within the Kongoland can be documented for the last five centuries.82 However, the early outside sources regrettably lack accurate descriptions. For instance, in Pigafetta's rendering, Lopez speaks about a clapperless pyramid in iron plates used for war signals, which may be understood as a reference to a single bell. Battell, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, alludes to a royal bell, which might or might not refer to a single bell. Sources of the later seventeenth century and of the nineteenth century are more specific. They comment mainly on double bells. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the eastern Bakongo living on the upper Nsele River were found using both single and double bells, whereas in

28 Crown and Ritual northern Manyanga large single bells had already become a rarity while smaller double bells were more common.83 In the 19705,1 observed in various regions a small round bell cast in brass with a clapper, kept in the chief's house. It is called ngunga*4 and is used sometimes as a pendant on the chief's belt. The clapperless iron double bells are now more scarce - or, rather, less visible and, as a rule, they cannot be found in the chiefs' houses. The incidence of a single bell does not appear in my field records at all, although the tradition recalls it frequently. Many of the chiefs' bells have vanished recently; major losses suffered by part of the Kongo population in the last three decades [i.e., the 19605 through the 19805], during hasty movements across the AngolanZairean border, would account for this. Examining the bells as leadership emblems in Africa, Vansina85 established a link between the dissemination of the idea of political organization and the diffusion of iron flat-flanged bells, whether single or double. The Kongo case effectively supports the connection of large, clapperless, iron bells with the basic principles of political organization. The tie of the double bells with leadership is so distinct and firm - even now in modern times, after the structure of Kongo society has suffered considerable damage - that one is tempted to downplay the risk of generalization and project the validity of this link far into history. Contrary to the examples cited by Vansina, the double bells rank high among the insignia. In the Kongoland, they are clearly a major emblem. On the grounds of the available data, one is led to assume that in the Kongoland there has been no pattern of correlation between the particular political organization and the type of bell since the centralized state (i.e., kingship) and chieftainship began their coexistence. Double bells are reported in i666-786 to have been used by the state officers in Mbata, while in 1873 in the same kingdom they were observed to be associated with the chieftainship. In Loango in the 18705, double bells were the emblem of chiefs as well as of the Ma Loango, the king,87 as they were a century later in Kwakongo.88 On the Nsele River in the east, as already mentioned, both double and single bells were found in use in the 19305, both of them associated with chiefs. In the chiefdoms of the Dondo miners in the north, the traditions up to the present also allude to both types of bells. Thus, in contrast to the dichotomy of caps, identical types of iron bell have been affiliated with both chieftainship and kingship. Although for some six and a half centuries chieftainship and kingship coexisted simultaneously in the Kongoland, the two institutions are clearly not the same age. Consequently, a query arises: Did the state assimilate the status symbol of an older social institution so that kings adopted chiefs' bells; or are chiefs' bells a borrowing from the inventory of royal insignia, thus reflecting respect for a younger type of organization, which, however, manifested itself as politically more powerful?

The Insignia

29

The ngonge are the subject of a number of Kongo maxims. Various kinds of drums, double bells, and blowing horns are often conjoint in proverbs, each conveying in metaphoric language a distinct social value. Among them, the double bells stand for the authority of the chief. The maxim on the ngonge is a statement about either the necessity of respect towards authority or the authority's onerous aspect. 'Acquiring ngonge [means] obtaining problems' ('U sumba ngonge; u zola bioko'),89 as a proverb states. The parallel between the chief's authority and double bells is probably most overtly apparent in a Woyo maxim recorded by Father Martins:90 'The ngonge create the country; the country will not be brought to death' ('ngonge i vanga nsi; issi vonda nsi ko'). In their close association with the chief's authority, double bells can be compared only with the cap, which is also a substitute in the incantations and proverbs for the chief and his power, kimfumu.91 It is thus justifiable to see the double bells as customarily tied to the chieftainship. The attachment to chieftainship does not rule out the use of double bells by the king. The adoption by the state of a number of insignia was only symptomatic of the appropriation, or of an attempt at appropriation, of certain rights inherent to chieftainship. Moreover, the association of double bells with authority attests to their prominent place among the insignia. The high rank of this emblem is also expressed in its presence in the Lusunsi shrine. As an important symbol, it is part of the iconography carved in relief on special objects connected with authority, such as the long drums, called ndungu, used in Loango and Ngoyo. The function of double bells in the Kongo appears at first rather discursive. They have been used on mundane occasions, such as the chiefs travel in a hammock; or the passing of a trading caravan through a particular chief's country; or at ceremonial events such as a chief's investiture; or, finally, in periods of religious observance such as during the display of the dead leader's body.92 However varied, all instances of the use of the bells have a common denominator inferred from the meaning of double bells. They have been heard on occasions when the country's interest and customs were to be voiced. Such instances occurred when duty had to be paid to the country by itinerant traders, order maintained at markets, or stolen property restored. Others arose when it was felt necessary to communicate ceremonially the leader's prerogatives and rights within his country. The double bells also announced the revitalization of authority by the chief's investiture, and communicated rigorous prohibitions imposed upon the population at the death of the authority bearer. In Kwakongo, where the ngongo were still fully in use in the 1970s,93 it is said that they announce strict sanctions and high penalties for those whose dogs, pigs, and goats are seen in the open within the village after the chief's or king's death and before the new leader is invested. This prohibition, also mentioned in other

30 Crown and Ritual Kongo regions by missionaries in past centuries, presumably stands for the protection of human organization during a dangerous period. Organization, represented by the village, is contrasted to the disorder usually associated with animals or found in the forest. A threat to the social organization has been seen in moments of the interregnum. During the chief's funeral ceremonies, the zimpungi - horns in ivory and wood - and the masikulu - round drums of average size - are heard for the last time communicating with the dead.94 In the interregnum the double bells, horns, and drums are said to remain silent, being reactivated only upon a new investiture. The voice of authority is temporarily extinguished while the double bells cannot be used. This period is thus considered risky for trading or travel and critical for the individual's property. That is how the missionaries and explorers in past centuries arrived at the opinion that anarchy commenced after the chief's death. In contrast to the cap, which is believed to contain authority, the double bells, drums, and horns, which maintain or support authority, are not to be kept by the chief. Unlike the cap, neckpiece, belt, cane, and whisk, the double bells, horns, and drums do not constitute the chief's panoply. Nor are they used by him. As a rule, the group's drums and horns are in the custody of other high-ranking members of the kin group. The double bells are normally kept and used by members of the chiefs or king's entourage. Differences in the intended user also explain the difference in size between the cap/crown and the ngonge from the Lusunsi shrine. The double bells are human in scale. The composition, name, and number of members of the leader's entourage vary throughout the Kongoland. The Bawoyo, for instance, call these attendants the badunga.95 They number nine members. In Kwakongo,96 they are referred to as bamantandu, or royal entourage, and bantandu or bananga, the chief's entourage. This group consists of six men. According to their functions, they are both praetoriani - bodyguards - and policemen. In the tonal language of the double bells, the head of the leader's entourage expresses a number of messages which are clearly comprehensible to the crowd. Judging from the people's overt response observed during the reception ceremony in the Kwakongo regent's village, both solemn and banal communications were delivered in tones and rhythms. People started cheering after the opening recital, which was presumably a panegyric. Echoing shorter messages by the double bells, at the conclusion of the ceremony they expressed either disappointment or satisfaction with my respect, understanding, and generosity. The core of the performance by the bamantandu was an agitated pantomime directed also by the double bells' sound. Having listened to their metrical and tonal compositions, the bearer of the leader's large knife added more authoritative gestures or intensified his threatening movements directed towards visitors. As a climax, and still following the

The Insignia 31 double bells' message, this member of the entourage ate a live chicken. During the pantomime, when the double bells were 'talking' to the acting bamantandu rather than to the crowd, all participants showed silent and profound reverence. They focused their attention on the official who beat the double bells while the regent stood quietly and with self-control, seemingly unnoticed, in the centre of the scene. Overtly they paid respect to the authority rather than to its holder. Apart from testing the visitor's qualities, the performance evidently was organized to demonstrate to the outsider the various facets of the authority within the visited country. In a drama with an interchange of joyful and frightening moments, the authority's responsibilities and omnipresence, its power and command, and its uncompromising decisions and imposed penalties were exposed. The double bells acted as director of this scenario written by custom. On the customary occasions I observed in the 19705 in the field, as well as during demonstrations, the double bells were struck while positioned horizontally against the left shoulder. Suggestions about striking them in a vertical position were judged as improper or not professional. Thus, my observations of the way the double bells are held when played do not agree with illustrations of the use of both single and double bells in European accounts of the seventeenth century.97 There, the bells are shown as held at a distance from the user's body and struck in a vertical position with the bells' opening turned downwards. This is the way the Bakuba use their single bell.98 Yet a different positioning is found in West African iconography; double bells on an Asante weight and on a Benin plaque99 are depicted as struck in a vertical position but with the bells' opening turned upwards. Both latter representations are compatible with the way Lopez described the use of what was presumably a single bell by sixteenthcentury Kongo military commanders. Thus, there are discrepancies between twentieth-century observations, illustrations published in the seventeenth century, and sixteenth-century descriptions of the way clapperless bells have been used in the Kongoland. However, it would be rash to draw a conclusion based on changes in the use of the bells over time. The European illustrations prove not to be a reliable source in this regard. While the illustrators usually seem to have been familiar with the objects brought from Africa, they often relied on invention in describing how the objects were used. Kongo blowing horns in ivory are a good example. The discrepancy between Lopez's description, which does not raise doubts, and modern observations, may suggest either regional diversity or a difference in the use of the single bell and double bells. In their social importance, the clapperless iron double bells cannot be compared with any other type of bell used by the Bakongo. The records on the function and meaning of the large clapperless single bell are scanty and inconclusive. It might have been used to voice orders of the authority if Lopez's pas-

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sage on communication of military command refers to the single bell. However, it might have been associated rather with religious aspects of the leader's responsibilities. Bastian100 in the 18705 observed a single bell, kunku, as part of the inventory of a shrine. The round bells cast in brass with a clapper, which have already been mentioned, seem to have been assimilated by the tradition. They presumably replaced the customary small iron or copper bells in the chief's panoply with clappers similar to those recovered from the excavated graves at Sanga in Shaba.101 Such customarily made bells with clappers were not, however, used exclusively by the chiefs. Priests, diviners, and commoners, as well as slaves, are said also to employ the ngunga and its sound on special occasions. Tradition in the northern mining region on the Loutete River round Mfuati,102 for instance, has it that the bell ngunga was attached at the entrance to the ntari hubuka [mbukal]. The latter is a geological curiosity; the peak of a mountain west of the village Bijua Nguma is perforated with a large opening running roughly west to east. This open grotto, considered a sacred place of the mining area, is said to be accessible to any inhabitant, including a slave. Upon starting prayers, the visitor is supposed to ring the ngunga for a long time. The modern cast bells of brass, in small and large sizes, are related to missionary work as it penetrated some parts of the Kongoland from the end of the fifteenth century. They are always designated as not being ancestral. Finally, there are various kinds of wooden bells with clappers. Some of them are simple utilitarian objects; some are covered with rich, carved designs and are superimposed by a figure. They all, however, serve other purposes than government and authority. The special shape and mode of manufacture of iron single and double bells with flanges led Walton and Vansina103 to hypothesize a common origin for these types of bell. Each of these scholars advanced the idea of some common place of origin from which artifacts of this shape and manufacture were diffused. Walton argues that double bells spread from the lower Congo along the Kasai to Kazembe, south of Lake Mweru. Thence, they are said to have been introduced into Great Zimbabwe. In the Zimbabwe acropolis three double bells are archaeologically recorded in the third phase of its occupation, in the fourteenth century, according to modern writings.104 Thus it is implied that the diffusion would have taken place prior to 1300, with the origin and use within the seminal area antedating the start of the process of dispersion. Vansina's argument goes still further historically and is more specific. He proposed West Africa as the area of origin of both single and double bells. Moreover, he suggested that the spread of double bells through the Lower Congo to Shaba, Zambia, and southwards to Zimbabwe occurred sometime between 800 and the fourteenth century.

The Insignia 33 The role of the Lower Congo-Upper Niari area as the place either of origin or of dissemination of double bells in Central Africa may be difficult to prove fully. The reference to possible future archaeological findings does not apply in this instance, either. Double bells, as with all insignia of high rank, are hereditary in the Kongo. That implies that they were seldom, if ever, used in burials. Their importance would have inhibited their suppression or their removal from the social context; the double bell is one of those objects which embodies the Kongo society's continuity and permanence. It is therefore pertinent to expect those Kongo double bells which are still in use to be of considerable antiquity. Oral tradition provides a piece of evidence which may help to clarify the significance of this area in the history of double bells. The Bakongo perceived themselves as the sole carriers and sowers of social and political organizing principles. This knowledge was introduced by the great father Ne Kongo, so they assert, and was passed on to his children and peacefully disseminated by them among other peoples. Since there is ample evidence to support the link between the double bells and authority in the Kongoland, this claim, which inevitably turns up in every narrative of a Kongo person of rank and makes its way also into the myths, is not negligible. More convincing evidence, however, is provided by the mode of manufacture. The iron clapperless single bell with flanges, excavated in Shaba on the Upper Lualaba at Katoto,105 is to date the earliest archaeological incidence of this kind of artifact.106 It was deposited in the level dated to the twelfth century together with other rich grave goods. Among the copper and iron items, which impress by their quantity, none documents a technology comparable with this bell. Sanga is the richest necropolis in Shaba, with 144 excavated graves and a considerable quantity of recovered metal objects.107 Among them, only the small iron bells are compatible in the technique of their manufacture with flanged bells. They were recovered from interments dated to the eleventh and fourteenth centuries.108 On the other hand, among the artifacts removed from the Lusunsi shrine, two different objects show the technique of two metal plates bonded together at the flanges by annealing and forging: the iron double bells and the copper cap/crown. All units of the four bands of ornament attached to the wall of the cap/crown (Appendix la, no. i) are made with two partly joined copper plates. In the motif of leopard molars, the central one is always hollow and is identical in shape and manufacture with the bell. It looks like a shorter version of the flanged bell. Originally, it occurred fifty-four times on the cap/ crown. Since two units are now missing, this motif appears forty-four times, exhibiting in a number of variants two shapes of flanged bells: a quasi-cylindrical one, of which samples were recovered in Great Zimbabwe and found in use in the Kongoland; and a conic one, known, for instance, from north-eastern and

34

Crown and Ritual

north-western Zambia,109 and found also in the hands of the Bakongo. In addition, some motifs of hollow molars have a conic flanged shape with a crease in the middle, like the single bell recovered from the burial II/8 at Ingombe Ilede, which is a Later Iron Age site in north-eastern Zambia.110 In light of the Lusunsi set of objects, a technology based on hammered sheets and their annealed joining in seams to create a cavity appears to be current. Unlike the contexts of various artifacts of other areas, the technology is applied in the manufacture of different items and is not reserved for bells. The incidence of this technology in both ironworking and copperworking attests to its wider spread. Finally, the use of an identical technique to produce variants of an item, as in the case of leopard molars, corroborates the technique's general use. The available evidence thus leads one to assume that the area of insignia from the Lusunsi shrine did play an exceptional role in the history of the iron double bells, whether in their origin or distribution. It will be demonstrated that other objects of the Lusunsi set show even more overtly the tie between the insignia as symbols of government and metallurgy. The argument will thus be developed further. e) Knife Blades A pointed portion of a blade, a large two-edged blade, and the blade of an asymmetrical knife are also part of the set removed from the shrine. All three items are either fragmentary or heavily damaged. Their iron material is totally corroded. The portion of the blade (Appendix la, no. 9) allows several interpretations. In view of its size the fragment might be a tip of a spearhead or of a long dagger, or, finally, of a sword. The pointed blade broadened at the end where it was originally shafted (Appendix la, no. 7) can be identified as a dagger or sword. The one-edged asymmetrical blade (Appendix la, no. 8) is presumably part of a large knife. Neither written European accounts nor oral traditions including proverbs convincingly support the idea of the spear as part of the Kongo chiefs' or king's regalia. There was no trace found either among the insignia, which still serve their purpose, or in the iconography of Kongo sculpture. When the king of Mbanza Kongo is said by Cavazzi to have exhibited his spear and shield, it was on occasions of military parades organized in the seventeenth century as reviews of and a tribute by the royal armed forces. When the king received his army, he was presumably also armed rather than in the regalia of his political and religious authority; the spear and shield were his weapons. Abundant field data indicate, on the other hand, that knives, daggers, and swords are part of the inventory of status symbols. However, I was not able to

The Insignia

35

trace any rules codifying the correlation of the kind of leader and the kind of symbol, whether knife, dagger, or sword. Also, there seems nowadays to be no custom according to which the bestowal of one of the leader's symbols would inhibit the ownership of the other. Currently, chiefs may be found who have, for instance, both a knife and a sword among their insignia. Yet Lopez,111 enumerating weapons used in the sixteenth century by the army of the king of Mbanza Kongo, refers to a dagger carried by those warriors who used only bows and arrows, while a sword is said to have been used concurrently only with the shield. Thus, the distinction between a dagger and a sword must have been commonly honoured and well-established. The lexical findings nowadays do not help to draw distinctions either. The designation mbele includes profane and ceremonial knives, daggers, and swords of various sizes and shapes. To name a particular kind of knife, sword, or dagger one adds another noun, verb, or adjective.112 Mbele yi mangdndi is, for instance, a knife which a free man can wear attached to his belt"3 or mbele kitdnsi,114 and mbele minkvdti are knives of large size which are part of the chief's insignia. The word mbele seems to be an ancient Kongo word of general meaning like mpu, the name for a leader's cap. It is widely used within the Kongo with no variants in regional dialects, and, since the mid-seventeenth century, when it was recorded in one of the first dictionaries of Kikongo, it has not undergone any change.115 The knife, sword, or dagger belonging to the chiefs' or king's regalia is also called a mbele a lulendo, the knife of authority. An eastern variant is mbele nsangu,n6 knife of reputation. Yet another alternative which is widespread is mbele Kongo. The meaning of this designation, I was told, is twofold: it is the most customary knife, whose use goes back to Kongo origins, and a large knife. Yet again, all these denominations may designate a regal knife, dagger, or sword as inferred conclusively from inquiries in various Kongo regions. Thus, it is justified to sum up that the custom as remembered and expressed lexically does not seem to distinguish among the three kinds of regal implements. Since, on the other hand, there is no reason for not giving credibility to Lopez's sixteenth-century testimony on Kongo weapons, one is led to suppose that the incorporation of the knife, dagger, or sword into the leaders' regalia was based on values other than warfare. Unlike the Luba chief, the Kongo authority bearer has not been bestowed with hunter's emblems."7 And unlike an Akan leader's knife or sword, the Kongo chief's and king's mbele does not stand for a commemoration of victory in war. Oral traditions of the Bakongo recorded in the 1930s"8 are explicit in affirming that the Kongo regal knife was neither an importation nor associated with warfare. It counts for one of those essential items that are said to have been car-

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ried by the headmen of the eastern Bakongo119 in their mythical pilgrimage while dispersing from the nucleus. The northern Bakongo, who are landholders in the mining area of the Congo-Niari watershed and are nowadays called Badondo, do not state that they carried the knife during their dispersal.120 Yet it is the first object that the tradition refers to as soon as the Badondo are said to have started extracting metal. The privileged position of the mbele among other objects of indigenous manufacture is paraphrased in the allusions to a mythical quarrel over a knife which was supposed to have taken place in the very distant past in the neighbourhood of the 'Large Water.'121 Kongo traditions, though ascribing to the mbele a privileged position, still are not explicit in elucidating its historical roles. The Akan regal sword symbolizes the conquests which led, according to the tradition, to the birth of the centralized states. Luba legend sees the hunters Mbidikiluwe and his son Ilunga as carrier and initiator of chieftainship. By extension, respect paid to hunting weapons in various levels of government within the Lubaland are part of the mythological fabric. How does the myth connect the Kongo hero founder and the knife, sword, or dagger? It is to the Great Kongo or Ne Kongo that all the many versions of the myth attribute the invention and dissemination of the knowledge of how to organize society. The myth characterizes him politically as leader and socially as father or maternal uncle. Those versions of the myth which also specifically enumerate symbols of his authority mention the knife as the most important among them. 122 However, instead of elaborating on the mode of its use, the narrator in this passage alludes consistently to the knife's origin. Extraction of iron and blacksmith's work are brought up as activities conducted in the country of the Ne Kongo's authority. Also, on other occasions in the traditions, iron working conclusively and repeatedly connotes the manufacturing of knives. When fragments of information provided by the Kongo traditions on the subject of the knife are connected to each other, they prompt an unequivocal conclusion. The regal knife, sword, or dagger appears as a commemoration of the metalworking tradition. Moreover, the knife is associated with the onset of the objects' manufacture by the people who then called themselves Bakongo. The dagger and sword seem to have been incorporated into the regalia as the knife's equivalents, and that is presumably why they are not acknowledged lexically. The knife has been both a product and a tool of metalworking. When, in 1883-4, the geologist and agents of the Association du Congo succeeded in penetrating the Kongo mining region of the Congo-Niari watershed, they were able to witness still-active indigenous copper and lead mining and smelting. By then, large knives were noticed as the only tools used in mining, together with points made of hard wood.123 In the area, the large, usually one-edged knife with a simple handle of wood or a wound piece of cloth still prevails in the old

The Insignia

37

miners' property.124 Wooden pegs, spear-pointed knives, and little hoes were reported as indigenous mining tools also in the southern Kongo copper-mining district of Bembe.125 Outside the copper-mining areas, mainly in the northern and north-western Kongoland, the identical type of knife, called mbele kitdnsi, belongs to the chief's or king's hereditary regalia. Carried either by the leader himself or by a man of his entourage, it takes part in all important negotiations: during a trial between two lineages, for instance, or in disputes in premarital negotiations between kin groups. Once the deal was made, the knife-point was driven into the earth.126 In some regions, at least, the custom still stands. Observations of the 18705 as well as the 19705 testify that the driving of the knife into the ground has occurred both on community occasions and when white outsiders are involved.127 The meaning of this act can be interpreted as a confirmation of the negotiated deal and as corroboration of the commitments of both parties. It may be analogous to signatures on a contract, binding as well as protecting the involved parties. The knife or sword dance performed either by the chief himself or by an assigned dignitary on rare and festive occasions also attests, by its choreography, to this interpretation. One of its recorded variants128 recapitulated in metaphors one part of the chief's investiture in that he is symbolically married into his own lineage. After the marriage was consummated, the point of the sword was driven into the ground. Another variant of the knife dance, performed as part of the aforementioned pantomime organized for my reception in Kwakongo, narrated in eloquent postural language the laws of the country. In various contexts the dance several times led to the moment when the knife was pointed to the earth as a conclusion of a postural sentence and a communication of one of the laws. At the end of the pantomime, after the double bells approved my proposed reward, the knife-point was driven into the ground in front of me. One can hardly disregard the mimetic affinity of the use of the mining tool and the custom of driving the knife-point into the earth. In both cases, the instrument is considered by the Bakongo as strictly male. The mbele, which is bakala (male), must be carried only in the right hand, which is bakala as well, as it has been pointed out repeatedly by informants. The lifted right arm holding a knife bears an unequivocal meaning: it is an order-giving gesture and is attributed only to a male. This same gesture, seen in a number of Kongo sculptures, is misunderstood by outside interpreters as threatening or having the intention to kill. Among the leader's regalia, the knife balances the outright female components, such as the cap, or the leopard's claws or teeth on the neckpiece. The custom of driving a knife into the earth has been practised also in Kongo magic and religion. Anthropomorphic figures flanked by swords stuck in the ground reported in the nineteenth century129 doubtless took part in an older tradition of displaying leaders' or communal protective sculptures. On the other

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hand, knife blades and nails driven into the wood of a live tree130 or of a carved figure seem to be a symbiosis of traditional purpose and the introduced Christian symbolism of the wound and death.131 Whether in response to a request or not, the tradition always stresses that the knife is not an imported implement. However, the truth is that in the treasuries of some chiefs, swords were found which repeated or modified Spanish swords of the sixteenth century.132 Some specimens whose last remnants may still be traced to their original hands appear to be manufactured locally. The past and present incidence of these swords indicates that they were dispersed from Mbanza Kongo (Sao Salvador) and its neighbourhood, where the importation of royal insignia from the Iberian peninsula occurred in the past. The chiefs who still keep them are either the Nlaza or Vuzi di Nkuwu, and their lineages claim to have belonged to the pretenders of kingship; they left Mbanza Kongo after one of the many pretenders' battles following the seventeenth century. Thus, by diffusion and carried by their users, these swords of imported type spread within a relatively wide region in the Central Kongoland, between the middle Inkisi and Lufu rivers. The mbele a lulendo differs from an indigenous knife used in mining not only in type but also in size. While the 'Spanish' mbele is usually eighty to ninety centimetres long, the miners' and, by extension, regal knives have blades of some twenty-eight to thirty-five centimetres in length. By their dimensions, both the blade point and the asymmetrical blade removed from the Lusunsi shrine coincide in size with the indigenous mining/regal knives. The symmetrical blade, which is slightly longer, corresponds with regal daggers, samples of which were found in the 19708 still in the chiefs' hands and which are doubtless of indigenous manufacture. The highly corroded surfaces of the three blades do not indicate any trace of decoration.'33 The mining/regal knives are not decorated. However, abundant European accounts of past centuries report on Kongo swords, knives, and daggers incised and with precious inlays of copper. Some regions in the Kongoland seem to have especially excelled in such fine blacksmiths' artifacts. It is important for further considerations of Kongo metalworking to note that several of these centres were located in the north-west, on both the western and eastern fringes of the Mayombe forest. While reported134 only in the nineteenth century, when this area first opened to European explorers, the centres conceivably perpetuated a much older tradition. f) Pick, Hammers, and Ring A corroded point of iron (Appendix la, no. 12) which was also removed from the Lusunsi shrine most probably matches, by its purpose, the regal/mining

The Insignia 39 knife. Its top is flattened, and it is partly folded, creating a crooked edge which does not indicate any trace of an attachment. Nothing suggests that this point was once attached to a spear. It was meant to be used either as a point in the bare hand or as a pick inserted in a perforated handle. In the latter case, the forged iron point would be anchored to the wooden handle by the same means as the axe or adze still used by Kongo carvers. Iron picks were, until the early twentieth century, the tools of the Yeke miners in the central part of the Shaba copper mining area, in Dikuluwe.135 Archaeological excavations136 yielded iron picks pointed at both ends and used as rock-breaking tools in Later Iron Age gold and copper mines in Zimbabwe. They were hafted into a club-ended wooden handle. Iron gads, pointed at one end and bloomed by striking on the other, have been recovered from various ancient mining sites in southern Zimbabwe and in southern Africa.137 By its shape and length, the pick of the shrine relates most closely to an iron pick recovered from the Later Iron Age copper mine site in Kipushi, north-western Zambia.138 The secretiveness which enabled the Bakongo to make themselves reputed and distinct from other Central African peoples applies to metallurgic processes more than to other occupations. That explains why the tools used in their metalworking are the least known in Central Africa. It seems safe, however, to speculate that the iron pick kept under high religious auspices in the shrine was, like a knife, a token of the mining tradition. An iron pick may have been used concurrently with one of hard wood. The latter was reported in the i88os, as already mentioned. Like the iron pick, the hammers, which also belong to the set brought to Paris by Tastevin, are not found now as part of the regalia kept by the chief. Nor are they claimed by the leaders as insignia or relics, such as the horns or bells, in the care of other high-ranking members of the kin group. Their absence may be the result of the limited memory of oral tradition, which sometimes preserves only a partial image of the past. However, this omission in the list of regal objects may also be due to the fact that these tools were not leaders' but investors' insignia. That is presumably the case with the iron hammers. Two objects of iron (Appendix la, nos. 10, 11), worked rather rudely into an asymmetrical lozenge shape, are of a size and contour to fit aptly into the hand. With their irregular shape as well as corrugated surface, they bring to mind lithic tools. As tools they may be bi-sided. One end is pointed while the other is wedge-shaped. As a tool, the artifact would presumably be held in the hand rather than hafted. Considering the distribution of weight in relation to the shape, it is difficult to find an appropriate spot for hafting. On the other hand, bedded in the palm the tool is well suited for use at both ends. Its wedge-shaped

4O Crown and Ritual end suggests that it was not meant to strike hard, but rather was designed for steady hand pressure which would help make a line, a furrow, or a groove, since the wedge-shaped end is distinctly suited for cutting, rather than tapping or hitting. It is tempting to think that the pointed end was also meant for tooling. The point has been hammered into a pentagonal cross-section and retains acuity at its extremity, even in its present corroded state. Thus, this end, if used as a tool, would be suitable for breaking up and splitting the crude iron bloom or the reduced lumps of iron ore. In European accounts, chunks of iron fitting into the hand were recorded in 1705 in Soyo, and in the second half of the seventeenth century in the southern parts of the Kongoland.139 They were smiths' tools. In Sao Salvador, about 1879, the blacksmith's hammer was described as a piece of iron which perhaps had once been a marline-spike,140 and some few years earlier in the Upper Tchiloango River region, in Loango, a smith's hammer was recorded which was a piece of iron fitted in the hand.141 With reasonable probability, the two iron objects of irregular lozenge shape from the Lusunsi shrine were smelters' or blacksmiths' hammers. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century accounts142 refer conclusively to two hammers, whether similar or equal, as constituting the equipment of the smithy, apart from the bellows, in various parts of the Kongoland. In some cases, one hammer was larger and was considered male, while the smaller one was female.143 In other cases, one of the two identical tools was used as an anvil, the other as a hammer. The Kongo word nzundu designates both anvil and hammer, which is a lexical confirmation of the interchangeability of these tools. In some places, such as Sao Salvador, Mbanza Inga, or northern Manyanga, the material of the anvil is said to have been stone instead of iron.144 Such stone used as an anvil is also called nzundu.145 These two blacksmith's tools have customarily been accorded the utmost respect. They have been struck one against the other to produce sound on a number of important occasions other than metalworking. The sound, however, was to evoke the blacksmith's work and was produced by the blacksmith. The report of 1622, written in Sao Salvador by its provisor and vicar Canon Cordeiro and sent to the Jesuits in Luanda, on the death of the king Alvaro III and on the investiture of Pedro II Afonso,146 for instance, speaks of it as accompanying the investiture act. The zundo [nzundu], so the report has it, was a most ancient royal emblem and was allowed to be employed only in the investiture of the king of Mbanza Kongo and of the duke of Mbata. This testimony, as valuable as it is incomplete, is to be complemented by observations made in the 19308 in the chiefdoms of south-eastern Bakongo.147 Striking the nzundu is described there as an indispensable act during the opening of the ancestral basket, which

The Insignia 41 is, throughout the Kongoland, an event of utmost importance for the kin group and its government. It occurs, among other occasions, at the chief's investiture. It is performed by the blacksmith, who also takes a cardinal part in the chief's investiture. Two hammers - of which one might have been an anvil, as already explained - also seem to have been struck by the Kongo blacksmith on other occasions of religious importance. Seventeenth-century Loango blacksmiths are said148 to have produced this sound when purifying the house or bed after sexual misconduct, both marital and non-marital. And the two stones struck by a special official in the course of the circumcision of Solongo boys,149 according to an ethnographic account of the twentieth century, seem to have a similar purpose: purification and premarital protection. According to Tastevin's manuscript notes, found in the archives of the Musee de 1'Homme and in the Archives Generates des Peres du St-Esprit (Appendix la, no. 10), the shrine contained more of the iron hammers/anvils than were included in Tastevin's set. While Tastevin's descriptions vary in stating the number of these iron objects, they are conclusive on one point. In all versions of the description, the shape of these iron objects is referred to basically as a lozenge. Tastevin might have seen them only briefly in situ or heard about their place in the shrine from Abbe Mambuko, who had seen them. The iron lozenge objects are said to have been stuck into the ground by their points, creating a circle around the sacred tree. One of the descriptions'50 suggests that this spot was the focal point of the shrine, a sort of altar, which the priest wanted to hide from the view of outsiders. The important role of the hammers/ anvils in the shrine would thus be consonant with the significance of their other religious functions which have already been discussed. Their non-utilitarian presence in the shrine is further demonstrated by the fact that none of the two hammers collected by Tastevin shows traces of use. The significance of the hammers/anvils, on the one hand, and their morphologic peculiarity and roughness of texture, on the other, stir special concern. The irregular lozenge shape is well suited for handling. Yet it is rudimentary, uncomplicated, and maladroit. Its peculiarity prompts an extracultural comparison with the array of iron bars which were found from the mid-nineteenth century onwards in the Near East and in various places in Europe, and whose technology has been the subject of several studies since I96i.' 5 ' Most of these bars excavated in Assyrian sites of the eighth century BC in Khorsabad and Nimrud were contained within the treasuries of the royal palaces. In Europe, the bars were often found in depots of various sizes, archaeologically recovered mainly along the Upper Danube River, in southern Rhineland, and in northern France. While most finds are attributed to Roman times, to the second and third centuries AD, some bars were associated with the Hallstaht period, to about the

42

Crown and Ritual

middle of the last millennium B.C. The bars are uneven in length and weight. However, they invariably show an irregular, double-pyramidal, lozenge shape with tapering sides, a crude and corrugated surface, and a quasi-rectangular cross-section at the middle. Most of the bars from Khorsabad and Nimrud are pierced, while many found in Europe have no holes. Thus, the shaft holes appear to be dispensable for the function of these objects, a question which is still under discussion. That bars are considered ingots152 would account for their widespread appearance in the Near East and Europe, and it would also shed some light on their peculiar shape. On the other hand, at least some of them have been identified as mining tools with a slender shaft of pliable wood;153 that would explain the existence of the shaft holes. The identification of some bars as tools would also make it comprehensible that, on some items, one of the extremities was hardened by carburization, if, of course, the carburization was intentional. The two iron hammers/anvils from the Lusunsi shrine are akin to the Near Eastern and European bars due to the peculiar lozenge shape, the crude surface, the quasi-rectangular cross-section, and the presence of one pointed and one flat extremity. In their size, they compare well with the smaller type of bar found in Europe. They also are lighter. The smaller size and lighter weight of the objects from the shrine make their identification as tools much more probable, although not unequivocal. The peculiarity of the shape, awkward for a metal tool, poses a problem, as it does in the case of the Near Eastern and European bars. One can speculate that these objects from the shrine were tools only in their secondary function, and that in their shape and crudity of elaboration they retained the memory of their primary function as ingots. Do the morphologic properties suggest any historical relationship with the bars found in the Near East and Europe? Do they indicate that the span of incidence of these ingots/ tools also involved Africa? Are they reminiscent of some African participation in the beginnings of iron metallurgy? The form of man-made objects is such a preserver of man's history. These queries, although they could be dealt with only after further research, are important enough at least to be posed. They will be referred to in the following chapters. The questions are, at this point, left open because of the present paucity of information. The debated tool-ingot dichotomy appears less puzzling and less incomprehensible from an African perspective. African cultures provide many examples of this partnership. Crudely worked iron hoes were still used, for instance, as currency ingots in the Kongoland in the twentieth century.154 The Djem, a population living between the Upper Ogooue and Upper Sanga Rivers at the Gabon-Congo border, in the past and until this century,155 used roughly

The Insignia

43

made iron spear points as ingots and currency units. The hammers/anvils from the shrine differ from these other examples only in the reversed relation of form and function. The nineteenth-century Kongo and Djem ingots took the shape of the oddly worked tools. On the other hand, the hammers/anvils from the shrine presumably were tools which preserved their odd shape in relation to the way in which they reflected the earlier form of an ingot. Neither of the two other modes of Kongo ingots recorded by Laman156 has a lozenge shape. The long rods, which he rather inaccurately describes, were probably either segmented coniform, or more flat, elongated trapeziform. Two entirely mineralized fragments also belonging to the set of regalia brought by Tastevin (Appendix la, nos. 15, 16) might be the remainder of such a segmented coniform ingot. Yet the peculiar shape of the hammers/anvils from the shrine might not have been derived from an ingot. It could have retained the form of a lithic tool. The Lower Congo/Zaire River region, as well as the area of the Congo-Niari watershed, is rich in surface finds of tools of stone. The Kongo tradition157 often refers to them by relating them to the ancestry of land holding. Their makers were former masters of the land, so the tradition has it, who were neither the Bakongo nor the short men, the Pygmies. The lithic artifacts also include large specimens of picks twenty to twenty-five centimetres in length. In size and form the picks are comparable to the hammers/anvils from the shrine. Some specimens, such as the sandstone pick found at Tandu Mountain between Boko Songo and Mfuati,158 are most similar when viewed unifacially. In crosssection they are irregular, close to oval, and not rectangular like the Lusunsi hammers. This type of lithic tool was morphologically identified and was included in the Tumbakultur or Tumbian. It is a term coined in 1925 for a Stone Age culture in the Lower Congo/Zaire and Congo-Niari watershed,159 and subsumed later in the Lupemban by some archaeologists.160 Other than morphologic similarity, no other evidence for either possibility of the speculated sources for the Kongo hammer/anvil's shape can at present be established. Either possibility bears historical implications. The ingot-and-tool hypothesis would open up the consideration of wide extraterritorial relations; the idea of the derivation from lithic tools would lead to the exploration of links as they occurred in time within a confined space. Archaeology in this region is urgently needed, as it doubtless would indicate the direction in which further exploration might be rewarding. As with the double bells, the designation of the Kongo smith's hammer/anvil does not show changes within the Kongoland.16' Only regional modes of pronunciation can be recorded. Also, nzundu has been used to designate a number of shapes of hammer/anvils as they became diversified in the course of time

44

Crown and Ritual

among the Bakongo. In the twentieth century, the nzundu looks like a large headless nail in the southeastern part of the Kongoland;162 in Mayombe163 and among the Bawoyo164 it is a large iron mallet. An open iron ring (Appendix la, no. 14) also belongs to the iron items, which outnumber the copper ones in the group of objects removed from the shrine. The identification of the ring meets with difficulties. Its small size rules out its association with the chief's iron armlet which is part of the Kongo leader's paraphernalia. In size, it might fit the man's big toe if intended to be used on the foot rather than the hand. Such use of the ring as a common male attribute was described in Central Sudan at the end of the nineteenth century.165 However, no analogue has been found in the Kongo. Since the minimal inner diameter of the irregular circle of the ring is 3.1 centimetres, the size is too small even as a halfsize reduction of the chief's armlet. Since the ring is open, it further eliminates the possibility that it was a tool used for pulling some material or object through and rounding it off. Finally, an effort was made to identify the ring as part of a tool. The two rods excavated in the burial at Ingombe Ilede, which is a Later Iron Age site in Zimbabwe,166 were used as smith's tongs with the help of a small iron ring slipped on to compress them together. However, the ring from the shrine is again too large for this purpose. Also, no analogue of this type of tongs was found among the Bakongo. Thus the ring seems stubbornly to resist a historically plausible identification. Recourse to religious purposes does not provide any workable ground either, although both metalworking and metal objects have been a significant part of the Kongo religious fabric. One thing the ring fits quite well is the shaft of a sculptor's adze, or of a hoe on which the ring may be slipped. Female informants told me in several instances that, in the past, a sort of reinforcement was added to the hoe when the field failed to provide enough food. Some qualified this attachment as an nkisi, a magic ingredient, while others were not specific. In the region of Cabinda, a hoe was collected in the early I93osl6? whose shaft has a fibre rope wound around it. The rope was presumably meant to be the ingredient which would strengthen the hoe's efficiency. A custom alluded to in the legends of an old Kongo kin group, the Ndamba,168 attests to the same practice of magic enforcement. According to the Ndamba tradition of northern Manyanga, an nsungwa ring had to be bound to every hoe if the earth yielded no harvest. The nsungwa, however, is a ring or small armlet made of fibres169 or a special kind of grass. One can sometimes see it also on the arm of an epileptic or a seriously sick child.170 It is tempting to speculate that the iron ring fulfilled a function in the past similar or identical to that of an nsungwa ring while being slipped on the shaft of a hoe. Iron frequently connotes strength. Moreover, it would make much sense to keep an object which enforces or purifies the earth

The Insignia 45 in the shrine of Lusunsi, who was the deity of the country. The identification of the ring nevertheless remains moot until some direct evidence of its purpose can be traced. g) Basket Two pieces of wider copper strips attached to a rim of iron (Appendix la, nos. 5, 6), although most fragmentary, provide more material for identification. The copper strips of these two fragments are considerably wider than those of the cap/crown, the neckpiece, and the fragment identified as a piece of band. Their width is also more uneven, the maximum averaging 1.71 centimetres, with an average minimum of 1.55 centimetres. In their thickness the strips are consistent with those used in the other three objects, averaging o.i centimetres. Both fragments show convincingly that the wide strips were plaited instead of being wound over the bars. There are two pieces of horizontal plaiting strips preserved in one fragment. In the other, the lost horizontal strips left concave impressions in the vertical strips, attesting beyond doubt to the method of plaiting. Vertical plaiting strips were attached to a rim whose foundation is made of a curved iron bar in one fragment and two iron bars in the other. The rim of both fragments is distinctly curved; thus, both of them disclose the roundness of the object with an estimated diameter of about 40 centimetres. The plaiting and roundness of the rim encourage the conjecture that the fragments are segments of baskets. The plaiting strips of the two fragments are reasonably alike. They differ only in the degree of corrosion, which is presumably the result of uneven exposure to environmental effects. However, since the rims of both fragments differ in the number of iron bars used and in the mode of attachment of the vertical strips to the rim, it is inferred that they are segments either of two different baskets or of two different rims of one basket. The identification of the two fragments as portions of a basket also introduces some sense to Tastevin's accounts of the shrine's inventory. He did speak of two baskets (Appendix la, no. i). Their descriptions are, in his rendering, so suggestively specific that they encourage one to believe in their authenticity. As already explained in the discussion on the cap/crown, Tastevin identified the cap/crown as a 'fishing basket,' doubtless misled by what seems to be a pia fraus made up by the priest Konko. But what has happened to the second basket? Tastevin's accounts are quite specific about it, too. It is said to be of fine brass wire with no hole in the bottom. And it also belonged to Lusunsi, one is told, who collected in it manioc in the fields of her worshippers. The only other object within the group, made of metal strips which are as fine as the ones used in the coil of the cap/crown, is a flat disc of copper (Appendix la, no. 3). It must

46

Crown and Ritual

be this disc which Tastevin's identification describes as the bottom of the basket for manioc. Yet the disc was fragile because of the thinness of the coiling strips and the circular rods around which they are wound, and also because of the spaced coil. In addition, there are no traces on the disc of attachments to the walls of a basket. The only explanation for Tastevin's identification is that he was again led by the priest Konko. The priest, by virtue of his office, was the one who could know if the inventory of the shrine once included a basket, although he himself had never seen more than small fragments of it. By using part of the truth - the fact that the basket had existed - he presumably made up a story to protect the cap/crown, and also attributed profane functions to the baskets to conceal their religious meaning. The disc was well suited to this interpretation. Its central aperture is small enough not to let the manioc roots fall out. Such a combination of truth with invention follows a logic typical of the protective evasiveness of certain Kongo informants. On several occasions in my inquiries, a chief's conversation was for some reason suddenly stopped by the elders, in order to prevent the release of accurate information. Instead, he stated that the ancestral basket in his lumbu was either a stand for a bottle of beer or a box for peanuts used on the chief's trip. A number of these inventions have even entered the literature and been perpetuated in it. One of the most striking examples is the interpretation of the Kongo whisk, which is said to be used for chasing flies.171 Most probably, the disc relates to the basket plaited in wide copper strips. Its fragile material properties indicate that it might have been a basket's lid. Its size roughly coincides with the reconstructed circumference of the basket (Appendix la, nos. 5, 6). There is, however, a difference in the material and manufacture between the two fragments, on the one hand, and the disc, on the other. The fragments show reinforcement by one or two iron bars at the rim. Iron rods thus stand for the wooden foundation used for the rim of ring-plaited baskets. Copper plaiting strips interlaced over and under are a more permanent analogue of unaltered plant material of more substantial width. In contrast, the coiling of the disc is fine in texture, and, in its tendency to regular patterning, is close to the coiling in fibres and fine grass wound over a solid foundation of wood and lianas, or over a flexible armature in elephant-tail hairs. Old samples of both plaited and finely coiled Kongo cane work, some of which are exquisite art works, are preserved in museums in Ulm, Copenhagen, Paris, Stockholm, and Tervuren, having been brought from the Kongo in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Less frequent are baskets whose walls and lids display these different modes of manufacture, although they too can be found. Such an example is the basket with coiled walls and plaited lid collected by the naval medical

The Insignia 47 doctor Theodore Theremin, who was stationed in Loango prior to i89i.' 72 The basket has about the same diameter as the reconstructed diameter of the copper baskets from the shrine. In the Kongo mind, the basket bears a special charisma. It is a container which holds the material testimony of existence and coherence of the kin group. In narrations and proverbs, the basket is a metonym for people of the same descent. A Woyo maxim calls this kind of basket nkobe ibingu.113 While bingu is a Woyo name for the symbol of a kin group, the nkobe or nkobi are a special type of basket.174 Modern ethnographic accounts recorded the incidence of this type in various parts of the Kongoland175 as a container for ancestral relics and mineral pigments as well as other ingredients related to the group and its chief. The nkobe is said to be activated upon the chief's investiture, being instrumental in the transfer of the leader's power referred to as wene. In a similar context, the Kunyi and Kwakongo traditions176 speak about a basket called ntende. In the past, so the Bakunyi assert, sculptures of female and male ancestors of the kin group were kept in the ntende together with the relics and the mpezo, a white mineral pigment.177 The Kwakongo myth recorded in the chiefdoms around the old capital Tchienchele178 (which was destroyed and is now a desert) links the onset of the Kwakongo with the alienation of the ntende and its displacement. It happened a very long time ago, so the myth opens. A slave prepared a drink for his chief. The drink was too strong, in contravention of the custom. The chief first asked his slave to taste it and then proceeded to do so himself. He liked the drink very much, got drunk, and fell asleep. The men of his entourage thought that he was dead. They asked his wife, who said that he was poisoned. The slave was killed. After some time, the chief woke up, was happy, and looked for his slave. When he learnt what had happened, he became angry and did not want to see even his nephew. The people began to flee. A niece broke into the lumbu and stole the ntende signifying power. The people began to like the niece. They left the Kongo dia ntotela, crossing the river at Nsanda Nzondo near Matadi. The ntende was kept in Tchienchele. The village Nto byi Ntende is the limit which the Bakwakongo must not cross, as it delineates the frontier of their country. Thus far, the Kwakongo myth. The myth of the Bampangu, recorded by Van Wing,' 79 dealing with the Mpangu migration and arrival at the present Mpangu country, also speaks of the transport of the basket. It is called lukobi, which is the singular of nkobi in eastern Kongo dialects. Nine caravans are said to have carried nine staffs and one basket lukobi. The lukobi was brought to enable the consecration of chiefs to take place. The myths evidently attribute to both the ntende and the lukobi the function

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Crown and Ritual

of transferring, holding, and representing the right to institute the government. The use of two different names for a basket could indicate either the difference of their denominations in various dialects of Kikongo, or two different kinds of basket. In the regions where the ntende is said to be tied to the inception of government, the word nkobe (lukobe) is also known and used, such as in Kwakongo or Ngoyo. Thus the use of two different words does not indicate regional linguistic variability but rather two baskets which differ in material and manufacture and concur in function. The nkobe has been customarily made of bark180 rolled into two tubular forms; the overlapping edges are sewn together. A wooden plate is inserted to create the bottom and another to make the top of the lid. In order to permit tight closure, the diameters of the two tubular forms are only marginally different. A closed nkobe looks like a cylindrical box. In general, a ntende has the same shape; only in rare cases is it rectangular and not round. However, unlike a nkobe, the ntende is coiled. Its close coil is made over a foundation of rigid plant rods. Both the ntende and the nkobe may be of various sizes, their height ranging somewhere from seven to thirty centimetres, in my experience; in exceptional cases, they are said to be even larger. Moreover, they share one characteristic which is critical for their function: they are tightly closed with a lid. Custom forbids opening the ancestral basket on trivial occasions.181 Events which justify its opening have to be of major communal significance, such as the chief's investiture, or segmentation of the kin group into a new lineage. Opening the basket is a ritual act which requires an appropriate ceremony. Also, custom dictates the rank of persons eligible to carry out this act. The basket seems to have been opened by the investor, rather than by the chief himself. In the twentieth century, both memory and the now infrequent practice of opening the basket designate various titleholders who may perform this function. Among these, the practice of the eastern Bakongo, described in the 19308 in much detail by Mertens, seems to be most indicative of the Kongo past, as will be argued later. There, the blacksmith who invested the chief also enjoyed the prerogative of opening the basket. It was also during this ceremony that iron hammers/anvils were struck. Each opening implied a modification of the basket's contents either by the addition of a new layer or, in the case of partition into a new lineage, the removal of a portion of each layer.182 Ideally, the layers represent the stratigraphy of the group's history. Some of those who, by virtue of their rank, were assigned to perpetuate the group's history, such as chiefs, still claim to be able to identify any bundle of relics or any pair of armlets with the name of a particular ancestor. The history of the group is not privileged information kept by the leader as a

The Insignia

49

secret. On religious occasions, such as, for instance, a propitiatory ceremony for an important ancestor or a visit to the graveyard, the elder responsible for the conduct of the ceremony or the maintenance of the graves is heard to recite in his prayers the genealogy of the group. His recital, which may also include important events such as migration or segmentation which occurred in the group's past, is given in the presence of all the group's adults, as I witnessed several times.183 It happened that, during the long recital, the memory of the elder failed. In such a case, the next ranking elder was prompt to add the omitted ancestor or event to the prayer. One is therefore led to suppose that although much care is exerted to keep the basket closed, it is not done in order to withhold information about the past it commemorates. A Woyo maxim draws a parallel between the ntende and the heart with its intimate feelings: 'my heart is like a ntende; if you open it you understand what is in it.'184 According to Woyo custom,185 a mother coils a small ntende before her daughter gets married. It is a gift for the daughter's groom, who is supposed to keep it closed. This small ntende, usually embroidered with beads, is said to contain bread of manioc. For the daughter's husband, who ignores its actual content, the ntende is a memento of his wife's concealed feelings which he is encouraged to learn by opening her heart. The metaphor applied in both the proverb and the custom suggests, too, that the historical information held in the basket is not to be kept secret. Strict rules concerning the basket's opening are doubtless meant to guarantee the ancestors' peace. Upset ancestors are believed to endanger the life of the kin group; this anxiety, which is expressed in all Kongo rites concerning the dead, is common to many African cultures. The records differ in the designation of the keeper and the place where the closed basket is to be kept. It may be the chief and the private part of his house; the chief's first wife and her house; or, finally, more or less communal care performed by a specially assigned person such as an unmarried boy who serves as a guard in a hut located either in the village or in the forest.'86 The fragments kept originally in the Lusunsi shrine are portions of a round basket. In that, it resembled both a nkobe and a ntende. Moreover, like a nkobe and a ntende the Lusunsi basket was closed with a lid. Tastevin's accounts187 refer to the basket in the shrine as tendo, which is doubtless his transcription of ntende, the name for the basket presumably given by the priest Konko. In its manufacture, the copper basket differed slightly from the ntende, being plaited and not coiled. Plaiting of wide copper strips is compatible with the technology used in the production of another larger type of basket, called mpidi, made of leaf plants or split cane, or also of the pith of palm branches.'88 Although ethnographic records refer to the mpidi as a totally profane basket used mostly in work by women, it may be encountered also as a container for the chiefs insig-

5O Crown and Ritual nia and, as such, is kept in his lumbu covered with a piece of cloth. A mpidi, as a rule, does not have a lid. It is a basket with a round top and an angular bottom. The bottom is plaited continuously, together with the walls. Unlike a mpidi, the copper basket was most likely of cylindrical shape (Appendix la, nos. 5, 6). Its stiff metal material was more suited to a tubular wall plaited separately from the circular bottom. An old sample of a cylindrical basket made in twill plaiting and a separate inserted circular bottom is in the museum at Ulm. It was collected in the Kongo by the mid-seventeenth century and was, in 1659, in the collection of a German merchant.'89 More samples of fine plaited cylindrical baskets were collected in the nineteenth century in Loango.'90 Their manufacture and combination of patterns on the walls and lid were a continuation of an older tradition, as is inferred from the comparison with the basket brought presumably from Loango to the West Indies and collected there in 1798-9.'9I The photographs of these cylindrical baskets from Loango were identified by informants in the field as pictures of a ntende used to retain the group's relics. The reconstruction of the copper basket as a plaited cylinder also offers a viable answer to the query about the different rims of the two fragments. A single iron bar could be a sufficient foundation for the basket's upper rim. Two iron bars widened the foundation of the lower rim so that a circular bottom was properly embedded. One can conclude that the two fragments are most likely portions of the upper and lower parts of one cylindrical basket. If there was a second ntende, its remains were obviously not removed from the shrine by Tastevin. The fragments indicate that the contents of the copper basket were meant to be weighty; the positions of the horizontally interlaced strips were supported by rings of narrow copper strips. Moreover, the subsequent repair of the basket, of which traces were found on the fragments (Appendix la, nos. 5, 6) and the final dismemberment of the basket also attest to the substantial weight of the contents. When Mambuko and Tastevin came to the shrine in 1933, all the objects and fragments subsequently removed are said to have been in disarray under a large tree which, at that time, was already uprooted. It would not be illogical to assume that the double bells, hammers, and other pieces of insignia were all originally assembled in the copper basket. Also, large supplies of the white mineral pigment mpezo administered by the Lusunsi priest might have been kept there. However, the nkobe and the ntende have been, above all, reliquaries. How could this specific historical role have been met in a paradigmatic object? The idea of the first father and organizer, Ne Kongo, is a reference to a period in Kongo social and political history; it was personified in an idiom. The copper cap/crown, neckpiece, and belt were made to match this postulated human representative of an era. But to speculate on his bodily relics would be historically

The Insignia 51 absurd. The reconstruction indicates that the diameter of the basket was slightly larger than the diameter of the cap/crown. In the absence of the giant's skull, the basket thus could have contained his crown. The differences in the state of physical preservation between the two objects, as well as the weight of the crown, do not contradict this assumption. Unlike the case of the cap/crown, neckpiece, and band, outsiders' records on the reliquary in the form of a basket ntende and nkobe date only to the twentieth century. Randles's suggestion192 to identify the ancient royal emblem, alluded to in the already mentioned account of Canon Cordeiro of 1622, with a royal ancestral basket does not hold. The French text on which Randies bases his conjecture interprets rather than translates, in this instance. The original Portuguese text193 speaks of a tiracolo, which is not a sash or a bag but a band; the passage was discussed in connection with the fragment of copper and iron identified as a band or belt. On the other hand, Randles's further stipulation that the Capuchin missionary Lorenzo Franceschini da Lucca refers to an ancestral reliquary in his Eighth Narrative of I705194 seems more plausible. The bag filled with some 'superstitious' ingredients which Father Lorenzo saw touching the body of the newly invested chief in Soyo might have been a bundle with relics and therefore part of the basket's contents. The assumption is corroborated mainly by Father Lorenzo's further observation. The ceremony of application of the bundle to the chief's body was administered, he asserts, by the kitomi. The ntomi was a high priest who acted as investor in the leaders' consecrations and, as such, also dealt with the opening of the basket. Scarcity of references in the old accounts is doubtless due to marginal or non-visibility of the ancestral basket to outsiders. Like the cap with leopard teeth and claws, the reliquary evidently stands for one of those social values which have been protected by custom against all forms of profanation. Instead of old records, it is the uniformity of the incidence and meaning of the reliquary basket within the Kongoland, together with the lexical invariability of its designations, which soundly support its historical endurance in Kongo political life. Its distribution covers an even wider area than the Kongoland. Although the observation is based on accidental rather than systematically recorded data, one clearly sees the incidence of the reliquary basket of cylindrical boxlike shape spread over north-west Central Africa, and further westwards in the Cross River Ekoi region and in north-eastern Nigeria. In the large territory of the Bakota, whose most southern extension neighbours the Bakongo around Sibiti in the Congo Republic, one encounters the same dichotomy of coiled ntende and bark nkobe as in the Kongoland.195 Further, in the equatorial forest of Gabon the cylindrical nkobe made of rolled-up bark is prevalent. Its dense incidence overlaps ethnic borders, but its denominations (such as ngowe,

52

Crown and Ritual

kobi, ekobe) retain the common root -kob-. In several languages this denomination also extends into the names of the species of large forest trees whose bark is used for the manufacture of cylindrical reliquaries.196 In the Ogooue basin, these bark baskets keep the skulls and bones of important ancestors. Ethnographic records on the Kongo ancestral baskets speak of nails, hairs, and bits of epidermis. Malonga197 refers to these minimal bodily relics as the chiefs intimate 'himself.' Even when Kongo informants explicitly point out that for some reason the whole body of an important ancestor was not buried but is kept in the shrine, such a statement is to be viewed with scepticism. On those very rare occasions when, following such information, the privilege was granted to me to visit the shrine, the small size of the reliquary carefully wrapped in cloth evidently ruled out other possibilities beyond, at most, preservation of the skull. Bembe ancestral cloth figures, described for the first time by Laman in 1916,198 were also said to preserve few skeletal relics. Inquiries about the contents of the reliquary basket in the past did not provide any conclusive results which would allow me to suggest changes in the basket's contents in the last century in the Kongo, nor to speculate about similarities, in the Kongo past, with the reliquary contents frequent in the Ogoou6 basin. On the whole, this topic proved to be incomparably more difficult to explore in the 19705 than it was for Mertens in the 19305. The suggestion that the copper cylindrical basket originally might have served as a container for the copper cap/crown is encouraged by similar examples from the Cross River area and from Nigeria. The Cross River Ekoi cylindrical basket retaining the caps of the dead chiefs199 is closely akin, in its proportions, to the already mentioned cylindrical baskets from Loango. That is also the case with a distinct kind of cylindrical reliquary of bark found in the Igala chiefdom of Eteh in north-eastern Nigeria.200 The two tightly matching cylinders of bark with a disc of wood at the top and another creating the basket bottom are poignantly reminiscent of a nkobe. Containing the chief's insignia, they have been used as chiefs' stools. While the Igala designation of this kind of stool shows no relation to the word nkobe, the denomination of one of the insignia kept in the stool is striking in this context. The chief's hat is called kebe.201 The material and technology used in the manufacture of the nkobe and ntende, like the reliquary baskets themselves, connote longevity. In the Kongo oral tradition, bark is consistently associated with the early stages in history; then, the informants say, the ancestors did not know weaving, and cloth was made of beaten bark. Bark's connotation of primary values was also alluded to, according to the account of the missionary Lorenzo da Lucca,202 when it was used as the material for crowns worn by the disciples of the Kongo prophetess Beatrice, in the early eighteenth century. Plaiting, basket making, and mat

The Insignia 53 making, too, are always spoken of as having an ancient ancestry in the Kongo culture. Making the Lusunsi copper basket parallel a nkobe would have presupposed the production of a sizeable copper sheet to imitate bark. To make a copper plaited ntende was presumably a more viable option. h) Summary and Preview Confrontation with comparative material and analyses of written documents made possible the identification of the sixteen items which come from the shrine of the deity of the country. The set involves thirteen distinct objects or fragments of objects which are analogous in their form, meaning, and purpose to the corresponding artifacts used by the Bakongo either today or in the past. The shrine and its priesthood were located in Ngoyo, in the north-west of the Kongoland. However, the objects show, beyond doubt, a congruity with art works and implements occurring in the whole Kongo country. Abundant evidence endorses the integration of the objects from the shrine into the historical context of the Kongo society. It demonstrates their authenticity and, consequently, rules out the consideration of their accidental incidence. Questions about their artist and their manufacture will be addressed in the discussions on the tradition of the art of metal and on the relation between the metal artifact and its material resource. The corollaries inferred from this chapter justify the conclusion that, if the objects of the Lusunsi shrine were produced somewhere else and imported, they were made faultlessly to match Kongo ideology. According to their meaning and purpose, the thirteen objects cluster into two groups. Included in the first group are the cap/crown, the basket, and the double bells. The customarily used analogues of these objects, that is, the cap/crown knotted in fibres, the basket coiled in plant material, and the iron double bells, have been instrumental for the inception and continuity of the government. The cap/crown with the two other associated pieces of the leader's finery in this first group, the neckpiece and the band, support and symbolize the religious aspect of the leader's authority. It is this aspect which leans upon kinship. The analyses have shown that the gender of the cap/crown is female, as are the attributes and material of the neckpiece and the function of the band. The political aspect of the leader's authority, called wene, is symbolized by the reliquary basket. This aspect stems from the ability and the right to organize society. Finally, the double bells represent the voice of the authority. The cap/crown, the basket, and the double bells are indispensable for the customary government as its insignia regni. The second group includes objects which are not overtly indicative of religious and political purpose. The knives, hammers, and iron pick are tools used

54

Crown and Ritual

in the exploitation and extraction of metal. However, neither the hammers nor the pick from the shrine show traces of use; the corrosion of the knife blades is too advanced to allow any judgment on their worn surfaces. The role of the tools in the shrine was clearly paradigmatic. In that, they did not differ from the objects of the first group. But rather than symbolize religious or political principles, they provide a straightforward testimony of metalworking. Unlike, for instance, the copper cap/crown with leopard teeth and claws of copper, their religious value and paradigmatic character are not expressed by way of metaphors; they contain a historical record. The ingots and possibly also the iron ring are associated with this group which testifies to the significance of metalworking for the builders of the shrine. The knives are the leader's emblems, while other objects of this group are sacerdotal insignia. Among the regalia, the knife stands for the male part of the leader's authority. The size of the main item of the regalia, the cap/crown, is unparalleled in Kongo art. The neckpiece is of similar large dimensions, and double the human size is presupposed also for the band or belt. These constituents of the leader's panoply were made to the measure of the ancestor founder, Ne Kongo, whom the myth depicts as big and strong. His large scale is expressed in both his epitheton constans and his name. Nene designates him as big and Kongo is synonymous with a large quantity. A historical interpretation of the founder's Ne Kongo personality will be addressed in the following chapters. His physical properties were considered in connection with the size of the copper cap/crown and neckpiece, which are the only direct allusions to him known in Kongo art. Unlike for instance, the Chokwe hero founder, Ne Kongo has not been represented in effigy. More covertly than in the regalia, the idea of Ne Kongo's size may be seen reflected in the Kongo burial manipulation of the leader's corpse. The custom to increase the volume of the body of the dead leader by enveloping it in quantities of cloth takes on an artistic form in the gigantic cloth figure/ sarcophagus called niombo which was made by the Babwende. By their incidence, several of the regalia expose the problem of expansion in a space wider than the Kongoland. The reliquary basket and the double bells are reiterated in their form and manufacture in various parts of Central and West Africa. Thus, they inspire further exploration of the possibilities of correlations in these areas. Other insignia are more indicative of extension in time. The contrast of form and attributes of the cap/crown with leopard teeth and claws and the royal cap ngola manifests two different types of government of different ages. As a sacred emblem, the copper cap/crown is tied to the decentralized chieftainship which preceded the centralized states and then persisted, coexisting with them. The Kongo state's symbol, on the other hand, was the ngola. The historical implications of the dichotomy of the two types of cap are self-evident.

The Insignia 55 The Kongo state fostered a new emblem to distinguish itself and to rival the symbol of chieftainship. Although the chief's type of cap ngunda has outlived the introduction of the state symbol, it would not be logical to assume that in times of the formation and growth of the states the centralized government would promote the emblem of a different political structure by founding a shrine centred on its symbol. Thus, two alternative conclusions can be drawn: either the origin of the copper cap/crown is to be sought in a pre-state era; or the shrine with the copper cap/crown as its focal object was built up by challengers of the centralized state. Both options will be juxtaposed, in the following chapters, with further historical evidence. The Ngoyo state was the user of the shrine and its focal object. It remains, therefore, to explore to what extent the shrine and its inventory were respected or rejected by other Kongo states. Problems of relative chronology are inherent also in the material properties of the insignia. The odd shape of the iron hammers may be perceived as suggestive of the relationship to lithic tools. For the first century BC, that is, for the period of the Late Stone Age and the beginning of the Iron Age in Lower Zaire, archaeology203 speculates about the simultaneous use of lithic and iron tools, and this possibility has also been raised in connection with finds at Gombe Point in the Malebo Pool region. They date to the fourth century AD. However, it would not be rewarding to base speculation on the dating of the Lusunsi hammers to this transition period upon the stony shape of the hammers alone. In Kongo metalworking, stone, wood, and iron tools were used concurrently and interchangeably until the twentieth century. It seems more promising to pursue the correspondence of the hammers' form with iron ingots that were used as a medium of exchange. The exploration of the relationship of copper and iron which are the materials of the insignia also involves a consideration of a time depth. The debate about the relative chronology of copper and ironworking in the metal age of subSaharan Africa is of long standing. The question of whether they developed simultaneously or sequentially has been intermittently raised by African studies. Both metals were of the highest importance in the insignia. That in itself attests to the high rank of both metals in Kongo ideology. Moreover, their ranks are equally high, although each of them stands for different values. Thus, their place in the customary value system suggests that they were of parallel importance rather than hierarchically ranked according to either age or efficacy. Their high status in Kongo ideology seems to be unchallenged, despite the fact that, in the history of Kongo arts and crafts, wood, stone, and clay have predominated and proved more useful. The parallel importance of copper and iron was also found to be reflected in the technology. Discovering the way to create a cavity can be viewed as one of the most important steps in the history of art objects in

56 Crown and Ritual metal. Whether the cavity walls are made of hammered strips and sheets, or cast, the ability to create a cavity solves the problem of the weight of the metal object and permits its size to be increased. The double bells and the bands with cut-out patterns attached to the cap/crown show identical technology of two metal sheets bonded together on the edges. The technology was thus applied to iron as well as to copper. The large-sized cavities are the results of a different process. The higher malleability of copper achievable at lower temperatures was utilized to make these large and technically highly unusual objects; their cavities were achieved by the process of gradual building-up of the walls, a technology unique in metalworking. The chapter on metalworking will continue examining the iron-and-copper relationship, as well as the relationship of both metals to other materials, to develop further the argument of the historical role of metal in Kongo culture.

3

The Shrine

Coastal regions of the Kongoland were visited frequently by pre-twentiethcentury outsiders. Their accounts show that in the past, unlike now, outsiders had ample access to some sites sacred to the inhabitants, such as certain graveyards and shrines. However, despite its location in the vicinity of the Ngoyo port of Cabinda, the Lusunsi shrine was rarely mentioned. The Woyo elders, who in 1973 were willing to communicate information to me on the existence of the insignia, withheld the name of the shrine. In and after 1976, when I was able to identify the shrine in Tastevin's writings, for political reasons I was prevented from visiting it. The Bunsi shrine is a cognate sacred place located in Ngoyo. Outsiders' access to it has been strictly prohibited. Nevertheless, in contrast to Lusunsi, Bunsi and the Bunsi shrine are often mentioned in pre-twentieth-century accounts and by informants. The lack of records prior to 1934, when Tastevin wrote about the Lusunsi shrine to the keeper of the Musee de 1'Homme, compels attention and invites caution in assuming the shrine's longevity. Could it not be that the Lusunsi shrine is a rather new site; that it was built only at the end of the nineteenth century; and that the insignia, if older than that, found their home there only after being transferred from another part of the Kongoland, possibly in the 188os when conventions on colonial boundaries divided the Kongoland into several segments? The query is of significance; a relatively recent date of deposition of the insignia in Ngoyo and in the Lusunsi shrine would affect further considerations. A source of 1712, which is an exception to the overall silence on the Lusunsi shrine, includes it in a story filled with such improbable events and miracles that its credibility is doubtful. It was written by the Capuchin Antonio Zucchelli de Gradisca.1 From 1700 until 1702, he was stationed at the Italian mission in

58 Crown and Ritual the Soyo capital. The narrative in which the shrine plays an important part is said to deal with a story which began sometime in the 16308. It concerned the fate of two wooden sculptures of the Virgin Mary. Torn loose by the sea from a Castilian shipwreck, they were reportedly carried by the sea until one of them reached the mouth of the Congo/Zaire River. There, it was deposited in the Christian chapel in Mpinda, where it was still kept during Zucchelli's time and was the subject of veneration by the population. The other sculpture of the Virgin Mary landed on the shore of the port of Cabinda, was collected by the people, and brought, so Zucchelli says, to the temple of their idol named Lusunsi, becoming a public idol. Zucchelli informs us that his record was written some seventy years after the fact and was motivated by his efforts to recover the Virgin Mary sculpture from the pagan shrine and to return it to its Christian purpose. Zucchelli only went as far as the Ngoyo capital, however, and did not follow his original intention to travel to Mbanza Cabinda to rescue the sculpture. The Ngoyo king did not receive him, either; moreover, his attempts to encourage the Soyo count to intervene in the matter failed, according to his pessimistic conclusion of the story. Other Capuchins stationed at Soyo after 1645 did not mention the story. Father Lorenzo da Lucca, responsible for some time for the Soyo mission during Zucchelli's stay, shares with him his lamentations about the superstitious idolatry that existed in the small Ngoyo kingdom across the Congo/Zaire River. But nothing in Lorenzo's reports suggests that he knew about the story of the two sculptures of the Virgin Mary or that the incident about the one kept in the shrine upset other missionaries as it did Zucchelli. Evidence shows that a large wooden statue of the Virgin Mary was indeed kept in the chapel at Mpinda. The chapel was very modest architecturally and rather small; its dimensions were estimated in the late nineteenth century as ten by five metres. Yet, it was reverently viewed as a vestige of the beginnings of Christianity in the Kongo kingdom in 1491. Pere Carrie,2 superior of the mission at Landana, examined the sculpture of the Virgin Mary upon his visit to the chapel in 1877. He stayed for a short time in Soyo with the customary Soyo leaders. Carrie found the entire sculpture enveloped in a large quantity of cloth, in part as testimony to the enduring esteem of worshippers, and in part to support the old and heavily damaged relic. The statue had a counterpart corresponding in size, material, and iconography. Carrie3 described these two lifesized sculptures, of which the second was St Anthony of Padua holding a small Jesus, as flanking a large figure of Christ. Carrie's detailed report is complemented by the earlier testimony of Pere Poussot,4 who visited the chapel at Mpinda in 1866. Poussot, one of the first three missionaries of St Esprit who started the mission in Ambriz5 in March

The Shrine

59

1866, undertook a trip in September and October to the regions along the mouth of the Congo/Zaire River to explore possibilities for further stations. After he visited Banana and Boma he went to see the ruins of the Capuchin mission at Mbanza Soyo and the monument of the beginnings of Christianity in the Kongo kingdom in Mpinda. In the chapel, Poussot believed he saw two large old statues of the Virgin, both of them heavily damaged. Barely able to distinguish their details, Poussot was obviously mistaken in identifying St Anthony holding Jesus as St Mary. Carrie's account of both statues is supported by seventeenthcentury sources. The sculptures of the Virgin Mary and St Anthony of Padua were recorded as standing in the chapel by 1645. The first Capuchin missionaries who arrived in 1645 to start their mission in Soyo found them already at the chapel altar.6 From the available evidence it is also apparent that both sculptures enjoyed popularity and inspired a cult of the Virgin and of St Anthony which expanded over several centuries in the southern Kongoland, taking on various forms. The Capuchin Merolla,7 stationed at the Soyo mission in 1684-8, informs us that the sculpture of the Virgin Mary, as the subject of veneration among the population, attracted a large number of worshippers to the chapel of Mpinda every Sunday. In the hands of the Bakongo, who inhabited or came from the southern regions, were found8 small replicas and variants of sculptures of the Virgin Mary and St Anthony of Padua in the eighteenth and again in the twentieth centuries. Made of wood, metal, or ivory, they show much wear and are strongly indicative of Kongo production. An old centre of their manufacture in metal located in Mbamba and another in Mbata on the Zombo plateau were still active in the late nineteenth century.9 The religious and political movement of the Antonines, aspiring in the early eighteenth century to become a unifying force within the Kongo kingdom (which was torn by severe internal problems during the time of two or three extant kings), was apparently inspired by the same source which became a landmark of the onset of Kongo Christianity. Parallels could be found not only in small metal sculptures of St Anthony of Padua seen by the Capuchins in the hands of the preachers of the Antonine movement, but also in the imagination surrounding both the leader of the Antonines, Dona Beatrix, who called herself St Anthony, and the second important woman of the government, Fumaria or Maffuta.10 Beatrix appeared at meetings holding her son in her arms, as St Anthony holds the small Jesus. She and her chief partisans wore crowns, as did both sculptures in the chapel;11 however, the Antonine crowns were simple, made of bark, since Beatrix preached an old Franciscan idea of abandoning wealth and luxury. Fumaria called herself Old Simeon, and they preached that that was what the Virgin Mary also called herself.

6o

Crown and Ritual

There can be little doubt that the sculptures of the Mpinda chapel became icons which played a very significant role in the history of the Kongo kingdom. Zucchelli's story thus clusters around important Kongo features which also corroborate the core of the narrative. As to the provenance of the Virgin Mary sculpture, the evidence does not directly contradict the story, but makes it unlikely. The sculptures of the Virgin Mary and St Anthony were clearly pendants; correspondences in their material properties and in their acceptance by the people testify to that, as does their place as companion pieces on the altar. Moreover, the statue of the Virgin Mary coupled with that of St Anthony of Padua strongly suggests a Portuguese rather than a Castilian origin. St Anthony is the patron saint of Lisbon, where he was born, not of Toledo. Being pendants, their placement in the chapel was most probably coeval. As they create, together with the crucifix, a group of Sacra Conversazione and not of Calvary, they could have been placed together or on three separate altars. The chroniclers Rui de Pina and Joao de Barros12 mention that the ship carrying the Portuguese embassy coming to baptize the Kongo king in 1491 also provided equipment for the chapel constructed in Mpinda on the occasion of the baptism of Mani Soyo. Three altars are said to have been furnished with 'rich ornaments.' It is therefore not unjustified to suggest that at least the sculptures of the Virgin Mary and St Anthony may date to this time of the first contact with Christianity. The first Capuchins in 1645 already found them 'very old."3 Though heavily damaged, the sculptures survived in the chapel until the nineteenth century and were probably moved to Luanda by I9o8.'4 The popular Virgin Mary sculpture of the Mpinda chapel was clearly used as an underpinning for the story recorded by Zucchelli, while the existence of its twin statue was invented to contrast the goodness of the Christians in Soyo with the pagan blasphemy in Ngoyo. The fabrication of the twin sculptures does not follow baroque visual logic based on complementary rather than repetitive iconographic motifs. Nor does it point to the missionary, who well knew the rules of Christian iconography of the vessels' artistic equipment. It is also safe to assume that he totally ignored the site of the shrine, despite the fact that the recorded story was based on the insights and good cognizance of the shrine. The Virgin Mary, according to the story, opposed the idolaters' disgraceful worship at the temple in the Lusunsi shrine. To obstruct it, the Virgin made two miracles happen. First, a wide and deep ditch was dug to separate the temple from the access road. In the second miracle, the Virgin Mary introduced into the ditch a large rapid stream, which did not appear to spring from any source. Because of this stream, the temple could then be reached only by canoe. That made the idolaters, so Zucchelli has it, less ardent in their superstitious worship.

The Shrine

61

The shrine is indeed situated on a stream.15 Tastevin, who visited the shrine in the dry season in July, speaks of it as a small creek. The fact that the stream runs partly under the road from Mbanza Cabinda to Landana'6 explains the story of the miraculous stream with no source. The copper cap/crown and disarrayed objects kept in the shrine were found in 1933 on the bank of the stream. The story has it that that was where the temple with the Virgin Mary was left after the miracle. Compelling details lead unavoidably to an inside authorship of the story. Lusunsi has jurisdiction over the land and sea. The deity is said by the traditions often to scurry between sea and land in the form of a driving wind. Hence the model of the miracles. Furthermore, Lusunsi is, according to the Ngoyo social code, the protector of the descent group and the supervisor of the bride's virginity. Hence the association of the Virgin with the shrine. Finally, the key object of the shrine, the cap/crown, which is female in gender, was conceptually interchangeable with the bride, as will be deduced later. Hence the idea that the Virgin Mary sculpture was the object of the shrine cult. The parable, although using Christian symbols and giving them strength, implies competent inside religious cognizance. Zucchelli heard the story in Soyo.'7 Most likely it came from Mani Soyo. Applauded for his intelligence and religious fervour by the Capuchins, Dom Antonio Berreto da Silva was partially rewarded in his political ambitions by the pope, from whom he received the title of prince.'8 However, he still had great determination to seek further political victories in the Kongoland itself. In his youth, as general of the Soyo army, Antonio invaded the Ngoyo kingdom and seized the royal insignia, which, around 1700, were still kept in the church of the Capuchin convent in Mbanza Soyo.19 However, the cap and carpet of the Ngoyo kings obviously did not help him achieve royal investiture in Ngoyo. The small kingdom outlived his conquest of the capital and his seizure of the royal insignia, which were reproducible as long as Ngoyo kingship had the cooperation of the Lusunsi shrine. In addition, Antonio, like his immediate predecessors, proved to be highly capable of capitalizing on the political chaos in the Kongo kingdom during the period of several extant kings, and of benefiting from the military defeat of the Portuguese by Soyo in 1670. At the time of the crisis of the Kongo royal government, Mani Soyo designated candidates to the Kongo kingship as a unilateral elector, and also tried to interfere with the investiture by providing a crown from the Portuguese.20 At the same time, in the 1690 peace treaty21 with the Portuguese, Soyo achieved recognition of its full independence from the Kongo kingdom. That presumably strengthened the Soyo claim that Mpinda should be released from its duties as a royal port, though without justifying the claim according to the laws of the kingdom. In any event, Mpinda was

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opened to Portuguese trade. With the assistance of the Capuchins, Mani Antonio in 1702 also attracted trade with other Catholic countries to the port.22 It is quite conceivable, therefore, that Mani Soyo saw an opportunity to promote Mpinda to the rank of a national religious shrine by contrasting it with the wrongdoings of the pagan Lusunsi shrine. To sum up, it is most logical to conclude that Mani Soyo had a number of motives for inventing the story and for prompting the Capuchin missionary, who was backed by papal authority, to impose upon the Lusunsi priests and to gain access to the shrine. And Zucchelli was a handy instrument in the intrigue, as he was zealous to go to Ngoyo and baptize the population there.23 The narrative proves the existence of the Lusunsi shrine in the period around 1700. Also, it indicates that it was this shrine in which the cap/crown and other sacred relics were kept. Moreover, it verifies the endurance of the Lusunsi cult and validates its nature in time. Finally, the story corroborates that the shrine was well known and respected outside Ngoyo. With the exception of Bastian, nineteenth-century outsiders, who were able to record a great harvest of information on other sacred sites of the coastal region, did not mention the Lusunsi shrine at all. This silence is striking mainly in Dennett's case, as he stayed in several places on the coast in the i88os as director of the Hatton and Cookson trading house. He knew the newly rich among the population,24 although he did not admire them. Bastian's expedition in 1873 travelled under the auspices of Manuel Puna,25 a powerful and rich man of Cabinda Bay, so that Bastian was able to collect a mass of information, albeit of uneven historical value, along the coast as well as farther inland. His association with Puna explains why he was the first one to publish the kinglists of Ngoyo and the sequence of procedures of the Ngoyo royal investiture, including mention of the Lusunsi shrine. There can be little doubt that Tastevin was the first outsider to enter the Lusunsi shrine. He described the site in three manuscripts written in the 19305, and more eloquently in the already mentioned account26 published in 1935. His own observations were combined with communications by the Lusunsi priest. Tastevin's comments in his manuscripts on the role of the shrine in the investiture of the Ngoyo kings are brief yet most valuable. Together with the letter by Domingo dos Nsangu of 1933 meY are me only sources which have introduced some details on the ceremonies conducted in the shrine. In this respect, Tastevin relied upon information provided by Mangovo Joachim of an old kin Soga or Songa. Mangovo was the Ngoyo regent in 1933. Soon after, in 1940, an important inside account was published on Ngoyo history which significantly contributed to knowledge about Ngoyo kingship and the procedures of its renewal, subjects not touched on in either Portuguese colo-

The Shrine 63 nial historiography or modern historiography of Central Africa. The history of Ngoyo kingship was narrated and written by a Ngoyo elder, Domingos Jose Franque (i 855-1942).27 To assess objectively the historical value of this source, one has to bear in mind that Franque, while an insider, was a major exponent of collaboration with the Portuguese. Franque's kin belonged to that part of Ngoyo nobility whose origin is relatively recent, and whose claims were based on new values such as wealth rather than the customary ones such as descent. They grew rich in the eighteenth century mainly through involvement in coastal foreign trade, and they became influential thanks to the return of former slaves from Brazil to Cabinda in the nineteenth century.28 Their power was based upon a large settlement of returned slaves called Porto Rico in Cabinda Bay. The Franques gained political importance from the late eighteenth century in the conflict of Portuguese, French, and English interests in Cabinda Bay. The author's father, Francisco Franque (0.1776-1875), received the honorary title of colonel as a reward from the Portuguese. Later, in 1853, he was designated king of Ambriz by the Portuguese.29 This nomination was made as part of the compensation for loyalty to those who resisted the English effort to subjugate Cabinda, as the Portuguese colonial historian Rocha Martins described it.30 (In a letter of 1853, Lord Clarendon had notified Portugal that England would militarily oppose the efforts of the Portuguese to re-establish themselves in the ports of the Congo River.)31 After the French conquest of their port at Cabinda in 1784, the Portuguese sought to recover their position in the port diplomatically, achieving recognition of the coast of Cabinda in 1786 'as part of the kingdom of Angola.'32 Supplementing their efforts at international diplomacy, they attracted, with the help of rather meaningless honours, strong sympathizers within Cabinda Bay. Francisco Franque, the son of the rich mafuka of Cabinda, had returned by 1799 from Brazil.33 On his second trip he brought back a full vessel of former slaves. He was also an apt candidate in support of the anti-slavery argument often used by Portugal to antagonize English and French interests in the trade north of the mouth of the Congo River.34 Franque's appointment as king of Ambriz could hardly have been more than a beau geste if made in 1853; the port of Ambriz was occupied by the Portuguese only in 1855. The historical account by Domingos Jose Franque includes the Ngoyo kinglist, which is longer than those recorded in 1873 by Bastian (see Appendix Vb), as it also incorporates the last two kings designated in the second half of the nineteenth century. Franque's outline of Ngoyo royal investiture places the ceremony conducted in the Lusunsi shrine into the context of lengthy and complex procedures. It is, however, not specific about the shrine itself, let alone its content. Having subsumed the data contained in Franque's account and added new

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data recorded presumably in Mbanza Ngoyo, in 1956 Evaristo Martins Campos published yet another important account35 on the history of Ngoyo kingship. Martins Campos stayed in the colony of Cabinda for more than fifty years as a missionary and had access to the oral tradition. His kinglist concurs with that given by Franque, while his description of the investiture ceremonies and structure of the royal government differ in a number of details. However, his reference to the site of the Lusunsi shrine is general, suggesting he was unfamiliar with its content. The ethnographic study by Jose Martins Vaz, published in I970,36 added still more specific data on individual stages of the renewal of Ngoyo kingship, although he dealt with them in a random order rather than in chronological sequence. Martins Vaz was for many years a missionary in Ngoyo and had ample opportunity for, as well as professional interest in, recording the oral traditions. He is the author of several important writings on Ngoyo culture, has recorded a great mass of Woyo proverbs, and has published a code of Ngoyo customary laws. The code37 addresses the royal investiture and mentions the Lusunsi priesthood, thus confirming, as the seventh source, all previously communicated traditions. It appears evident that the Ngoyo oral tradition broke the secrecy about investiture rites and the role of the shrine within the ceremonial only after cooperation with outsiders had proven to be lucrative and when help was sought to resolve internal problems of kingship re-enactment. Bastian was referred to Manuel Puna by the Portuguese government and therefore was given the information while others were not. The second reason for ending the secrecy was, clearly, the news of the removal of the copper cap/crown and other objects from the shrine. The Lusunsi priest, the Mangovo, and Nsangu provided details on the shrine. Though rather incoherent and fragmentary, they are of value. Then Franque and other informants of Cabinda Bay and Mbanza Ngoyo were willing to speak out. But the news of the removal did not spread very far and did not seem to cross the new colonial border to the then Belgian part of Ngoyo. It was there that the pretender to kingship lived. The elders in the area of Moanda, whose silence still protected the shrine in 1973, were unaware of the removal. Similarly, Pierre Mandemvo38 of Yema, a large village situated in Zaire halfway between Moanda and Mbanza Ngoyo, wrote about Ngoyo kingship in 1960, but was silent on the issue of royal investiture, and therefore did not mention the existence and role of the shrine. He dealt merely with the kinglist, and without tackling its sensitive point; he did not make any distinction between kings who were properly invested and those who were never consecrated, although the list also concerned a king elected from the kin of Yema. In contrast, both Franque and the Martins Campos informants who described the

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investiture progression distinguished in the kinglists between those kings who underwent investiture to its completion and those who did not. Failure to conclude investiture concerns most likely the last three and certainly the last two kings. The last two designated Ngoyo kings were of the Puna kin, the second most important supporters of Portuguese interests in the port of Cabinda. Like the Franques, the Puna kin based their political power in Ngoyo upon a large property in Cabinda Bay, which also included villages of former slaves brought by the Punas from Brazil.39 The father-in-law of Domingos Jose Franque, Manuel Puna (1810-1904), is said by Franque to have been the son of a mambuko, a special royal officer always supposed to be chosen from the old Ngoyo nobility. Josef Chavanne, however, who might have met Manuel Puna in the i88os, speaks of him as a mulatto. In any event, Manuel Puna followed the pattern by receiving from the Portuguese a set of honorary titles. After becoming honorary colonel of the Portuguese cavalry, loyalty to the Portuguese in the conflict of 1853 brought him, either immediately or later, the title of Baron of Cabinda.40 While Martins Campos also associates this award with the year 1853, when Francisco Franque was possibly designated king of Ambriz, it is, in Puna's case, unlikely. Rather, Manuel Puna's designation as king of Cabinda was made immediately after the treaty legalizing the Cabinda protectorate. Two documents of the treaty were signed by some members of the Ngoyo nobility in January and February 1885. Manuel Puna's baronetcy applied to the coastal region where the Punas were major landholders and owned a considerable number of people. The kingship, however, was meant in a wider sense of the old Ngoyo kingdom, as is evident from the kinglists. There, Manuel Jose Puna appears as the last Ngoyo king, with his royal name Djimbi. Bastian,41 who travelled under his auspices, as already stated, speaks of him in 1873 as 'a Negro chief standing under the Portuguese protectorate' and the big man of the coast. On his kinglists his predecessor Nganga Mpongo (see Appendix Vb), who was also a Puna and who was probably the one designated as king in the 18505, does not yet appear. In 1873, he apparently had not yet reached the stage in the investiture where he would receive his royal name.42 Traditions state that Nganga Mpongo had undergone part of the investiture but gave up and retired to his village in Cabinda Bay. That is also where he stayed during Bastian's visit in 1873. Investiture procedures had presumably also stopped the predecessor of both designated kings of the Puna kin. Bachi Nyongo, according to Franque's and Martins Campos's lists the eighth designated king of Ngoyo, reportedly never reached the capital because he died before the procedure's conclusion. However, he must have approached very close to the end of the investiture, if it was really this king who bestowed an honorary title upon Francisco Franque for his

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services.43 Offices and titles were conferred by the newly invested king in the very last part of the ceremonial. As it was reportedly a reward for services in the election, Franque most likely provided him with slaves to pay the obligatory tribute to the electors. One can deduce that his election and part of the investiture procedures occurred by the middle of the first half of the nineteenth century, after Francisco Franque brought a vessel with slaves from Brazil. Slave trade in the port of Cabinda in the eighteenth century enriched the Franque and Puna kin. The return of the slaves from Brazil in the nineteenth century made them major titleholders of the coast between the mouth of the Congo/Zaire River and Loango, and opened the way to Ngoyo kingship. Their cooperation with the Portuguese goes back to the eighteenth century, but became a key factor in Portuguese politics in the nineteenth century. Through the Franque and Puna kin, the Portuguese repeatedly attempted to interpenetrate the customary structure of Ngoyo, and presumably also other coastal centres south of the equator. Giissfeldt,44 an exponent of German imperial efforts in Africa in the 18708, speaks of exaggerated reports of the Portuguese government in Europe as far as they concerned Puna and Franque property and power. He was critical of the Portuguese conclusion, drawn from their ties with the Punas and Franques and disseminated in Europe, that one of the old coastal kingdoms had put itself under Portuguese protection. The attempt to use Ngoyo kingship for political purposes was certainly difficult, but not new. Already in the past, cooperation with Ngoyo royalty had proved to be not only feasible but also desired by both Europeans and Africans. For instance, in a 1722 incident arising from the conflict between the Portuguese and the English, the Ngoyo king succeeded in cooperating with both groups.45 The assistance of the Puna and Franque kin was essential for the Portuguese mainly before and possibly immediately after the treaty with the Ngoyo nobles was signed in 1885. Failure to reach the end of investiture by the two designated kings, both of whom sympathized with the Portuguese, clearly signalled inside resistance before 1885. The suicide in 1895 of Francesco Rodrigues Franque, yet another Franque strongly involved in cooperation with the Portuguese and who acted as a linguist in the negotiation of the treaty,46 suggests the persistence of this inside defiance even after the treaty, during the incipient colonial military occupation. It was presumably in this period that the Portuguese failed in their last attempt to infiltrate the kingship, when Manuel Jose Puna was designated the king. What goals could Domingos Jose Franque intend to achieve by disclosing investiture procedures and recalling the defeat of the pro-Portuguese kings in an account published in 1940 in Lisbon? In 1933, it was believed that the copper cap/crown removed from the shrine left for Portugal, as is evident from Nsangu's letter. It is therefore most probable that the disclosures by Franque

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and by Martin Campos's informants were guided by the belief that the insignia, indispensable for the conclusion of investiture, would be brought back and left in a guardianship backed by Portuguese support, so that the pro-Portuguese consecrated king would finally become a reality and no longer an unfulfilled historical postulate. At that time, of course, the Portuguese no longer needed the backing of Ngoyo kings for their political purposes. And, in addition, they did not have the insignia. a) Site The Lusunsi shrine was situated within walking distance from Mbanza Cabinda, to the east of its northern fringe (ill. 22).47 Enclosed by a forest, the site proper was called Lombe.^ The same name is applied to the path leading to the shrine. Tastevin noted that the path traced Lusunsi's speedy march when, in the form of a cyclone, the deity rushed from the ocean to the forest.49 Strong winds always come from the ocean, not from inland, and they last for a certain period each day. These are well-known meteorological facts, and one can safely assume that the phenomenon was properly incorporated into the narrative about the deity's movements. The depiction of a forest, mfinda, and a lake or sea, mbu, as two ends of a rod, is a frequent figure of speech denoting two contrasts which are not antithetical. In the past, the idea presumably influenced the design of a number of Kongo shrines, not only that of Lusunsi. The shrine at the island of Mateva in the Congo/Zaire River, for instance, consisted basically of a clean and wellmaintained road some 150 metres long which was believed to be used for the deity's promenades.50 At one end was placed a piece of limonite (ferric oxide) and at the other, a pyramid of skulls of hippopotami, antelopes, and buffaloes. Nowadays most of the remaining Kongo shrines I was able to visit are situated in a forest, but this may be the result of several modern factors. In the forest they are better hidden from the attention of outsiders so that they have a greater chance of persisting. In addition, some were abandoned when the population in the neighbourhood declined, and the small trees originally planted grew up unchecked by the priests, creating a forest which might not have been part of the original plan. In some cases, as with the large shrine adjacent to former Mbanza Vivi, the forest is so dense that one can reach the shrine only by crawling through the aerial roots. In the nineteenth century, many shrines were reported on the side of the road or on islands in the rivers. The name of the site of the Lusunsi shrine, however, suggests that a forest was part of the original plan. Lombe like dombe denotes a dark or black colour and, by extension, designates a dark place.

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It has already been stated that a stream which empties into the ocean runs through the shrine. Its name was also noted as Lombe. The association of shrines with streams seems to have been typical in the Kongoland. Dennett51 suggested that a water resource was a compulsory component of the shrine, possibly because of the sacred snake Tchiama, which lives in water. Within the shrines of the country's tutelary deities, of which the Lusunsi shrine is one, the stream may also be interpreted as housing spirits of the dead, the bisimbi. The tradition speaks of the bisimbi as helpers of the tutelary deities. The narrative on the Lusunsi shrine, recorded by Zucchelli and analysed earlier in this chapter, situated a temple on the bank of stream. Although 'temple' in older accounts often designates a shrine as a place of worship rather than architecture, in this case it is justifiable to read the source literally. Dondo, Kamba, and Kunyi informants were consistent in their answers to my inquiries about the Lusunsi cult; the place of Lusunsi worship is a hut, I was told, where sacred things are kept in a basket of raffia. Accounts of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries often mention 'fetish houses' in various Kongo regions, mostly without being specific about their architecture.52 None the less, one can infer at least some details from the sources. The house was predominantly a shelter for the objects of the cult and also served as a place for the priest's services connected with the deposited relics. It was not a gathering place for worshippers. Access to the house, if allowed at all, was usually limited to those directly concerned with the ceremony. My access to such a house, nzo, was the result of lengthy negotiations, and permission was given only in two instances; both were in the country of Bawoyo. Sometimes the interior of the house has been subdivided into two sections by a partial wall, in which case only one compartment is accessible to a secular visitor. In rare cases, the shrine also includes several buildings enclosed by a wall. There seems to be no special type of house assigned to a particular kind of cult. Rather, the shrine shelters followed regional architectural customs both in design and material. However, round construction resembling an open pavilion on seven wooden posts and creating a shelter for the bench was observed in the 18705 in the shrine of Bunsi in Loango.53 This architectural type is most unusual, being distinct from the architecture of the region. Mostly small in size and rectangular in ground plan, the shrine houses were built of wood or bamboo poles, or of palm branches, or, finally, in the south-western part of the Kongo country, where the sources suggest a tradition of work in clay, they were of mud. Often the walls of the structure were painted, and sometimes posts or other elements exhibited carved reliefs. Ephemeral materials imply frequent renewal of the shelter by the priests. The Lusunsi shrine house, which presum-

The Shrine 69 ably had been a shelter for the copper cap/crown and the neckpiece, obviously did not survive the years of neglect by the priest. The most conspicuous surviving remnants of the shrine site were, in 1933, two sacred trees. Unlike architectural types, the relatedness of species of trees or shrubs to their specific religious or other social functions seems to be deeply rooted, and their incidence follows the cult, overlapping regional boundaries. Field data of the 19705 support this. Cults, social institutions, and social ranks, or even certain political objectives, are to this day tied to or expressed by particular kinds of flora.54 The Bakongo make trees and herbs a part of various aspects of their lives on three different levels. They plant a certain tree to create a setting, to identify the place, and to mark an event. In many villages, for instance, the chief's compound is readily recognizable by a special arrangement of specific trees which are connected with leadership. The second mode of relatedness of certain botanical species to a cult, institution, or set of ideas is the more or less exclusive utilization of that particular kind of wood as the material for certain objects. The staff of a particular high-ranking priest, for instance, was carved only in a particular kind of wood, as it bore the appropriate meaning. Third, trees and herbs have been employed for a number of pharmaceutical purposes. Since all three levels have usually been interconnected, one can comprehend the association of certain cults with healing procedures and the priests' specializations in the treatment of certain sicknesses. Certain species are more privileged than others. They are usually called sacred trees by outsiders,55 as they receive the most respect in various forms. Among them, the mbota or lubota or mbotila is patently a tree whose meaning is most generally shared within the Kongoland. And this is despite the differences in this tree's appearance which result from dissimilarities in environmental conditions, such as, for example, the humid Ngoyo and Kwakongo borderlands at the fringe of the Mayombe forest, versus the dry land of Manyanga. The mbota was, according to the Lusunsi priest's information given to Tastevin, the name of the tree around whose foot the copper cap/crown and other objects used in the Lusunsi cult were found in disarray. Uprooted six years before Tastevin's visit, it still lay there to mark one of the shrine's two centres. The mbota, by its botanical name Milletia Versicolor Welw. ex Bak., is a coastal species of West and Central Africa well known for its hard wood of medium-sized grain, and appreciated by Europeans as a commercial wood highly suitable for construction and cabinet making.56 Also, relative to other African species, the mbota is very durable and not prone to attack by white ants. In the Ogooue basin, it is commonly used for the construction of houses and

70 Crown and Ritual enclosures.57 Nevertheless, the Bakongo do not carve the mbota frequently. It is used for certain parts of house construction, according to my informants, as well as for the carving of some rather rare objects. The only object which he would carve of lubota is the handle of a carver's adze, insisted Andre Bakala, an old blacksmith and carver of Bijua Nguma in the Mfuati mining region. In reality, the mbota also serves as the material for other rare items - devices for attaching, holding, and pegging, such as the rivets of a platform or a chest, or the shuttles used in weaving. Most commonly, the mbota is associated with graveyards, where it is planted on the graves of high-ranking chiefs.58 By implication, it can also be found at the crossroads, since the graves are often arranged along the road, and the chief's grave creates a crossroads. A concoction of mbota leaves and roots has been used for pharmaceutical purposes in both the north and the south of the country.59 Mainly, however, the use of the mbota represents a political statement whose intensity and meaning is commonly and straightforwardly understood. The Bakongo identify the mbata's material properties with the vigour and toughness which they view as their own distinct characteristics. The mbota also stands for their excellence and endurance. One does not have enough physical force to fell a mbota, the Bakongo say, and the praise name of a descent group of the old pretenders to Kongo kingship states that 'Kimbota mbota at the bank of a river can neither be bent nor straightened.'60 The mbota is unquestionably the Kongo 'national' tree, a symbol of the Kongo spirit and an emblem of Kongo political ambitions. The proverb which states it most overtly reads, in Batsikama's translation: 'We are a braid which it is impossible to loosen. Like lumbota mbota on the river's bank, we can be slanted by the currents but never broken.'61 Apart from the mbota, a few other kinds of trees were also occasionally mentioned as co-creating the setting of a shrine. Pechuel-Loesche62 noted a baobab and a ficus tree in the shrine of the tutelary deity of the Nkaya region in Loango. The ficus tree, nsanda, by its botanical name Ficus thonningii Blume,63 has, like the mbota, fulfilled a religious role for centuries across the Kongoland. Cavazzi64 mentions its incidence in many places of the southern part of the Kongo kingdom. It was a tree held in such respect, he says, that nobody would even cut its branches. People suspended 'idols' from it. In the Loango tradition, the nsanda was identified with the Ma Loango. It often also marks and protects market places. Old graveyards on the Teye plateau, east of Boma, have now changed into large groves of full-grown nsanda. Bastian noted that 'sanda' was planted in the royal graves in Ngoyo.65 This historically important tree recalls the ancestors who made cloth from its bark. After the Bakongo's use of woven cloth became widespread, the nsanda provided a protective dress for pregnant women.66

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In contrast to the nsanda, which was also employed in the pharmacopoeia,67 the baobab was not used in customary medicine, the tradition says. Even the calabashes of the baobab, or Adansonia digitata Linn., may be replaced by fruits of another species. Nevertheless, the nkondo, or baobab, has been, up to the present, the most conspicuously visible tree both within old and present-day villages and, even more frequently, on their outskirts. It is a tree under which disputes have been settled, so say the informants. In the seventeenth century, the inhabitants of the islands in the Congo/Zaire River reportedly used stems of the large baobabs for the manufacture of boats which were particularly suited to warfare, as they carried more than two hundred warriors. And in the late nineteenth century, a large old nkondo was reportedly the meeting place of the nine chiefs of Mboma and was the place where wars were declared and peace made.68 Several groups of old baobabs are also reported in Mbanza Kongo (Sao Salvador).69 The shrine of the protective deity of Mbanza Loango was constructed around a large baobab.70 Finally, the silk-cotton tree, Ceiba pentandra (Linn.) Gaertn., also contributed to of the shrine's setting. Several of them, for instance, became the focal point of one of the most important Ngoyo shrines in Nto, where a portion of the royal investiture ceremony took place. The designation of the silk-cotton tree, which occurs in most parts of the Kongoland and which has been utilized extensively in the manufacture of canoes and medicines, is fuma, mfuma, or umfuma.11 This designation is widespread; it was used in all the Kongo dialects with which I worked. The pivotal position of the mbota in the Lusunsi shrine is expressed not only by the position of the copper cap/crown at its foot, but also by the placing of most other objects of the Lusunsi cult within its immediate neighbourhood (see Appendix II). Iron hammers were stuck in the ground there. The fragmentary iron double bells, neckpiece, fragment of the basket, iron bell with clapper, seat or seats of iron, and a long iron bar were scattered all around. Within a short distance from the mbota were also placed two anchors from European ships and a great number of shells. The second core of the shrine was another tree which, unlike the mbota, is neither unequivocally identifiable, nor readily traceable in Kongo ideology. It is none of the species previously discussed which were noted in other Kongo shrines. Suspecting the priest of trying to hide this place, Tastevin72 held it for a true altar of the spirit of celestial and terrestrial waters. Pointed bars of iron were stuck in the ground there. Cylindrical pieces of iron, a special knife, a crucible, and some unidentified iron tools for field cultivation were mentioned as lying around (see Appendix II). According to information presumably provided by the priest, the second tree

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was called libanze.13 Tastevin suggests the translation of libanze as 'one of those of the leopard,' and by implication he explains this tree as marking the meeting place of the secret leopard society. Although no source is given for this information, which is an interpretation rather than a translation, it points to an insider. However, Tastevin apparently did not grasp the whole name of the tree. Consequently, there are several possibilities for its botanical identification. It may be an Anonidium manii Engl. and Diels, a small tree which grows in forests and which, in Kivili is called libandji Iwa bakwandji.14 Major religious and therapeutic effects are attributed to this tree by various cultures in the Niari and Ngounie basins. It is also believed to repel evil spirits, so that its leaves are kept in houses and the decoction of its bark is used for personal ablutions. As well, the libanze may be identified as a Homalium le Testui Pellegr., called in Kivili libanji-la-njoku.15 The religious and therapeutic use of this tree was not described. However, its name in a number of languages of the Ngounie basin contains the stem -bandj- which is suggestive of some historical commonality in the role and use of the species. Finally, the identification also as Homalium macropterum Gilg. of the same family may be considered. Bouquet noted its name in Kilari as kibangia wa saangi and its use by Lari priests in pharmacopoeia.76 The word libanze is not noted in the dictionary of Kikongo. The closest botanical name recorded by Laman's dictionary, lubanzi, translates as 'small tree-with prickles,' which does not provide enough information for identification. The Kongo name for the metamorphosis of man and leopard is ngoIwanzi; Iwanzi is phonetically cognate to libanze. However, in Kivili, the menleopards are called banga mapivi.11 The stem -bandj- prompts yet another consideration. The bandji or ibandji are the neophytes of the Bwiiti, in the Tsogho language. The Mpongwe call them abandji.1* The male society Bwiiti has a hierarchy of ranks which the adepts and members enter upon conclusion of an initiation. Bandji are the initial rank. The cult is now spread over a large area, also north of the Ogooue River. In the late nineteenth century, it was common not only among the Mitsogho, who are usually credited with its dissemination, but also with the Apindji, Bavili, and other ethnic groups of the Ngounie basin. It seems valid to speculate that the incidence of the libandji or kibandji of the three different species implies a general designation of a tree under which an adept concluded his investiture. The particular cult, society, or office whose neophyte he thus became could be identified by the second noun, which is variable in the three species designations. Consequently, libanze may specify nothing but a tree under which the candidate concluded his investiture. The already established art-historical evidence, namely the analysis of the cap/crown and neckpiece, gave multiple clues pointing to some kind of relation

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to the leopard. By extension, a bond between the shrine and the leopard would not be unexpected in view of the importance of the cap/crown for the shrine. Therefore, Tastevin's record of the interpretation of the second tree in the Lusunsi shrine has to be given serious consideration. Together with the insignia, an emblem of Lusunsi was also brought to Paris. It is an iron object whose shape, as a whole, is strongly reminiscent of a small paddle. At both flat extremities, it evolves into pointed and curved extensions. With marginal risk of error and given earlier references to the leopard, one can conclude that the extremities stand for leopard paws. The object, which is now also in the Musee de l'Homme holdings, was the Lusunsi priest's sceptre.79 Institutionalized association of man and leopard in North-west Central Africa has been discussed in the literature in two contexts: the secret organization of men-leopards and the ngo society. European accounts of the nineteenth and early twentieth century frequently report on the cruelty of ritual murders committed by men-leopards and conducted with no witnesses. They usually occurred in the Ogooue basin, but some also involved Loango, Ngoyo, and Mayombe.80 The men-leopards, disguised in leopard skins, are said to attack their victims and are helped by an iron tool imitating a leopard paw. Or, they reportedly manipulated a leopard as the killer. The goal of this secret association, though not documented, is seen in human sacrifices whose purpose is the provision of ingredients necessary for the preparation of an unspecified ritual meal or drink. There are no indications in the available data to suggest that human sacrifices were conducted in the shrine or in connection with Lusunsi. An allusion81 to human sacrifices cut with a saw in Mayombe for Bunsi, deity of the cognate shrine, is as implausible as it is unsustained. In its formal reference to a leopard paw, the Lusunsi priest's sceptre is visually suggestive rather than realistically imitative. Its shape and small size also rule out the possibility of its use as a killing instrument. The incidence of the ngo or ngoye male society is documented in the upper Ogooue basin and as far south as Zanaga, where it has expanded among the Bakota.82 In all regions of recorded incidence, the society's prime function is focused on the ancestors. Members' responsibilities include worship and propitiation of the dead, and also the providing of relics, their consecration, and their preservation in reliquaries. The priestly role is also expressed in the designation of the members, who are called banganga ngo. Although the eligibility and membership patterns seem to vary from one region to another, the initiation is compulsory and ubiquitous. It includes a number of stages which are discernible even in modern simplified form. Once initiated, the male is a member for life and is replaced after his death by another male relative. Actions of various

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initiation stages unfold in various environments, but permanent headquarters are built in a forest clearing. The banganga ngo construct a house or hangar, plant certain species of trees and shrubs, and stick picks and posts in the ground for the display of offerings to the ancestors. Candidates are also attached to these picks and posts. Testing of physical toughness and training in self-control can be deduced as the principal purposes of the ngo initiation as far as it was noted by Even, Hee, and Andersson. However, since the banganga ngo are specialists in autopsy, providing skeletal relics of the deceased, and employ in their activities a considerable number of plants, the initiation is presumably also an introduction to anatomy and botany. One of the many botanical species83 used in one way or another during the ngo initiation is the silk-cotton tree. That provides a link with the shrines in which the Ngoyo royal investiture developed. The shrine in Nto converged around a small longitudinal house surrounded by a group of silkcotton trees.84 Ngoyo royal investiture opened in Nto with the first set of ceremonies. It is also at the very beginning of the initiation that the banganga ngo plant and employ, in various modes, the silk-cotton tree.85 The incidence of the ngo society in Ngoyo is documented. Bastian86 mentions that members of a family in Kanje near Banana acquired their ability to transform into leopards due to a fetish mankulu, whose producers and keepers they were. Nkulu with a possible plural bakulu translates as 'ancestor' or 'the old one.' There can be little doubt that the tradition recorded by Bastian was that of specialists who prepared bodily relics of the dead and who kept the reliquaries. The relics produced by banganga ngo seem to have been more substantial than hair and nails cut from the dead chiefs, according to Kongo practice in the twentieth century, discussed in connection with the ancestral basket, the ntende or nkobe. Bastian's record has it that the family members of Kanje, although attacking people, were not to cause them injury resulting in bloodshed. For human blood, so the tradition says, would prevent their reverse transformation from leopard into man. The tradition refers, in my opinion, to the practice of autopsy conducted by the people of Kanje. Yet another piece of evidence on the practice of autopsy in Ngoyo leads directly to the Lusunsi shrine. Tastevin8"7 recorded a tradition which states that the head of the deceased Ngoyo king was kept by the Lusunsi priest. The priest reportedly kept the head, called Kokulo lu Sunsi, under a small roof. He manipulated the skull in one of his ceremonies which was conducted to purify the country. Reports of the cephalic relic and its priestly keeper, rare in the Kongoland, relate the shrine to ancestral cults commonly reported in the Ogooue basin. In the past, the shrine possibly comprised a shelter in which the leaders' skulls were kept. The copper basket might have been the container for these relics.

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The Lombe site, however, does not provide any convincing evidence for a conjecture that the Lusunsi shrine was a meeting place for a larger number of society members. A muanza, a male gathering house, which in the past was a meeting place of the elite and which one can find in the centre of the mbanza of large chiefdoms in the northern Kongoland, is now a secular place and does not seem to be in the care of a priest. This is in contrast to an ebania, a male meeting house of the Bwiiti, which is until now and in various parts of the Ogooue basin a place of cult maintained and watched by a priestly keeper, as is the hangar built by the banganga ngo on the site yendje for the ngo initiation. Stringent religious restrictions of the Lusunsi shrine limited access to two priests and the royal candidate. This rules out the possibility of the incidence of a muanza on the site. The wish to conceal the Lusunsi shrine is manifested in yet another important feature. Tastevin did not note any traces of offerings on this site. Nor did he hear about them from his informants. Outside visitors to the Kongoland noticed offerings in the form of piles of animal skulls in the shrines of the protective deities, and also bones of fish and water animals in coastal and riverain sanctuaries.88 Members of the German Loango expedition in the 18705 repeatedly recorded that the name of these piles was Bunsi. It shows that the piles were related to the shrines dedicated to the tutelary deity Bunsi. They were remnants of compulsory offerings by hunters and fishermen to the Bunsi priests. Arranged and kept by the priests, the piles seem to have served as material reminders of the population's obligation to the cult, rather than some special religious purposes. This assumption is sustained by the efforts of certain enterprising chiefs who tended to initiate their own piles of animal skulls and bones in their compounds, thus inviting a collection of gifts by their village inhabitants. In the Lusunsi shrine, such encouragement of the offerings of donors would clearly have been ill-placed. b) Seat Two substantial circles of iron, one metre in diameter, were key objects of the more permanent, less portable equipment of the shrine (see Appendix II). The descriptions situate them in the neighbourhood of the mbota. One reportedly had five semicircles attached which might have served as supporting elements. Around the circumference of the other were applied pendants of iron which Tastevin interpreted as rings. The circle with five semicircles is designated in Tastevin's writings as the stool of Lusunsi, or of the deity's priest; the one with pendants, as the seat for the future king of Ngoyo during his investiture in the shrine. It should be remembered that the tradition which I recorded in 1973 was

76 Crown and Ritual explicit in listing the cap and the seat as representing and generating the power of leadership. The iron seats were doubtless the most significant constituents of the shrine, together with the copper cap/crown. As in many African cultures, the seat takes a significant place in Kongo ideology. It expresses social stratification, reifies the political office, and holds religious potency. However, it is unlikely that the significance of the Kongo status seat historically stemmed from the object on which one sat, or from its quality. Rather it derived from the emphasis on sitting as such. Of the many designations of seats, the two used most frequently, namely nkunda and nkata, denote any kind of seat of various materials and manufacture.89 Both these denominations are synonyms of 'to sit,' 'to sit down,' and 'to be seated,' and are contained in the name for the seated posture with crossed legs. Cross-legged sitting is still regarded as the most dignified sitting posture for Kongo men. The lexical data thus indicate the derivative nature of the status seat. It could have developed from a simple elevation of the ground for cross-legged sitting of the authority bearer. With rare exceptions, such as the rectangular low stool now used on secular and non-political occasions mainly by women, the perpetuation and use of the seat's customary specimens have been discontinued in the Kongoland. In part, the customary seat's functions were transferred onto a chair of the twentieth-century European type; in part, they are now only remembered. Among the extra-urban Bakongo, to receive people or to be received by somebody as well as to perform or participate in some other political and social ceremony implies even now a number of postural rituals in which sitting and the seat play a prominent role. Not until the chief orders a chair to be offered to the incoming foreigner is it evident that he has decided to recognize the visitor's status and to receive him. Among the local people, nobody but the chief and the elite of elders are offered chairs during such a reception. The rest of the community members stand around, often for hours. Art-historical reconstruction of the shape and design of the stool used within the Kongoland in the past is neither self-evident nor unambiguous. In contrast to Luba stools, there are no examples of old ceremonial Kongo seats in museums, to my knowledge. The accounts are not revealing, either. More reliable assistance is provided by the iconography. Seated figures are a very frequent feature of Kongo sculpture, the highest incidence showing figures seated on a carpet covering a sort of platform, either rectangular or round. One type of seat proper is consistently prevalent: a rectangular case with patterns on the wall. A circular seat is depicted only rarely. Cases or chests of various sizes and decoration were still manufactured in the late nineteenth century, and a few remain in European collections. The owner of the chest kept pieces of cloth in it or other valuable items which were his or her

The Shrine 77 personal property.90 These chests were also used as the owners' seats. The missionaries of St Esprit, for instance, were surprised by what they perceived to be a lack of ceremoniousness of the king of Kwakongo, the Ma Kongo, who received them seated on a simple case of customary design. Miniature chests are also depicted in high relief on old wooden pot lids.91 They show a variety of shapes, of which some, however, would hardly be suitable for sitting. In the imagery of the pot lids and in the proverbs, they symbolize personal wealth and status during life as well as after death. By its shape, the chest/seat was closely akin to the rectangular type of the ntende. The affinity was especially prominent in the case of the coiled throne of the Loango kings admired by European traders and explorers from the seventeenth century92 because of their artistic decor, combining the polychrome of the coiling material with fine patterns. Like the basket, the coiled seat and probably also the chest occurred in a cylindrical variant as well. Degranpre,93 a French naval officer visiting Ngoyo after the French conquest of the Portuguese fort at Cabinda in 1784, noted such cylindrical coiled seats. Numerous references made in the sources94 to the seats used by the Mani, his officers, or the chiefs in Soyo are lamentably laconic as to the form of these seats. Some of them, however, do provide the fabric for art-historical conclusions, such as the passage about the Mani Soyo's throne covered with red cloth and decorated with gold studs in the account by Pieter van den Broecke at the beginning of the seventeenth century. A similar imported Spanish throne was used in the seventeenth century, also by Mani Kongo. Fathers Lorenzo da Lucca and Merolla often wrote that they saw the throne of the Mani or the stools of the nobles during their time as missionaries in Mbanza Soyo or within the Soyo province. However, as in the late-nineteenth-century report by Pere Carrie, who negotiated the reintroduction of the Soyo mission with Mani Soyo, the references are general, providing no ground for conclusive speculation on the shape and form of the seats. To establish the art-historical cognizance of the throne of Mani Kongo is not simple either. It poses problems mainly due to discrepancies among the sources. Rui de Pina,95 narrating the story of the baptism in the Kongo kingdom in 1491, writes that Mani Kongo as well as Mani Soyo were seated, on this solemn occasion, on an estrado. The word translates as both 'seat' and 'platform.' Mani Kongo's estrado is characterized as rich and of customary design and manufacture. A more specific discussion by Barros96 does not make recognition of the royal throne easier. The king's seat is said to have included a high scaffold or stage on which was placed a royal chair made of ivory with perfectly worked pieces of gold or silver sheets of customary design. Two later Portuguese sources reiterate the idea of the two-element seat of Mani Kongo: Lopez in the

78 Crown and Ritual late sixteenth century and Padre Francisco de Santa Maria in the late seventeenth century.97 Because both these sources benefited from Barros's chronicle in other instances, it would be reasonable to assume that they also relied upon Barros in their information on the two-element throne. Yet, they multiplied the puzzling aspects. Lopez speaks about a throne erected upon a raised platform, while Padre Francisco mentions a chair of ivory placed on a throne of wood. Rui de Pina's record of a single-element seat is also sustained by other, later sources. The Italian manuscript of the late sixteenth century from the Vatican library98 characterizes the royal stool as a platform. Moreover, the anonymous author of Historia do reino do Congo" in the middle of the seventeenth century describes the royal throne as a platform made of superimposed poles; the structure was covered by a mat. Although neither of these two anonymous sources implies personal experience - both of them refer to the throne used in the royal reception of the Portuguese delegation of 1491 - each includes specific details which enhance their credibility. The seventeenth-century source notes that the Kongo name for the throne is banga. Georges de Gheel's dictionary of the seventeenth century does not note banga but translates banku as scamnum, which is a Latin denomination of 'stool,' 'bank,' and 'throne,' while Laman translates banga as 'shelf and 'storey.'100 The various phonetic transcriptions of banga, however, appear to be a borrowing from the Portuguese banco; as such it would be only a post-fifteenth-century denomination of either a pre-existing or an introduced item. Therefore, the seventeenth-century record of the denomination of Mani Kongo's throne does not provide a valid basis for further deductions. The anonymous author of the sixteenth century gives the proportions of the king's elevated platform, which is a valuable piece of information. They do not significantly diverge from the proportions noted by Dapper for the coiled seat/ chest used as a throne by Ma Loango. Kongo sculpture substantiates both the single- and the two-element seat. For several dry seasons, I conducted field inquiries in various parts of the Kongoland on the sculptures' structural elements. In this context, the results concerning the interpretation of the plinth are of special interest. Whether rectangular or round, the plinth is a typical component of Kongo anthropomorphic figural sculpture. Its primary purpose is neither tectonic nor compositional. The exception is sculpture made by the Babembe and western Bateke and used by various northern Kongo groups; they have no plinths in most cases. Whereas the human figure or figural groups are depicted as seated, kneeling, or standing on a plinth, figures of isolated animals stand only on their feet, regardless of the importance or forcefulness of the representation or the object. The informants read the plinth as a stage or a base on which a person is situated, to be raised above the ground upon which others repose. Frequently, they

The Shrine 79 compared it to the tribute of their modern political leaders. Thus, the plinth communicates the responsibilities and prerogatives of a singled-out individual. The clearest meaning of the plinth is conveyed by its most commonly used designation: it is a kuma kia kimfumu, a place for the chief's authority. Patterns on the plinth's vertical walls stand for the carpet spread over this elevation.101 Men as well as women depicted on this base stand, kneel, or sit cross-legged. Some figures are shown seated on a stool or a chair placed above the base. Each of these postural modifications conveys a distinct state or specific action. In this context, the two sitting postures, that is, on the platform or on the stool, are noteworthy. The figures seated on a stool above a platform represent a number of activities expressed by some typical attributes or genre gestures and communicate clear messages related to these activities. The message usually takes the form of a regulative and commonly used saying. These sayings also serve as interpretations of the sculpture. For instance, a sculpture of a male seated on a stool with a wide base, not a chair, above a platform, and holding one or both hands close to his mouth, is readily identified as 'The chief always eats alone,' or 'To eat with a woman is like eating with a witch,' or possibly other sayings which I did not record. All the sayings used in the identification of this type of sculpture would have a meal or a high-status male's eating as a common denominator. Figures seated directly on the platform sit cross-legged. In contrast to the previous rather eloquent identifications, a cross-legged seated male figure with no attributes is read simply as mfumu, 'the chief.' There are also variations corresponding to the figure's posture. However, they relate to the chief's attitude and his mood rather than to a social code, as in the previous case. Very frequent, for instance, are representations identified as a 'sad chief.' The only saying which I noted in connection with this type of seated cross-legged male figure states: 'There is only one god, there is only one chief.' It is 'the chief with the upraised right arm. From a study of the sculpture, one can infer that a cross-legged male figure situated directly on a platform is the image of the leader sitting in state. A male figure seated on a stool above a platform seems to depict the leader on other occasions, both profane and religious. The size of the platform was presumably well suited to both cross-legged sitting and use as a portable stool. The rectangular platform was long and not high. The three-step throne on which an ornate imported chair and table stood when Mani Kongo ate in public, as mentioned by Lopez,102 does not suggest a structure higher than seventy centimetres to a metre. As well, the tradition of the nineteenth century characterized the coiled platform of Ma Loango103 as not reaching the height of an imported table. It presumably exceeded a chest in size.

8o Crown and Ritual Apart from the iconography of the sculpture, documentation on the round platform is scanty. In 1622, during the investiture of King Pedro, a large and round construction used as a royal throne was noted within the king's new compound at the main square of Mbanza Kongo.104 The incidence of a circular stool is not richly documented either. Yet, one can assume that some of those 'carved and highly ornamented' stools105 encountered by missionaries and travellers in the Kongoland until the late nineteenth century were round seats like the one collected by Laman in Kinkenge.106 Kunyi and Kamba informants also referred to low and rather small round seats used in the past. One can conclude that the circular shape of the seats in the Lusunsi shrine resembles some examples of the Kongo leaders' stools, although the evidence on their incidence is not abundant. Perhaps closest in its form to the description of the Lusunsi stool with five semicircles is a Kota stool from Mossendjo noted by Andersson.107 Mainly, one infers that, in diameter, the Lusunsi seats are larger than the small round stools, but small enough to be circular platforms. By implication, one can conjecture that they were not intended as thrones to support the invested leader in state, but had, instead, some other purpose. The accounts suggest that the material and manufacture of the platform varied according to the region, as did the material and manufacture of the chest and stool. Coiling of strips from the leaves of the raffia palm tree or oil palm tree, or another species of the same family, was typical for the north-western coastal part of the Kongoland. Like the already discussed baskets with multicoloured patterns manufactured in the coastal regions until the late nineteenth century, the platforms, chests, or stools were presumably coiled over a reinforcing structure of wood, so that the seat did not collapse under the leader's weight. The baskets' inner structure was made of wide strips of wood from the sanga-sanga tree, by its botanical name Ricinodedron heudelotii africanum Muell. Arg.108 In the Mayombe forest and in Manyanga, both the platform for the newly invested chief and the chest were produced from the nsenga, which is the parasol tree, Musanga smithii R. Br.109 Pieces of this light wood were joined by dowels made of the mbota. Coiled patterns on the platforms, chests, and stools conveyed distinct meanings which, in the case of structures made entirely of wood, were communicated by images carved in relief. The repertoire of some of these reliefs, such as those on the chest from the Bourdarie collection,110 convincingly indicates that even a seemingly secular item such as the chest had important religious connotations. The Bourdarie chest was purchased by the collector in 1893 on the western fringe of the northern Mayombe. Its reliefs represent the leader, allude to his investiture and his authority, and also incorporate motifs of the Kongo myth of god and his wife.

The Shrine 81 Ivory is mentioned only by Barros as one of the materials of the throne of Mani Kongo, and no incidence has been found. However, the association of metals with the stool, also noted by Barros, appears viable. The already mentioned round wooden stool collected by Laman, for instance, shows the application of metal studs. Contrary to Barros's belief, however, the metals are unlikely to be gold or silver, since neither was customarily used by the Bakongo. The material of the two Lusunsi seats - that is, iron - is acknowledged by the traditions.111 To sit on an iron chest is synonymous with the final act of investiture of an elected candidate, as is the acquisition of the cap. Numerous written sources document that the progression from the elected to the invested leader was expressed by his gradual access to different types of seats. In the i Syos, Pere Schmitt paid a visit to the elected king of Loango who was seated on a wooden stool and, concurrently, Pechuel-Loesche once again recorded the tradition of the Ma Loango's coiled chest/throne.112 Padre Cherubino da Savona reported"3 on the 'coronation' rites at the Kongo court in 1763 and 1764. The elected king was seated on a small stool; after the investiture ceremony, he was guided by his investor to the throne. The Kongo king's investiture ceremony was similarly developed in 1622. II4 In the progression from the stool of the elected to the throne of the invested, the chief's iron chest stood for neither the stool nor the throne. European clergy observing and recording the Kongo court ceremonial omitted its customary element, both from necessity, since the investiture was a lengthy process, and by design, as they held this element to be ridiculous and superstitious. That is why information on the customary investiture ritual of Mani Kongo is scarce. In contrast, the oral tradition on the investiture of Kongo chiefs focused exactly on those moments which by custom were critical to the ceremony as a whole. One of these is doubtless the seating of the future leader on the iron chest, or its equivalent. It happened at the apex of the investiture. The customary meaning and significance of sitting on an iron chest is illuminated by Mertens's record"5 of the ceremonies conducted during the chief's investiture in the eastern Kongoland. Upon the conclusion of his investiture, the chief leaves the house where he was initiated. As he is already crowned with a cap, he is guided by his investor, the blacksmith, to ascend the stone of the smithy. Seated on the stone, he receives his very last emblem, the metal armlets for his left arm. Only after this act is the chief carried to the village 'square' or place of assembly to be seated on the chair of the invested. The fact that this ceremonial act was also included in the investiture of Mani Kongo is not revealed in the testimony of the 17905 by Padre Raimondo da Dicomano,"6 who acted as the Catholic investor of two Kongo kings. The elected king-to-be was seated on a large stone situated in the centre of Mbanza Kongo,

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outside the royal compound. This occurred after he had been introduced there by his customary investor and before he entered the royal compound where he was placed on his ornate throne.117 Raimondo states that the arms of King Afonso were carved in the stone, suggesting its dating to the reign of Afonso in the early sixteenth century. This stone does not seem to have lasted until the nineteenth century. Bastian does not mention it in describing his visit in the 18505, nor do the missionaries who came to stay in Sao Salvador thirty years later. Stone and iron are interchangeable in the Kongo culture, as they are in the Kongo language. Mutual substitution of stone and iron as the material of the nzundu (hammer and anvil) has demonstrated this point. Consequently, the inference can be drawn that the iron chest was a facsimile of an object of stone. It further follows that the stone or the iron chest stood for an anvil. And on this anvil, the investor symbolically forged the future leader so that he would strengthen the Kongoland, which is a country of iron or stone, Kongo dia ntadi.llS The iron armlet, which the chief in the eastern Kongoland received during this act, is undoubtedly a memento of this act of forging. Finally, one concludes that one of the two iron seats in the Lusunsi shrine was a metonym of the blacksmith's anvil. Circular stools of various kinds of stones are known from the shrines at Ife and from the Iwo district in Yorubaland.119 Stools made entirely of metal, mainly iron, are still little known. Their incidence, at least in Bantu Africa, however, can be postulated. In his investigation of the iron-smelting process in Malawi, van der Merwe120 found a stool of cast iron in the chief's house. And in the late nineteenth century a stool 'forged in copper' was reported among the western interlacustrine Bantu. At the reception of Emin Pascha in 1891, the head of the chiefdom of Karagwe is reported to have sat on such a throne.121 Stools analogous to the Lusunsi seats, of either iron or stone, occur in West as well as in Bantu Africa. Distribution of the stone and metal stools does not seem to be accidental. However, further exploration and data would be required to enable one to advance a viable hypothesis on the historical implications and significance of their incidence. A morphologic parallel to the Ife stone stools and Idah bark boxes/stools was convincingly established by B. Fagg and W. Fagg, and it introduces the consideration of yet another facet of the interrelationship of West and Bantu Africa. Bark baskets or boxes used as stools east of the Niger River, in Idah, were mentioned earlier in connection with the Lusunsi basket. Examples recorded by B. Fagg and W. Fagg from Benin and the chiefdoms around Benin suggest that this type of stool seems also to have spread along the western bank of the Niger River and outside Yorubaland. Evidence on their distribution established so far can be further developed through the incidence of bark boxes in North-west

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Central Africa as well as farther to the east.122 Moreover, visual parallels between stone stools and bark boxes or stools can be complemented by functional correspondences between the box/stool and chest/seat, which are both containers and treasuries, and which are documented in Idah as well as in the Kongoland. These multiple correspondences and analogies encourage both comprehensive case studies and compelling examination of the correlations. As to the Kongoland, the versatility of the chest/seat finally leads to the consideration of the seat's function as a sarcophagus. This idea was brought up by Pechuel-Loesche in the case of the coiled chest or platform used as a royal seat by Ma Loango, and by Laman in the case of the iron chest/seat recognized by the northern Kongo tradition.123 They noted traditions that both Ma Loango and chiefs used as a seat the case, whether coiled or made of iron, which held their personal wealth and which was also their future coffin. The idea could even be supported lexically. In Kiwoyo, the chest and sarcophagus are designated by the same noun: lukatu lu mbongo is a case for wealth, and lukatu lu mvumbi is a case for the dead.124 However, a critical analysis shows that in their interpretations of the oral traditions Pechuel-Loesche and Laman identified the leader's inhumation with his funeral and his coffin with his reliquary. Not only did the leader's inhumation and his funeral occur at two different times, but the interment of Ma Loango's body and the interment of the relics also happened in two different places.125 Although in the coastal regions the material and type of manufacture of both the coffin and the chest were apparently identical, for they were both made in coiled vegetal material, the coffin and the chest were two clearly distinct objects. For this reason, the representations on the wooden lids show that the lukatu lu mbongo is suitable for sitting on while the lukatu lu mvumbi is not. After being dried, the body of the dead leader was enveloped in a cloth to create a huge bulk on which was superimposed a small head made especially for this purpose.126 The implication of this increase in the physical size of the leader has already been mentioned in the previous chapter. For the leader's corpse prepared in this way his family made a large sarcophagus which was interred during inhumation.127 His chest, now almost empty, since its owner's cloth was used for enveloping his dead body, becomes the receptacle for the leader's nails and hair. It is ceremonially displayed and interred only when the newly elected successor organizes his predecessor's funeral.128 The chest/seat in its function as reliquary is shown in the ancestor figures carved by the Babembe. To accept the relics, the chest/seats have a small opening. It seems that the function of the seat to hold the dead owner's relics is not restricted to the Bakongo. A throne displaying the jawbone of the dead leader, for instance, may be a modification of such a reliquary known from Buganda kingdom.129 The dimensions of the enveloped leader's corpse noted by Degranpre in

84 Crown and Ritual Ngoyo in the 17805 coincide with the dimensions of the coffin recorded in the :88os by Dennett.130 They are both substantially larger in size than the platform and chest whose dimensions were noted by the anonymous author in the late sixteenth century and by Dapper in the middle of the seventeenth century.131 What clearly distinguishes them in kind and not just degree is the difference in proportions of the coffin and the platform or chest. The chest and platform were distinctly lower than the sarcophagus, which was conspicuous by its height.132 The language, namely the Woyo dialect, denominating both the chest and the coffin as lukatu obviously acknowledges the method of their manufacture rather than their formal and functional differences. It follows that the leader's relics were deposited in two reliquaries, one of which was interred. The other was not supposed to be buried but was the ancestral basket. The question arises whether the same dichotomy existed, in the past, for leaders' seats. Since the chest mostly served as the leader's seat, and since it was buried, was there yet another seat or throne which was supposed to outlast him and his successors? The question is also relevant in view of the ambiguity of the records on royal seats in the Kongoland. The tradition133 recalled in the late nineteenth century had it that in the past each Ma Loango was provided with a new coiled seat immediately after that of his predecessor had been buried with his relics. In contrast, a witness at the funeral of Mani Kongo Alvaro HI in i622134 narrates that the royal throne was carried together with the dead king to his grave, but, after the interment of the body, the throne was carried back to its original location. The art historian evaluating information on objects and the practices linked to them must bear in mind the syncretic process which interfered unevenly with their history in various parts of the Kongoland. While the ideology has remained similar or identical in various regions, both the nature of the artifacts and the events vary as a result of European secular and religious interventions or lack of them. The court at Mbanza Kongo was a foremost exponent of these cross-cultural encounters from the early sixteenth century. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, several items of royal insignia were replaced by imported artifacts which were not readily renewable. Since the late sixteenth century, sources135 have mentioned a Spanish throne covered with red velvet and decorated with gold, which was used at Mani Kongo's court. This throne was still used in the seventeenth century by a number of kings. The obvious difficulty of importing a throne for each Mani Kongo presumably made the sixteenth-century Spanish stool a relatively perennial, rather than a renewable, item of the insignia. The case of Mani Kongo's Spanish throne, however, is not typical for other parts of the Kongo kingdom, nor was it representative of practices in the Kongoland. The leader's seat, whether a chest, platform, or stool,

The Shrine 85 was a renewable emblem tied to the individual and used by him for the length of his life. Only quite exceptionally do the sources allude to the old age of the leader's seat.136 If not interred, the seats and even the large carriage which had brought the leader's sarcophagus to the grave were deposited on the grave as objects of his personal property.137 Unlike most insignia, the Kongo status seat appears to have had a twofold bond: it was tied to the officeholder but also to the office - that is, to the status bearer, and also to the rank. The bond with status was expressed in changes of seats during the investiture. Each new seat was concordant with the leader's ascending status. The bond with the office was perceivable in the elaborate hierarchy of seats of the nobles during a public ceremony; the high officeholders were seated on armchairs, chairs with backs, and stools with carpets, while the lower-ranking ones sat on their mats.138 The seat was used in political bribery, both in history and myth. Once a high-status person had sent or been given a stool with a carpet or mats, he offered an office, expecting political favours in return.139 Reifying the office, the seat received respect even in the absence of the officeholder; but the seat followed him, carried by a special officer, wherever the leader was expected to perform his office.140 In its complex interactions with the individual, on the one hand, and the institution, on the other, the Kongo status seat is unique among the leader's insignia. However, it is very reminiscent of other sacred objects of the Lusunsi shrine inventory. The blacksmith's tools seem to have had the same kind of ephemeral attachment to the person in addition to the emblematic adherence to the profession. This statement is problematic, however, because the present poor state of the Kongo blacksmiths' profession has rendered research most difficult. The profession has almost been wiped out by competition with cheaper importations in the last centuries, and it is outlawed by the policies of some modern states in recent decades. Until the twentieth century, the tools were buried with the dead blacksmith.141 They seem to have been strictly replaceable. One became an independent working blacksmith only upon demonstrating the ability to produce one's own tools, informants assert. At the same time, the blacksmith's tools were the object of public respect and were used as instruments of important religious acts. In the Lusunsi shrine, the blacksmith's tools created an ensemble with the two seats, of which one was an anvil where the shape of the invested leader was hammered out, and the second most likely epitomized the blacksmith's place in the smithy. c) Other Objects While traces of offerings by hunters and fishermen were absent, bottles of all

86 Crown and Ritual kinds found strewn in the shrine testified to the libation which the priest practised to appease the deity (see Appendix II). While there were prohibitions associated with kingship, the cult clearly did not forbid the use of imported stone and glassware, with which the shrine was littered. Two large anchors added to the non-customary component of the shrine inventory. They were presumably removed from wrecked European vessels. However incongruent their occurrence in the shrine may appear initially, they relate to both the cult and the shrine equipment on several levels. Lusunsi is a deity of a coastal state. Fishing and sea traffic fell under the deity's suzerainty as much as the fertile earth. Consequently, the anchors might have been regarded as Lusunsi's booty and as such deposited in the shrine. The Kongo pantheon and magic forces were not at all hostile to European vessels landing on their shores. The influx of foreign merchandise was for centuries one of the vehicles of Kongo trading. Kongo ideology has therefore incorporated Europe or mputu and European vessels as positive factors. In the seventeenth and again in the nineteenth century,142 outsiders recorded that certain minkisi were specially assigned to attract European boats to the shores of the Kongoland. A nkisi figure, Tchikoki, was to fulfil this task north of the Tchiloango River, and another, Chiniambi, on the shores south of the Tchiloango River. Once the frequency of European vessels decreased, Tchikoki and Chiniambi were believed to rectify the situation by making trips to Europe. The heavy anchors were compatible with the shrine and its inventory on yet another level. They represented a huge reserve of iron. The number of iron items in the shrine was significant and, in addition, multiple copies of several iron implements were kept there. Lozenge-shaped hammers, probably as many as twelve pieces, have already been discussed. An unspecified quantity of tools for field cultivation were presumably hoes, which were used as currency in the northern Kongoland until the early twentieth century. The fragmentary blades of three knives joined another knife with two right-angled blades which was left behind in 1933. Moreover, one or two large cylindrical iron rods about the diameter of a wrist in cross-section, and six or more long pointed iron rods with snake-like heads also remained in the shrine. The large number of iron items, including the seats, prompts a conjecture that, unlike other cognate shrines, the Lusunsi shrine also functioned as a treasury or repository of iron supplies. Its inaccessibility certainly made it most appropriate for such a purpose. Kin groups to the present maintain their treasuries. These treasuries contain mainly pieces of customary metal currency, used now solely for payment of the bride price and no longer for trade. In villages close to mountains or large rock formations, informants often attest that the mbongo a kdnda, the kin group's treasury, is kept in a cave under the aegis of

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the protective deity. The Christian belief that concern with worldly goods is incompatible with spirituality is foreign to Kongo ideology, which, on the contrary, links both these aspects of social life in harmony. After all, a supply of iron kept in a shrine is also known from Greek and Roman history; pointed fishshaped iron bars were kept in a treasury of the sacred district in Delphi, as well as in sanctuaries on the Roman limes, and outside, in Wetterau and in Tyrol.143 A cylindrical rod or rods144 in the shrine could be compared with pointed bars of circular cross-section used by the western Bateke in the Zanaga region in marriage settlements. Such bars were made in the Zanaga region until recently and were also used in the Upper Ogooue as currency.145 They look like tools, most likely points. Called otieni, in these regions they share the function of currency with two types of iron hammer. The cylindrical rod or rods of the Lusunsi shrine were also presumably pieces of currency. Such large iron bars were in use in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the Kongo kingdom and in coastal trade as currency. Based on outsiders' sources, the weight of these rods can be estimated as ranging from eighteen to twenty-two kilograms each.146 No definite conclusions can be reached about the six or more pieces topped with snake-like heads and stuck into the ground around the tree libanze, and the knife with blades creating right angles. Their descriptions are too vague and ambiguous. Since the pointed iron pieces are said to be, in principle, of lozenge shape, they could be akin to or identical with two hammers removed from the shrine. They could be, however, objects similar to the copper spiral ornaments recovered in 1938 and 1960 in Igbo Ukwu.147 Since no specific data are given on the species of shells in the shrine, a discussion of them would be based on mere guesswork. A number of their species belonged to the mandatory equipment of the protective deities' shrines.148 An iron bell with a clapper and fragments of a crucible were also among the rare items left in the shrine. Documentation on the bell is equally inconclusive,149 providing no satisfactory basis for interpretation. The crucible matches well the set of objects in the shrine which relate to mining, smelting, and smithing. Like the pick, the crucible is not a leader's emblem, but a tool used in metalworking. d) Shrine and Royal Investiture in Ngoyo The increasing length of time between the death of a king and the beginning of his successor's reign, caused by the refusal of the nobles to elect a new king, is viewed by Vansina150 as leading to the gradual disappearance of kingship in the coastal Kongo states from the late eighteenth century. In Ngoyo, vanishing kingship was indeed a consequence of the extreme length of the intervals. But

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the intervals resulted neither from the lack of elected kings nor from the nobles' reluctance to elect new candidates in order to have a free hand in enriching themselves economically. On the contrary, in the nineteenth century several pretenders were elected, and yet for most of the century no king ruled in the capital. Analysis of the interaction of inside structures and outside political pressures shows that in order to safeguard and increase their benefits from cooperation with lucrative foreign trade and promising foreign politics, the old titleholders and the nouveaux riches supported the kingship. The Punas and the Franques struggled for, not against, the renewal of kingship, but neither their election manoeuvres nor Portuguese support in reactivating kingship brought positive results. The causes of the exceedingly long intervals clearly lay somewhere else. The election, in the last three centuries, was only one of the compulsory steps in the procedure of renewing royal authority in Ngoyo. The following discussion is based on the comparative interpretation of the traditions surrounding the investiture ceremonial. Not counting rituals connected with the interment and funeral of the deceased king, which also constitute integral components of the transmission and reactivation of kingship, the election activities were the first in the lengthy tripartite process of the consecration of the royal candidate. They preceded the central ritual, the investiture, and the final set of acts associated with the installation in the capital and at the royal residence. While all three parts were interconnected so that the subsequent activities depended upon a successful completion of the preceding ones, the concluded election did not imply attainment of investiture. From the interpretation of the Ngoyo kinglists, one further infers that even the fulfilment of investiture did not yet automatically bring the new king to the royal throne. The king Mue Mbatchi Nyongo (see Appendix Vb), for instance, could not cope with all the installation procedures and died before reaching the capital. Nine to twelve electors were said to choose and elect the candidate (see Appendix Va). Their number is surprisingly high considering the small size of Ngoyo for the last three centuries. Soyo had only four electors to choose Mani Soyo, according to early-eighteenth-century testimony,151 and twelve was presumably the number of electors of Mani Kongo, although Cavazzi mentions only three.152 Once the electors reached agreement on the new candidate for Ngoyo kingship, they notified the head of his descent group. With this action, the election procedures were presumably concluded. In the subsequent stages, the lengthy events and processes are of a distinctly religious character. Although a tangible share of the reward was given to the electors by the candidate upon the conclusion of the election, honors and lucrative offices were bestowed by the already invested king only in the course of the

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installation. It was, therefore, in the interest of the electing nobles, first, to come forward with a candidate, and second, to have him invested. However, their influence in the renewal of kingship obviously did not reach beyond the election. Information retrieved from the traditions on procedures which followed the election justifies the conclusion that the subsequent processes were entirely under the control of the priesthood. Most of the available versions of the traditions on the biala (see Appendix Va) place the Lusunsi shrine and its priest of Chizo at the final stage of a series of candidate's visits to the Ngoyo shrines and sacred places (Appendix Va). Biala in Kiwoyo and in other Kongo dialects denotes the leader's introduction to office by way of consecration. The opening religious acts of investiture still occurred in the presence of the electors, mainly of the most agile one, the muelele. Muelele is the office of the royal messenger who was supposed to be active mainly during the time of the transmission of royal authority. The chief of the candidate's descent group was presented by the muelele with white pigment, mpezo, which, if accepted by the candidate's kin was smeared on the candidate's body. Tradition has it that all consecrated mpezo must originally come from Boma. However, a store of it is said to have been kept in the custody of the shrine of Bunsi153 located close to Moanda. It was from the Bunsi shrine that a package of mpezo was sent as a first token of approval of candidacy by a Ngoyo tutelary deity. Between this expression of approval by the Bunsi shrine and the ceremonies in the corresponding shrine of Lusunsi most of the very long and demanding sacred acts of investiture unfolded. In Nto, which is located in the southern part of Ngoyo, as is the Bunsi shrine, the first piece of insignia was bestowed upon the candidate: the band, said to be magnificently woven, was hung on his arm. Nto is a place of yet another important shrine. The myth says that Nkanga, a member of the god's family and a close relative of Bunsi and Lusunsi, has a temple there, a small house within a grove of trees consisting of a baobab and several silk-cotton trees.154 The tradition155 notes that the plain of Nto, where Nkanga's shrine was, was also a major source of aromatic resins and copal, and it attests to the incidence of a grove of copal trees, Copaifera religiosa J. Leonard. This large forest'56 has presumably been planted in the predominantly sandy savannah environment of southern Ngoyo. Copal is customarily used for sealing canoes and as an ingredient in the magic substances used by certain types of diviner.157 Although they certainly knew that it is collected at the foot of the tree, several of my informants insisted that pieces of fossil copal fall from heaven. Some conjectures can be advanced about the utilization of the copaifera tree in the investiture. The Kongo name of the copaifera tree is mutele. The royal

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candidate received the ablution in Nto with 'aquas bentas,' blessed waters. That is how Franque and Nsangu apparently Christianized the designation of lustration water. Lustration water is made of the decoction of the copaifera bark. Moreover, the scented resin collected from the mutele is a highly valued perfume as well as a component of special aromatic torches used in the past on ritual and solemn occasions.158 Among these possible uses, the tree is mainly important as a source for the lustration water used in Nto, and probably also in the Lusunsi shrine, for the candidate's bath. As well, the presence of this tree in the place where some of the ceremonies of investiture occurred is significant. The copaifera tree is held to be sacred by the Mpongwe and other peoples in the Ogooue basin. A bath with its lustration water is given both to sculptures and to novices of the Bwiiti cult. It is meant to provide inspiration and the faculty to discover and predict the future. Also, the abandji, neophytes of the Bwiiti, are initiated under a copaifera tree, and the tree also marks the meeting place of Bwiiti members.159 Analogies with the Bwiiti cult and ngo society will be pursued further. Comparison with some elements of the Bwiiti and ngo initiations indicates that the correspondences with Ngoyo investiture are too close to be accidental. They are strongly suggestive of historical correlations between the cultures of the Northwest Central African forest and savannah. The next stage of the biala took place in Ntende, which is located in the centre of Ngoyo, south of Mbanza Ngoyo. The shrine reportedly includes a forest and a lake. Traditions reveal little about the ceremonies conducted in Ntende. Only Bastian's informants spoke of Kuiti Kuiti in connection with this part of the investiture. Kuiti Kuiti is the name given by the Ngoyo myth to the god progenitor, and the incidence of a sacred lake in the shrine supports the association of the shrine with this progenitor. According to the myth, the god was born in a lake. Moreover, Kuiti Kuiti can arbitrarily take on a number of incarnations but is believed to persist mainly as a water snake. Since they were associated with Kuiti, the ceremonies in Ntende represented the religious climax of the investiture. Ntende was also a seat of important priesthood. Matchiundo, its head and the priest who administered the investiture ceremonies, was one of the fifteen members of the royal government of Ngoyo.l6° The association of the ceremonies conducted in Ntende with the god progenitor is also sustained in the subsequent stage of the unfolding investiture. The ceremonial led the candidate from Ntende to Chizo, situated in Cabinda Bay in the north of Ngoyo. On his way there, in a forest, he was to meet with the princess Makata. The name of the princess explains the purpose of the meeting: mkata or kata is the testis, the male reproductive gland. The candidate evidently underwent tests to see whether he shared with Kuiti the ability to procreate.

The Shrine 91 The next halt in the journey to the priests of Chizo, who are the priests of the Lusunsi shrine, was at the sacred tree. The candidate struck it three times with a hammer provided for him by a dignitary into whose arms he had to jump. From the dignitary's name, Manifula, which Bastian recorded erroneously, considering it a toponym, one infers that he was a smith. Fula means 'to forge.' The tree may be identified again as a mutele, a copaifera tree. Traditions were recorded in the Ogooue basin161 that a copaifera answers when it is struck. In Soyo in the early eighteenth century162 a custom was noted of striking a tree with a knife. In December, when the planting period started, Mani Soyo and his court carried out a ceremony in the plantations: first the Mani and then his officers spoke to the tree and then struck it. It was presumably part of the veneration of the fertile earth, and it is not unlikely that the investiture ritual also had this meaning. In Chizo, the receiving priest is called Kondo in Tastevin's and Nsangu's accounts, or Tchicango, or, finally, Tchimango, according to other traditions. The differences probably reflect a variation which has arisen in time in the pronunciation of the name of the office rather than different personal names. The prefix tchi- or ki- points to it; it occurs in nouns denoting intangibles, such as faculties. If either Tchimango' or 'Tchicango' are closer to the original priest's denomination than Kondo, which in my opinion is the case, the name provides yet another piece of evidence for a relationship of the shrine to the ngo society. Ma-ngo designates some properties akin to the leopard, and ca-ngo could be a deformation of nga-ngo, which designates an initiated ngo society member, a nganga ngo. The priest's denomination mango can be followed further. Two members of the fifteen-member Ngoyo royal government are called mango a mboma and mango a mfumu.1^ The responsibilities of the former officeholder are identified as assistance to the prime minister, mambondo or mambombo. The mango a mfumu assisted the king, as his name suggests, and his assignment was specified as priestly intervention to bring rain in time of drought. His responsibility identifies him beyond doubt as a member of the priesthood of Chizo. According to the Ngoyo code, Chizo priests purify and propitiate the country to prevent lack of rain. In the time of extant kingship, the utmost responsibility for rainfall was, of course, the king's, but the executive power of conducting the ceremonies and penalizing offenders of the country's custom was in the hands of the Chizo priests. Tradition has it that the body of the deceased Ngoyo king was beheaded before interment and the head was kept by the Lusunsi priest.164 It was supposed to help him in the detection of wrongdoers whose offence breached the custom and prevented rainfall. Several inferences can be drawn from considerations of the name of the priest who administered that stage of the royal investiture in the Lusunsi shrine.

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He was associated with the ngo, the leopard. Like members of the ngo society, he was involved in providing the relics, possibly the dead king's skull. He was also the keeper of the relics. During a king's reign, the priest of the Lusunsi shrine was a member of the kingdom's governing body. His responsibility concerning rain made him a vital figure of the state. Accompanied by two priests, the candidate entered the Lusunsi shrine; the priest of Lusunsi was joined by the priest of Nkanga.165 In view of the secrecy surrounding the shrine, the scarcity of information about the ceremonial is quite understandable. Nsangu's letter and the priest's fragmentary communication to Tastevin are the only sources which speak of it. It is possible that the ritual in the Lusunsi shrine recapitulated the entire investiture ceremonial; the application of the mpezo and ablution are mentioned again. However, it is also possible that the oral tradition recorded in the cited documents synchronizes various stages of the investiture by rendering them in the condensed time and compressed space of the Lusunsi shrine. The core of events which unfolded in Lombe clustered mainly around the Lemba ceremony, and around the iron seat and the bestowal of the regalia upon the future king. The sources do not provide reliable information on the sequence of these events. Lemba is defined by the Ngoyo customary code as a marital rite.166 If Lemba initiation was conducted upon or after the election, as Franque mentions, it was presumably a consecrated candidate's marriage with one of his wives. However, if Lemba initiation was also undertaken in the Lusunsi shrine, as Nsangu mentions, it must have been a totally different kind of marriage. No woman had access there, and the ceremonies were carried out only in the presence of the two priests and the future king. In this context, the female gender of the copper cap/crown, which embodied the notion of the generating mother, ngu, is of significance. The neophyte of kingship was exposed to the ngunda in the Lusunsi shrine. One of the pinnacles of the Kongo leader's biala is his marriage into his own descent group.'67 It was this marriage with the ngu which took place in the Lusunsi shrine. Sources are silent about details of the rituals in which the seat or both seats played a part. One is told only that the Lusunsi priest pretended to seat the royal neophyte on it. In this, the information is consistent with the already analysed accounts of the stone to which the invested chief of the Kongo king was led by the investor. It was undoubtedly in this stage of the ceremonial that the investor's other insignia, the blacksmith's tools which were deposited in the shrine, were also activated. There are no data allowing a reconstruction of their precise application in the ceremony. But it is justifiable to conclude that, together with the seat, which was a metonym for an anvil, their incidence in the shrine corroborated the union of authority with metalworking.

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Finally, three items of regalia are mentioned that were bestowed upon the future king in the Lusunsi shrine: the sceptre, the cap, and a special knife, chimpdba. One can only guess at the precise way in which the copper cap/ crown, neckpiece, band, and other epitome regalia of copper and iron were manipulated during these ceremonies. There are no clues to tell us. However, it is safe to assume that the two priests were able to handle the weighty crown in whatever way the ritual prescribed. From the Lusunsi shrine, where the fourth oath of the future king was also taken, the ceremonial brought the invested king to the plain of Simulambuko for the final oath and conclusion of investiture. The place is on the right bank of the Lucola River not far from Cabinda Bay. The Lusunsi priest also administered this closing ritual, which involved the distribution of rewards to the priests, if Bastian's rather distorted record is decoded correctly. The last portion of the tripartite renewal of kingship progressed from Cabinda Bay to the capital Mbanza Ngoyo. Within the space of some thirty kilometres the installation, which, like the investiture, developed in several phases, took place. Still in Chizo, the newly invested king promulgated the customary laws of Ngoyo and appointed the officeholders. Subsequently, in a forest on the plain of Tumba, the king received his predecessor's three wives, who had taken a special place in the royal house.168 Under strikingly unusual circumstances, he had intercourse with the first one, nydmbi. In a small hut in the forest, behind two open doors, and with sacerdotal witnesses, they were expected to procreate a child. Whether a daughter or a son, the child received the name Biala, 'Consecration.' The tradition noted by Martins Vaz presumably alludes to a related ceremonial act. During this act, the title and insignia of the first royal wife were conferred upon the woman of noble lineage. For several weeks, the future king and the new first royal wife had to stay in the forest, hunting and living in a hut to commemorate the ancestors' way of life. This appointment of the new nydmbi is related to the previous ceremonial intercourse which released the predecessor's nydmbi from her widowhood, and, consequently, from her title. Logically, the appointment of a new nydmbi followed in time the release of the old one. But it is not clear whether the second act took place during or after the installation. The next step in the installation was the invocation of the state minkisi, magic or sacred sculptures whose three keepers and restorers held special titles, and belonged to the royal house.169 The nkisi figure, whose photograph I tested in the field and which stimulated some Woyo elders in 1973 to disclose information about the insignia, had most likely belonged originally to this state collection. Just before the king reached the capital and settled in the royal residence, the final activities of the installation took place. The king had to climb up and down

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a palm tree in the presence of the court and nobles. Climbing a palm tree was also part of the investiture of Mani Loango.'70 This act, it seems to me, tested the king's physical fitness and skill by alluding to the tapping of palm wine, which is the exclusive job of a healthy young man. It is noteworthy that in the course of the investiture, the novices and the banganga of the ngo society also climb the tree, as do members of the Bwiiti during some of their meetings.171 In the renewal of kingship, it is one of those stages of the ceremonies which disqualified aged men, as did the tests of virile abilities. Ngoyo kingship was evidently not designed as a gerontocracy. Moreover, the Ngoyo king had to demonstrate his ability to handle a rifle. And, finally, he shot an arrow, aiming at the sky. This custom was described by the missionaries of past centuries as the superstitious Kongo way of rainmaking. The Ngoyo king, too, was expected to repeat this ritual of shooting an arrow at the sky any time rains were delayed.172 The leader's responsibility for rain, typical not only for Ngoyo but also in other Kongo polities,173 clarifies the occasional incidence and ceremonial employment of a bow and arrow in the leader's outfit. Unlike his regalia, the bow and arrow were not displayed on all solemn events. Kept by the leader's first wife, they were used by him only when there was a religious need, such as during the prayers for rain or the investiture.174 Like all objects of importance connected with leadership, the bow and arrows were sometimes elaborate, as one infers from written sources. However, not being obviously vital for the survival of authority, they did not last to the present among the leader's paraphernalia. Having passed through the various procedures which, as reconstructed, compose the tripartite re-enactment of Ngoyo kingship, the king was finally allowed to enter the capital. This act is frequently mentioned by the oral tradition as the only stage which mattered after the candidate had been elected and had met with the nkisi nsi, the tutelary deity of the country. Informants often distinguish between those kings who were fully invested and those who were not by saying, 'He could go to Mbanza Ngoyo,' or 'He could not go to Mbanza Ngoyo.' Admission to the capital conceals and summarizes all the previous stages of which it is the apex and consequence. Only then does the king receive the title of Mangoyo. A rare piece of visual evidence supports the reconstruction of the royal installation and the role of objects involved in the installation. In the written record (see Appendix Va), the third part of the royal biala is reflected very vaguely. A medium-sized tusk in the Berlin Museum175 displays a delicately carved relief. Its subject is the leader's installation shown as a procedure of four stages. Although no data are attached to the Berlin tusk, analogically with numerous pre-twentieth-century records one can safely establish that it was carved and stuck into the leader's grave so that it stood upright.

The Shrine 95 In the carving, three stages of the royal installation are personified by the leader's figure. In the upper register he is represented in an active posture with an ordinary tapping knife in his right hand, although he already carries the ceremonial regal knife chimpdba in his left hand. In the next register, he sits in state on a chest, indicating with his left hand that he has already obtained the authority in his country. Yet, a rifle leans against his right arm. The rifle and the tapping knife are discordant, on the semantic level, the former with the figure's posture and the latter with the other attribute. How could he handle a rifle when he has to sit in state? How could he climb a tree when his left hand has to carry a chimpdba} These conflicts manifest the incompatibility of the person's status with the activity introduced to the image by alien objects. Indeed, the Kongo leader is prohibited from tapping palm wine and handling a rifle. The leader's image in the lowest horizontal register lacks this disharmony. Again, the left hand holds the leader's instruments, but the right displays, in this instance, a consonant attribute. A bow and arrow on the left are complemented by a container for fluid on the right. The message conveyed by the depicted pipe, in this context, is not clear to me. Finally, applying the order of ideographic scale, the artist also included in the lowest register the image of the fourth act personified by a female figure. In strict profile, she is represented in the posture of a bride, yet with the dissonant gesture of lament. Gestural language speaks of her as a widow who expects her sexual emancipation. Logical discords conveyed by the images indicate that the installation is not a normal state. Neither are the previous parts of the renewal of authority, that is, the investiture and the election. The secular and the sacred, which are fused under normal circumstances, are split in times of extinct authority. The tripartite re-enactment develops in a state of tension. The will expressed in the election act by the representatives of the profane is activated only when approval by the godly is received in the form of a piece of mpezo. This token of agreement, however, 'wounds' the candidate. The white pigment smeared over the body symbolizes a ritual sickness or death. Ablution brings recovery. Yet what follows is not natural. Although a male, the candidate is first vested with a female piece of apparel, a band to carry and suckle his children. Moreover, he violates the custom of the country by having intercourse in the forest. Both the shrine in Ntende and the Lusunsi shrine are, of course, places of the godly and the sacred. Nevertheless, they also reflect a bipolarity: objects are bestowed upon the candidate in one shrine, but not in the other. The shrine in Ntende stands for the spiritual. The candidate acquires the godly faculty to procreate but no objects. In contrast, in the Lusunsi shrine, he is equipped with consecrated emblems, for his new physical image is hammered out there. Dichotomy and tension persist even when representatives of the worldly re-

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emerge and are rewarded. The invested king keeps behaving unnaturally. He commits multiple infringements of the customary laws which he promulgates; his intercourse again takes place in the forest, and, in addition and astoundingly, behind open doors. For the last time he acts in a worldly manner by climbing and handling a rifle. Action and physical strength are conveyed by the right side in the ivory relief. The Bakongo call the right hand bdkala, 'male.' His action notwithstanding, his thoughts and feelings are unworldly. Feelings and thoughts are associated with the left side, called by the Bakongo nkento, 'female.' The politically undesired dualism and the socially disturbing tension are finally resolved by the arrival of the Mangoyo at the capital. The electors and office pretenders had already retired at the beginning of the investiture carried out in Nto. For most of the time of the extant tension, the priests acted as mediators between the sacred and the profane. By leading the candidate to the resolution, they determined the speed with which he progressed. Moreover, since the priests controlled all the procedures while the situation in the kingdom was ex lex, they regulated the outcome. By imposing and removing the candidate's hardships, they swayed the fate of kingship. Mostly, if not fully, each unfinished biala was a result of the priests' behaviour. The Ngoyo kinglists prove that the ceremonial was flexible enough to allow not only a lengthy biala which remained uncompleted, but also a very expeditious one. For further considerations it is significant that both the required ritual and the name of the priest identified some of the members of this powerful screening body, which directed the destiny of the Ngoyo kingship, as blacksmiths. Also, it is important that the name of the priests/blacksmiths of the Lusunsi shrine revealed their association with the ngo. At this point, the critical problem of the historical origin of the biala still remains to be addressed in order to comprehend the peculiar role of the shrine and its priests. Ngoyo kingship was so severely impeded by the procedures of its own renewal that it died out in the nineteenth century. There is little logic, if any, in the creation and support of a system which had sufficient control over government to prevent it from coming to power. The analysis of the traditions on five available Ngoyo kinglists (see Appendix Vb) provides a clue to the puzzle. Kingship and the system were not coeval. Having preceded kingship, the system was strengthened by its roots in the past which endowed it with a higher degree of authenticity. Kingship was not the first type of centralized government in Ngoyo. In the myths, two other Ngoyo polities are mentioned as having existed prior to the beginning of the kingdom. Ngoyo, or the state of Ngoyo, was the first polity. It was followed by a central government in which the eligibility of a princess or princesses for leadership was considered. The myths show the kingdom appear-

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ing only after one of the princesses was unable to face the procedures which entrust her with leadership. The day, nkandu, determined as the onset of the required ceremonies in Ntende, conflicted with her menstruation.176 The motif of female deficiency preventing the inception of government is also present in Lunda and Luba myths and provides an important fabric for the interpretation of statehood. For the course of this argument, however, another aspect of the Ngoyo myth is significant. Inability of the female candidate to undergo the ceremonies is presented as a cause. A male candidate who stepped forward as capable of submitting to the procedures, and who thus became the first Mangoyo, is the effect. The cause-and-effect relationship in the oral tradition is a most reliable indicator of a chronological order of events. The two events were not necessarily contiguous in history, but the cause-and-effect relationship attests that the 'cause' preceded in time events designated as 'effect.' One infers that investiture predated kingship in Ngoyo. A relative chronology of two other parts of the biala remains to be established. The election procedures were not coeval with the onset of the kingdom either. All five versions of the kinglist view the first king as the son or husband of the princess. The second Mangoyo was, according to three versions, her younger son. One version even sees the third king as her son. The third and fourth kings are associated in the oral tradition with events which manifest the transition from hereditary to elective kingship. The birth of the spiritual hero Nzinga, son of the third king, Luemba, was depicted as so unusual by a number of Ngoyo myths that he would appear predestined for a religious career rather than for the kingship. And the son of the fourth king, Cito Tafi, is said to have made an unsuccessful effort to seize the government by force. Consequently, one can deduce that elections and pertinent procedures originated only long after the onset of kingship. The last part of the biala, the installation, has a most remote origin in the past of Ngoyo statehood. Five versions of the tradition refer very vaguely to the first polity in Ngoyo, so that merely a few fragments can be pieced together to achieve a torsal image. One hears about the nobility, about a governing family, but mainly about the Ngoyo capital. Princess Mpuenya, the rejected sister of Mani Kongo, is said to have been expelled from Kongo Langunda together with her three children and a niece. The tradition has it that she undertook a long pilgrimage to reach the Ngoyo capital where she wanted to be received. Kongo Langunda is the Ngoyo designation of both the Kongo kingdom and Mbanza Kongo (Sao Salvador). Mue Mpuenya, whom the epithet mue designates as a noble and bearer of some sort of authority, was bound by her status to reach the Ngoyo capital; tradition presents it as a necessity. One infers that the Ngoyo capital is recognized by the oral tradition as the centre of the first Ngoyo state; that the tradition associates it with authority rather than wealth, which suggests

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a political rather than a trading centre; and that, finally, being received in this capital is perceived as acknowledgment of the person's distinction. These inferences lead to the conclusion that the first Ngoyo polity knew the principles of installation. Both these components of the tripartite biala, which are older than kingship, were in the priests' hands. Ngoyo kingship obviously did not have the option of rejecting these procedures or replacing them with a new ceremonial which would not slow down or imperil its reactivation. There can be little doubt that investiture and installation were based upon or ensued from more powerful principles than did kingship. Furthermore, a corollary can be drawn that the priests represented institutions which were not only older but also more compelling and more far reaching than those represented by the kings and royal administrators. That was apparently also why Franque made the Portuguese cognizant of the processes which impeded their interests and why he sought Portuguese intervention. It was also the ground on which Mani Soyo, by 1700, hoped to achieve Capuchin involvement in the Lusunsi shrine, as revealed by Zucchelli. Only outsiders were considered to be bearers of the principles, whether religious, political, or economic, which were strong enough to reveal the priests' position and the power of the shrine. e) Concluding Discussion As with the Bunsi shrine in Ngoyo, access to the Lusunsi shrine at Lombe was not allowed to foreigners, and insiders eligible to enter it were limited to a handful of privileged people. Yet its existence was not at all a secret for the population, and the narrative of the early eighteenth century has shown that the shrine's content and basic facts about its site were known even outside Ngoyo. When first visited by an outsider in 1933, the shrine did not bear salient traces of public worship. Yet the subsequently disclosed traditions on Ngoyo kingship suggested that the communal value of both the shrine and its content were known. The shrine with its inventory has been perceived by the Ngoyo population as a collectively beneficial place whose artifacts were, however, entrusted to the restrictive care of the priest and used by the community through only a few exclusive intermediaries. The community felt dependent upon the objects' destiny, but their only contact with them was conceptual. At the same time, the objects' reified nature was not unimportant, as is shown by the fact that even small fragments of the insignia were still preserved by the priest after the objects had vanished. Exposing objects to public view and seeing and touching them in order to confirm their physcial existence are Western customs that

The Shrine 99 are not necessarily compatible with the Kongo way of adopting the reified world.177 Nothing in the five versions of the descriptions of the shrine indicates that any object of copper remained in the shrine after 1933. Minute fragments of a sheet and copper strips presented to me in 1975 were all compatible with the material used in the items which had been brought to Europe by Tastevin. Also, the shrine was in the priest's regular custody until I93i, 1?8 and there is no reason to suppose that any objects were misappropriated during the subsequent two years of the priest's negligence. Thus the three components of the giant leader's panoply, namely the cap/crown, the neckpiece, and the band, together with the reliquary basket and the lid, represent the set of copper objects in its entirety. Available evidence indicates that the incidence of such a set is unparalleled in the Kongoland. Outsiders' reports do not note copper objects in the shrines that they visited. Traditions do not mention them either. In my own observations within the few remaining shrines and many other sacred places there was no record of an object of copper. The small number of archaeological explorations of the Kongoland to date make it impossible to ascertain the extent to which such objects occur in burials. In the treasuries of descent groups, copper implements do remain, but, unlike the Lusunsi copper objects, they are standard pieces of currency, including armlets. Iron implements outnumbered copper objects in the Lusunsi shrine. Unlike the copper set, their occurrence is not unique to the shrine in Lombe. Pieces of crudely shaped iron, iron objects, and pieces of iron ore were often found in Kongo shrines and cult places.179 Symptomatically for the cultural syncretism of Mbanza Kongo, for instance, iron ore was used there as a building material for some of the Christian churches.180 Mainly, the incidence of the nzundu, the blacksmith's hammer/anvil, seems to have been usual in Kongo sacred places both in regions with centralized kingship, such as Loango, and in provinces with the decentralized government of chiefship, such as Mayombe.'8' The ntadi a Kongo, sometimes mentioned by the informants, is most likely an anvil.' 82 It is a large stone in the forest, they say, and the sacred place where it rests must not be visited by outsiders. Kongo insignia reflect Kongo ideology. Many fundamental notions and principles which activate Kongo society are concretized in things. Essentially, a notion or principle may be reified on two levels. First, the object is a material symbol of a particular notion. An elevated platform, for instance, symbolizes the existence of a social organization based upon authority which is held by one individual. Second, special objects are habitats into which is projected the potency of particular notions, so that the notion is applied through the object in

ioo Crown and Ritual social practice. The notion and object with its material properties merge to such an extent that they are identical, and this is manifested lexically. Both the object and the object's spiritual power may then have only one denomination. Ngonge, for instance, denotes double bells and the voiced authority of the country, and occasionally also the authority bearer. In one way or another, the notion and the form of the object are related. Sometimes the relation is rather straightforward, as in the case of the hammer. Sometimes it is indirect and communicated by visual and lexical metaphors so that the connection is not readily apparent to an outsider who is an onlooker and not a participant in that social practice. Such is the case, for instance, with the chief's cap. However, in the course of time and as holders of privileged information die, inside memory may also lose its grasp of the logic of the object's metaphor. Should such an object endure as a symbol, it acquires a new meaning. Consequently, the original conceptual link between the notion and its embodiment is cut off, and the object ceases to stand for the notion it originally embodied. Such is the case, for instance, with the whisk. Even in normal, non-catastrophic circumstances, the strength of a sacred object decreases upon the death of its user. It then needs to have its potency recharged by contact with the matrix. Investiture does precisely that. The Lusunsi shrine was the matrix holding both the prototypes of the regalia from which the spiritual power of the corresponding items was derived, and the prototypes of tools which activated the transmission of the energy. The leader's regalia bestowed upon and then carried by him during the installation and, finally, used by him were replaceable as long as the epitomizing regalia were in the shrine. The capture of the Ngoyo royal cap and carpet in the late seventeenth century did not stop the renewal of Ngoyo kingship. By contrast, there could be no substitutes for the prototypes from which the power of the regal emblems was derived. Art-historical analyses of the status seat have shown its past variety and its various forms of interrelation with the authority. The platform was an attribute of a primus inter pares as it was essentially an elevated ground rather than an ostentatious throne. Rather than reflecting social position, it distinguished the one who was in charge, such as the leader, or in focus, such as the founding ancestors. It was a relatively stationary seat which was not transported, but was raised as required on occasions when the leader sat in state. Most likely, use of the platform predated the first contact with Europeans. Often a remarkable work of art, the chest was the Kongo seat, proper. Primarily, of course, it was a container. Holding the individual's property, it accompanied the owner when he changed his residence, but not when he travelled. It was buried after his death as a receptacle of the individual's relics. Like

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the platform, it did not reflect social position; rather, it was tied to personal economic distinction. Plurality in the chest's denomination mirrored the regional diversity of its manufacture and form rather than suggesting its brevity in Kongo culture and history. No evidence indicates that it was a borrowing from neighbours or from Europe. Essentially, the chest expressed luxury as opposed to utility; accumulation as opposed to survival; individuality as opposed to collectivity. Thus it was, apparently, the product of an established society which knew regionalism and exchange. Finally, the low stool, more frequently rectangular than circular, may in part have been related to the office, but primarily served secular purposes on nonpolitical occasions. Specimens of rectangular wooden stools, although scarce, still remain and are owned and used by persons of status of both sexes. During the period of kingship, the stool was complemented by a variety of stools with backs, and with armchairs either imported to the Kongo kingdom from Europe or more or less imitating imported prototypes. More than a stool, these various armchairs and chairs with backs communicated the diversified hierarchy of kingship. A stool or chair conveying position in the royal administration had more mobility than other seats. It followed the officeholder to places where he officiated. At the same stage in the history of Kongo kingship, the seat of office became associated with a carpet which also expressed the person's elevated rank in the state administration. Most likely the carpet was a royal substitute for the more rooted and therefore presumably older mat on which the Kongo chief still sits, and which is transported when he travels. Apart from the chief, only the male potter, if he is a free man, sits on a mat while performing his art or craft. The female potter either kneels or sits on a low rectangular stool. A potter who agrees to speak of his or her work displays the tools used together with the seat. These are the potter's identifying marks. The blacksmith's and potter's heraldic devices reflect the grounds of the respect which society accords them. This respect is for their privileged knowledge and skill, rather than their birth. The origin of blacksmithing and work in clay is explained by the inventor's enlightenment and inspiration. The one who started it was katamba or watumbwa, which means that he was inspired, from katamuna or katamona, 'to inspire' or 'to enlighten.' Hammers, anvil, crucible, and bellows identify the blacksmith's profession, stand for the smithy, and are emblems of the blacksmith. His insignia do not include a seat. The Lusunsi shrine held two circular pieces of iron, shaped either as discs or rings, which were not status seats. They represented or delineated the anvil and the blacksmith's working place. In the past, the blacksmith in his smithy sat either on the ground or on a stone, using both hands and one or both feet for working,' 83 as does the male Kongo potter to the present time. Most typically, the tradition

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asserts that he sat cross-legged. Only nowadays does the blacksmith also stand, since he uses more modern tools and equipment. A carpet or low wooden stool would have been professionally hazardous for the professional preoccupied with fire, and an armchair would have been a major discomfort for the worker whose tools were on the ground. By establishing and fostering the ceremonial stool, chair, or armchair with the carpet as regal emblems, by implication kingship excluded the blacksmith from leadership. This inference from the art-historical analysis of Kongo seats and blacksmith's emblems concurs with the results of multiple field inquiries. The dissociation of the blacksmith from leadership has been an idiosyncrasy of the blacksmith's profession within the whole area inhabited by the people who until now claim to be 'Kongo dia ntotela.' The area covers a wide territory, which I have been referring to as the Kongoland, and extends in time over the epoch of Kongo kingship up to the present. Within this territory and throughout this period of time, the blacksmith's status has been high yet incompatible with the office of the leader on both central and local government levels. CavazziV84 assumption that the elitist blacksmith's profession was practised in the seventeenth-century Kongo kingdom by men of high status, in memory of the inventor of smithing who was an old Kongo king, is to be read in its proper historical perspective. The seventeenth-century missionary provides a valuable piece of information about the respect paid at the Kongo court to smithing, and possibly also to its legendary 'inspired' 'inventor.' However, his use of the term 'king' is not supported by historical evidence. Exclusion of the blacksmith from leadership evidently did not have an impact on the participation of the Lusunsi priest and other priests in the Ngoyo royal government. On the contrary, the royal government had a sacerdotal character, since various types of priest held eleven out of fifteen posts in it.185 The Chizo priesthood was represented by a sacerdotal assistant to the king in his most important religious function, that of guarantor of rainfall. Most of the numerous duties and prerogatives of the Chizo priests in the politics and religion of the kingdom vanished in the twentieth century.186 It is likely that the priest's association with metal working became nominal even earlier than that, and the blacksmith became an office rather than the priest's real profession. The change presumably happened simultaneously with the decline of the social importance of Kongo metalworking due to the influx of imported metal implements. In 1933, the Lusunsi priest worked and prospered as a sailor, a profession in which the agile 'Cabinda' gained a reputation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, according to outsiders' accounts. Traditions recorded between 1933 and the 19508 apparently did not even perceive a relationship of the Lusunsi priest and shrine to either the blacksmiths or the interethnic ngo

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association, so that the name of the priest's office became distorted. However faint and fragmentary, the allusions to the ngo did survive in custom and memory. A leopard skin was bestowed upon the future king in the Lusunsi shrine; the Lusunsi priest's responsibility was to keep royal skulls; in a few stages of the biala, correspondences transpired with initiation into the ngo association; and the Ngoyo king was prohibited from shedding blood, in which he resembled an initiated nganga ngo.l&1 The past association of the priests/investors with blacksmithing was still remembered in the nineteenth century in the name of manifula, one of the investing priests. Finally, the circle closes with a threefold link among the blacksmith, the nganga ngo, and the priest/investor. It is implied in the function of these three as providers and keepers of the leader's bodily relics in the reliquary basket. While not eligible for leadership, the blacksmith became the leader's maker. Yet this statement qualifies the blacksmith's position only in the epoch of Kongo kingship. The Kongo language suggests that the focus on the dignified sitting posture has been more sound than the concern with the ceremonial seat. The blacksmith's typical working posture is still the most dignified way of sitting for a male Kongo leader. His exclusion from leadership is thus not to be seen as a permanent feature of Kongo history. During the epoch of kingship, the blacksmith, acting as the leader's investor in both the central and local governments, symbolically hammered out on his anvil the eastern Kongo chief's or the Ngoyo king's new physical image by conferring on him a set of regalia. Its inventory makes it clear that the Lusunsi shrine functioned as a priestly smithy which also included a repository of iron supplies. The parallel of the leader's new appearance with a metallic image is also supported by the botanic component of the shrine. Just as the mbota can be slanted but not broken by currents, so metal can be shaped on the anvil yet does not break (unlike stone). As well as being vested with his insignia in the Lusunsi shrine, the neophyte of Ngoyo kingship was exposed to the prototypes of the cap, band, and neckpiece. The base material of the prototypes of the three components of his future ceremonial panoply which will sit most closely on his body is copper. No part of the copper prototypes was cast (see Appendix III). All of them were worked on an anvil, like iron, which means that they were shaped by forging.188 Thus, also, the process of their manufacture corroborates the metaphor of the leader's image being hammered out on an anvil. The Ngoyo king's image hammered out in the Lusunsi shrine was not without peculiarities. Although the candidate's virility was tested in the investiture, his new appearance involved a composite of both sexes; he received the cap and band as well as the knife. And although the power derived from the copper ngunda, the priest-blacksmith conferred on him an overhanging royal cap of the

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ngola type. The fusion of male-female elements in the leader's new identity reflects the male prerogative of assuming authority and the female gender and origin of authority. In his dual sexual image the Ngoyo invested king did not differ from an invested chief. The cap made the king distinct visually, but ideologically the royal cap drew from the matrix which had the form of a chief's cap, and which embodied the ancestral mother, the ngu. Starting with the third king on the Ngoyo kinglist, Mbenzi Luemba, the king is usually referred to as a stranger. Mbenzi Luemba is said to have been the killer of the first legitimate king or to have been a temporarily exiled king. Indeed, of all Mbenzi Luemba's successors the traditions state that only Puabo, the sixth king, was ya menga, 'king of blood.' Ya menga is one of several modes of designating an individual whose direct descent from a particular ancestress is claimed in relation to a particular space or country. Puabo's praise name, N'Puabo Sunda N'kala, lauds him for having expeditiously done what took others a long time,189 and alludes to his unusually short biala. The Ngoyo royal investiture and installation procedures, while apparently acknowledging a particular descent, did not exclude others. The mother, ngu, symbolized and activated in the copper ngunda, was thus an ancestress in a wider sense than that of progenitor of a descent group. The established relative chronology has shown that two of the three stages of renewal of royal authority in Ngoyo predated the beginning of Ngoyo kingship, and that they were those stages supervised by the priests. Can the basis for the assessment of absolute time values be construed from Ngoyo kinglists? Considering the date — 1784 — when Francisco Franque reportedly left for Brazil, and noting the offices conferred upon two generations of Franques by those kings who appear in fifth and eighth place in the kinglists, Martins Campos'90 estimated that the Ngoyo kingdom had existed between 1690 and 1850. However, I have already argued that the election of the ninth king occurred after 1850, and the election of the tenth king only after 1885. The date 1690 as the onset of Ngoyo kingship does not hold either. European accounts refer to the Ngoyo kingdom for most of the seventeenth century. Pieter van den Broecke'9' met an old mangoyo in Mbanza Ngoyo in 1612. And Dapper'92 writes that Soyo invaded the Ngoyo kingdom in 1631, and that a son of the Soyo count was installed there as king. Bastian's list records that the third Ngoyo king was a Musolongo, a man from Soyo. Since Dapper's and Bastian's reports are not corroborated by other versions of the kinglists and are rejected by informants,'93 one ought to allow them the licence of outsiders' misinterpretations of the intricate complexities of inside relations. But even if a Musolongo was not an invested and installed king in Ngoyo by 1631, logically Dapper cannot have written in 1668 about the Ngoyo kingdom prior to its inception.

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Furthermore, the time frame established by Martins Campos is not tenable on the grounds of evidence inferred from the biala. Ngoyo kingship definitely was not a fluent sequence of reigning periods of individual kings who are on the lists. Both stages of the biala which predated the reign of the first king were lengthy processes. And each of the eight or ten kings or candidates had to have undergone at least that part of the investiture and installation which gave him a new image and a new name. Thus, the reigns of individual kings were separated by unavoidable caesurae in which the dead authority bearer was interred, the insignia were recharged from the matrix, and a new candidate was made into the leader. These periods were flexible, as previous discussions have shown, and depended to a great extent upon the will of the priests. One way of measuring the length of the caesurae more objectively and thus translating them into historically appreciable segments of time was reported by Bastian.194 At each halt of the biala the candidate was supposed to spend the time elapsed from the planting of the banana tree until it grew its first fruits. This way of measuring time during the biala does not strike one as unreasonable. After all, the candidate had to be made into a king who was responsible for the fertility of the country. A young banana plant of three to eighteen months is suitable for transplanting; its age affects the length of the period of the fruit growth and allows deviation from the standard. When one takes the average among various species of planted genus of banana tree, the time spent at a halt may have been one year.'95 Considering that a biala had about ten such halts, one estimates the average length of the biala as ten years, with the range of variation from more than three to fourteen years depending upon the age of the seedling. Adding some time for the preparation of the late king's body, its interment, and part of the mourning period, one arrives at an average caesura of at least eleven years. That in some cases it took longer is shown by Manuel Puna's biala. He was elected in or shortly after 1885, but died in 1904 without having been installed as king. Martins Campos estimates that the Ngoyo kingdom lasted for one hundred and sixty years. When one accepts, for the sake of consistency with his argument, his assumption that the kinglists record all Ngoyo kings, one infers that most or all of this period would have been spent in renewing the royal authority ten times, with little or no time spent in exercising it. The kinglists need to be used with caution as a source of absolute dates, particularly for the early period. While the last six kings were most likely all historical figures whose reigns and biala cover most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the first four kings are rather idioms for various segments in the history of the government. In one of Bastian's lists, even the deities Bunsi and Nkanga appear as kings' names. The kinglists of the earlier period provide

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the fabric for the history of kingship rather than for the history of kings. They are elliptical in recording personalities and cumulative in synchronizing processes and contracting them into the events of a narrative. They thus subsume a much longer period than the duration of the reign and biala of four kings. That both designated kings of the Puna kin and possibly their predecessor are included in the kinglists, although they were never effective as kings, does not seem to be a consequence of Portuguese political pressure and of the effort to legitimize the colonization of Cabinda by shaping the tradition. Woyo informants in Zaire, too, recognize Mue Djimbi (the royal name of Manuel Puna) as the last bearer of Ngoyo royal insignia. It follows that the kinglists record not only kings, but also candidates who have reached a certain stage in the biala. This figure was also given a new name. But the kinglists doubtless did not make a reference to the candidates who failed at an earlier stage, thus adding to the length of the caesura between two reigns. As a matrix creating the core of the investiture, the Lusunsi shrine was undoubtedly coeval with the investiture. The shrine thus predated the start of Ngoyo kingship. The reticence of Ngoyo traditions about the first state in Ngoyo is partially compensated for by the traditions of Loango. Prior to the existence of the Loango kingdom, the country reportedly had been ruled by a government organized by the buwandji, a brotherhood of blacksmiths.196 Loango tradition sees them as Bawoyo who invaded Loango, imposing a centralized organization upon the local population. It is remembered that nine suzerains of the buwandji were inhumed in the old graveyard of Loandjili.197 It is justifiable to presume that the basis for the imposition of a centralized government in Loango was an existing state in Ngoyo, and that this state was identical with the first polity spoken of by the Ngoyo traditions. Founded and led by an organized caste of blacksmiths, it had a non-elective government. Hagenbucher-Sacripanti's informants in Loango were specific about the nonelective leadership in the state of the buwandji. Martins Campos's Ngoyo informants spoke of a governing family. That leads to a conjecture that the rulers were heads of the family of master blacksmiths within which the leadership was hereditary. Franque's reference to the nobility of the first state in Ngoyo presumably also relates to this family. The blacksmiths' state explains the scenario for the equipment and functioning of the Lusunsi shrine as a priestly smithy, provides the foundation for the provenance and authorship of the copper and iron prototypes of the insignia, and clarifies the overriding role of the priests-blacksmiths in kingship. As well, the buwandji polity ties together previous considerations on the part of the shrine's botanic inventory, namely the libanze. The name given by the Loango tradition to the brotherhood contains the same stem, -andj-, as denominations of

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a number of trees in various languages along the coast from the Demboland in the south up to the Mpongwe in the north. This stem is also contained in the designation of the neophytes of the Bwiiti cult, of the temple for the Bwiiti cult members, as well as in the name of members of the men-leopards' secret society. Did not perhaps the forceful buwandji brotherhood and the impact of its organization create the foundation of this commonality whose history vanished in memory but remains traceable in the language? Could it not be the organization of blacksmiths which provided the rudiments of various cults and societies in West Central Africa by distinguishing from the rest of society those who were enlightened, and by establishing processes for testing eligibility for admission into this elite? Available evidence neither supports nor refutes that the Lusunsi shrine was active during the epoch of the blacksmiths' state. It may have been a sacred place of the brotherhood. The shrines in Nto and in Ntende are sometimes mentioned198 as old Ngoyo capitals, and this, too, may reflect some kind of role played by them in the past. Deductions from art-historical analyses pointed to other aspects of ideology, besides those associated with metalworking, embraced in the shrine and embodied in its objects. The sacred bond with the country will be more extensively discussed in the next chapter. The notions of the mother embodied in the cap/crown and of the affiliation to the genetrix reified in the band are highlighted in the myth about the epoch following the blacksmith state in Ngoyo and immediately preceding kingship. This whole epoch is condensed in a narrative about the princess Mpuenya. Mine is the latter phonetic spelling of her name written in various ways: as Mampuegna, Mpuenha, Mpoenha, or Muam Poenha. Princess Mpuenya was expelled by her royal brother from Kongo Langunda because of some unclarified, possibly incestuous relationship from which were born two daughters, Lilo and Silo, and a son, Tumba. The anomaly of her behaviour was perceived by the royal advisers as causing the lack of rain and thus endangering Kongo Langunda. In her exile, she travelled with her three children and her niece. Her pilgrimage was first directed towards Soyo. It took her fifteen years of hardship to arrive at the ferry to cross Kwango Nsekele, which is the Woyo name for the Congo or Zaire River. The ferry brought her and her suite to Ngoyo. On her journey towards the Ngoyo capital, she reached Vumu, then lost her way, and finally came to another place called Ifumba. Before or upon gaining access to the capital, Mpuenya expelled her son, Tumba, from her house because of his incestuous intercourse with one of her daughters. She then married an important and rich Ngoyo nobleman, Mibimbi Pukuta or Mibimbi tchi Nkose a Nengo. Their marriage produced two off-

io8 Crown and Ritual spring, sons Mue Panzo and Mue Pukuta. Mpuenya's marriage worried her royal brother in Kongo Langunda and, as a consequence, he undertook a plan to separate Ngoyo, Loango, and Kwakongo from Kongo Langunda, and to instal Lilo as queen of Ngoyo, Silo as queen of Kwakongo, and Tumba as king of Loango. Since Lilo was prevented by menstruation from attending the beginning of her investiture rituals, royal authority was conferred upon Mpuenya's son Panzo, the first-born child of her marriage with Mibimbi.1" In the form of an array of metaphors, the epos describes a period of political interventions in Ngoyo by Kongo Langunda. Despite the chronology indicated in the narrative, the epos synchronizes processes which undoubtedly occurred over a longer period of time. Mpuenya and her suite personify the introduction of some principles of government into Ngoyo from the Kongo kingdom. The epos states right at the beginning that the intervention was not welcome in Ngoyo. Mpuenya's niece, the daughter of the Kongo Langunda king, has no other role in the narrative than that of an emissary. And she is said to have been hunchbacked, a bad omen and a malevolent nkisi in Ngoyo. The epos then concludes with a concession to Ngoyo authority for which princess Lilo is shown as not eligible. Mpuenya is a positive figure in the narrative. But, unlike the great women of Kongo mythology, she is not presented as an ancestress. Nor is she a mother, unlike Ngunu, and she is not described as fecund and generating, unlike Mboze and Buta. Mpuenya translates as 'pretty' or 'pleasant face.' Her behaviour is made conformable to the authority of Ngoyo. She rejects her first-born son, marries a big man of Ngoyo, and gives birth to his two children, two male bearers of Ngoyo royal authority in the father's line. Mibimbi's praise name is nkose, 'the lion,' and nengo, which may be a contraction of nene ngo, 'the big leopard.' His position in the myth is presumably that of a link with the blacksmith state. In her pilgrimage to the capital and into marriage, Mpuenya makes her way through two places which are both located in Ngoyo. Vumu translates as 'womb' and is synonymous with 'genetrix.' Ifumba or kifumba is 'descent group,' and is used in northern dialects of Kikongo together with a more generally accepted designation, kdnda. The epoch of the princess of Ngoyo begins the process of imperial efforts of the Kongo kingdom to reshape the Kongoland and regroup the previously existing entities by unifying them under the idiom of Kongo dia ntotela. The myth about Mpuenya is designed to demonstrate that the introductions did not concern the very principles which organized and activated Ngoyo society and its polity. They had already been in Ngoyo, and the newcomer had to conform. Ngoyo is shown as a polity with ultimate authority inherited from the black-

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smith state. This authority was held by men and was renewed indisputably within an eligible caste. However, the steps towards the authority are different in the epoch of the princess than in the previous state. They lead through the vumu and kifumba. Borne by men, but generated by the womb, the authority amalgamated two different sources of rank: the privileged knowledge and skill of the blacksmith and the blood of the progeny of the ancestress. Mpuenya, who was not an ancestress, had difficulty finding her way from genetrix to progeny. Mpuenya's pilgrimage through Ngoyo towards the capital is a submission to the country. In Ngoyo she nevertheless remained what she had been, alien and segregated The space given to the princess in Ngoyo exists to this day. It is an isolated territory of mbanza, formerly Vista and now Nsiamfumu, and six villages with four chiefs. The mutual non-intervention is ostentatiously respected by both the Bawoyo of Ngoyo and the Bawoyo living within the country of the • y(\c\ princess. Since Ngoyo held authentic central authority bound to its space and existing in time prior to the introductions from Kongo Langunda, the Bawoyo of Ngoyo distinguish themselves from the rest of the Bakongo. Like them, the Ngoyo people admit to being Kongo dia ntotela. In the same breath, however, they add that they were always in Ngoyo. In contrast to other Bakongo they do not portray themselves as having departed from Mbanza Kongo or Sao Salvador, as having travelled to various places experiencing hardship, or as having crossed the river before settling and populating their country. The myth of such migrations, called by ethnographic accounts the myth of dispersion of the Kongo clans, is a standard accessory of the historical self-image narrated by the inhabitants of the Kongoland who claim to be Kongo dia ntotela. The Bawoyo of Ngoyo are the Bakongo with no myth about the exodus from Sao Salvador or migration. The Odyssean syndrome is very typical for all the Bakongo. It projects into their myth on cosmogenesis, as will be clarified in the next chapter; it marks their important rituals such as the leader's funeral, which was, in principle, a lengthy way to the grave; and it shaped their worship of their deities, which is why the important Kongo shrines were designed as roads. The Bawoyo of Ngoyo share with other Bakongo the Odyssean syndrome which presumably has its roots in the ideology of derivation of authority from the matrix. They, too, have elaborated a system of pilgrimage in space and time which they perceive as critical for the transmission of authority. However, in the Ngoyo version of the pilgrimage, both the matrix and the people are stationary. It is the authority bearer who moves. Such is the design of the investiture and installation. And in the same way, innovations in the form of new insignia and government structure were introduced into Ngoyo from Kongo Langunda during the r

110 Crown and Ritual period of kingship. Traditions are cognizant of exiled or temporarily exiled Ngoyo kings who are said to have brought innovations from Sao Salvador. In the mobility of the biala, the shrines and sacred trees mapped the pilgrimage through the country. The itinerary of the installation was an analogue of the myth of dispersion of the Kongo clans. The leader's insignia with their derived authority were already carried along this way from the matrix to the place where the leader would settle. The Lusunsi shrine was the focal point of this centripetal and centrifugal pilgrimage. All aspects of authority and its renewal, of which the shrine held the resources, were rooted either in the blacksmith state or in the epoch of the princess. f) Queries The established historical and ideological locus of the insignia and the Lusunsi shrine leaves four mutually interconnected queries. The first query addresses the problem of absolute dates. Relative chronology deduced from discussions on the objects as well as on various aspects of the shrine consistently point towards periods which preceded Ngoyo kingship. There is no doubt that the Ngoyo kingdom covered a much longer period than is suggested by the elliptical kinglists which record eight to ten kings. And it evidently started earlier than the late seventeenth century. In order to propose absolute dates, in later discussions on the interaction of the emblems of the centralized states of the Kongoland I will compare the Ngoyo kinglists with documented events elsewhere. Ngoyo traditions speak, for instance, about a strong attempt at an intervention from Kongo Langunda in the biala of the first Ngoyo king. It could hardly have happened by 1690 or in yet another period when Kongo kingship itself was ineffective due to its internal problems. Or, later, traditions make reference to the insignia transmitted to the Ngoyo kingdom from Kongo Langunda together with interventions in government structure. That certainly rules out times such as the eighteenth century, when Kongo kingship had lost most of its own insignia. Further issues to be explored are those of the expansion in space. It has been amply proved by all seven versions of the tradition on the royal biala that the Ngoyo kings used the Lusunsi shrine for the renewal of royal authority. The invested king, however, did not receive from the priest's hands the critical emblem whose power could have derived directly from the epitome in the shrine. His cap differed in shape, attributes, and name from the ngunda. Conflicting as it is, the Ngoyo royal biala exposes the problem of the relationship of other Kongo centralized governments to the Lusunsi shrine. Kingship was not

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the only type of central authority in the Kongoland. And, historically, it might not be the first. The fact that respect was still paid to the elite of blacksmiths at the royal court of Mbanza Kongo in the seventeenth century indicates more than a recognition of useful artistry. Was Ngoyo kingship thus the only kingship of the Kongoland that was hammered out in the priestly smithy at Lombe and built upon the substratum of authority of the blacksmith state? Or did other Kongo kingdoms also derive their authority from the Lusunsi shrine, whether directly or indirectly? Mani Soyo, it should be remembered, made an effort by 1700 to penetrate the shrine with his influence. As a fundamental centripetal concept, the generating ancestress applies to a lineage, a descent group or its segment, or to a much larger entity. Each entity is supposed to be made up of peoples who as a unit claim a common origin from one genetrix. The question about the position of the ancestral mother embodied in the copper ngunda of the Lusunsi shrine addresses the important issue of the validity of the shrine in space on the level of local government, that is of the chiefdoms. Another facet of the same question explores the sacred bond with the country. In order not to introduce too many denominations in Kikongo at once, the text until now has used the term 'country' to denote, though not quite adequately, the complex notion of nsi. The manifold content as well as the multidimensional nature of the concept needs to be debated, since the interrelation of the physical aspects - mainly the size - of the nsi with its temporal aspects mainly those measured by the degree of affiliation to the ancestress - contain the fabric for reasoning pertinent to the query. Finally, the prominence of the blacksmiths inferred from the analyses of the shrine inventory and enforced by the traditions on the blacksmith state prompts a question about the interdependence of Ngoyo with other regions of the Kongoland, and about its relationship to other areas in Africa. The existence of a brotherhood strong enough to found a state in Ngoyo and to extend its hegemony to Loango presupposes, first, a considerable agglomeration of blacksmiths and, second, their developed organization. No doubt the blacksmiths' profession, which provided important commodities and was vested with a number of exclusive religious responsibilities, was a precondition of this hegemony. But it was the organization which made it possible. Organization is vital for the performance of the blacksmiths' profession. Unlike basketry or potting, which may be practised for self-supply, blacksmithing is by definition a socially connected art and is, in principle, a collective undertaking. The blacksmith needs to have access to the resources as much as he needs a market for his artifacts. Gaining safe and permanent access to abundant resources was a key problem for a large group of sedentary blacksmiths. It certainly could have been an overriding motive for founding and expanding a

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centralized state organization which would control the resources and shield access. As well, a continual market for the artifacts of a large group of blacksmiths can be realistically viewed only in context with an extensive trading network. Both the resources and trade lead beyond the boundaries of Ngoyo, which was known to outsiders since the middle of the seventeenth century as a small country. In what directions they lead is yet another question.

Map I. North-west Central Africa

Map 2. Kongoland and Adjacent Regions

Map 3. The Bakongo and Their Neighbours

Map 4. Kongoland with Its Historical Units and Regions

i. Kongo. Tripartite pot. Terracotta. Musee royal de I'Afrique centrale, Tervuren. No. 58.37.60. Height: 26.7 cm

2. Kongo. Genealogy sculpture. Wood, polychrome. Ethnographic Museum, Copenhagen. No. G.a.59. Height: 97 cm

3a.-3d. Replication, winding method used in construction of cap/crown

3a. First practice piece: addition of the third bar. Note the 'tails' at each end of the wrapping.

3b. Completed third round (4 bars). Note that the fifth bar is held in place with wire; work proceeds from left to right.

3c. Tenth round in progress

3d. View of the exterior of the replica after the completion of twelve bars, eleven rounds

4. Kongo. Lead-smelting operations in the upper Loutete, in the Mfuati district. Furnace used in mixed smelt

5. Kongo. Customary lead-smelting operations in the upper Loutete, in the Mfuati district. Furnace used in customary smelt

6. Cap/crown. Copper. Musee de 1'Homme, Paris. No. 34.28.43.1 Diameter: average 36.5 cm; height: 20.7 cm; weight: 11 kg. Catalogue No. I

7. Neckpiece. Copper. Musee de 1'Homme, Paris. No. 34.28.43.2. Diameter: average 45 cm; height: average 8 cm; weight: approx. 4.5 kg. Catalogue No. 2

8. Lid. Copper. Musee de 1'Homme, Paris. No. 34.28.43.3. Diameter: average 39 cm. Catalogue No. 3

9- Fragment of a band or belt. Copper, iron. Musee de I'Homme, Paris. No. 34.28.43.4. Length of fragment: maximum 25 cm; height of fragment: maximum 10 cm. Catalogue No. 4

io. Fragment of a basket. Copper, iron. Musee de I'Homme, Paris. No. 34.28.43.5. Length of fragment: maximum 18.5 cm. Catalogue No. 5

11. Fragment of a basket. Copper, iron. Musee de l'Homme, Paris. No. 34.28.43.16. Length of fragment: maximum 13.5 cm; width of fragment: maximum 11.8 cm. Catalogue No. 6

12. Portion of a blade. Iron. Musee de I'Homme, Paris. No. 34.28.43.12. Length: median 12.9 cm; width: maximum 5.2 cm. Catalogue No. 9 13. Knife blade. Iron. Musee de I'Homme, Paris. No. 34.28.43.7. Length: maximum 27.4 cm; width: maximum 5.5 cm. Catalogue No. 8 14. Knife blade. Iron. Musee de 1'Homme, Paris. No. 34.28.43.6. Length: maximum 34.7 cm; width: minimum 7.8 cm. Catalogue No. 7

15. Hammer/anvil. Iron. Musee de I'Homme, Paris. No. 34.28.43.8. Length: 19.3 cm; width: maximum 5.7 cm. Catalogue No. 10

16. Hammer. Iron. Musee de I'Homme, Paris. No. 34.28.43.9. Length: 20 cm; width: maximum 5.5 cm. Catalogue No. 11

iy. Pick. Iron. Musee de 1'Homme, Paris. No. 34.28.43.10. Length: 24.8 cm. Catalogue No. 12

18. Fragment of double bells. Iron. Musee de rHomme, Paris. No. 34.28.43.14. Length of fragment: maximum 13.6 cm; width of fragment: minimum 13.5 cm. Catalogue No. 13 19. Open ring. Iron. Musee de 1'Homme, Paris. No. 34.28.43.15. External diameter: maximum 5.6 cm; internal diameter: maximum 4 cm. Catalogue No. 14

20. Fragment of ingot (?) broken into two pieces. Material not analysed. Musee de 1'Homme, Paris. Nos 34.28.43.11, 34.28.43.13. Length of larger fragment: maximum 11.3 cm; width of larger fragment: maximum 5.2 cm; length of smaller fragment: maximum 7.1 cm; width of smaller fragment: maximum 3.31 cm. Catalogue Nos 15, 16

21. Left to right: top - belt, two pieces of ingot; bottom - hammer, portion of blade, hammer, pick, fragment of double bells, open ring, knife blade, knife blade, fragments of a basket

22. Artist's conception of the shrine site. By Richard T.S. Wilson

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4

The Sacred

Lusunsi is the divinity of Ngoyo, its nkisi nsi. The nkisi nsi is the divine protector of the nsi. Nsi is the inhabited and used territory with its land, the variety of its environments, its streams, and, in the case of a littoral country like Ngoyo, its portion of access to the ocean, along with the ocean as well. Not only in Ngoyo but also in other Kongo regions the cult of the bankisi ba nsi (the protective deities of the nsi) is regarded as ancient and ranks highest among the cults practised by the Bakongo. The Ngoyo myth narrates that the bankisi ba nsi belong to the large family of the god creator. They were all born, as was the god. At the time when the world existed but was not yet populated, the members of the godly family are believed to have lived their mythical lives. They were born and they gave birth. They travelled in various places. If they did wrong, the god punished them by beating or killing them. Subsequently, they were revived by him. They were poisoned by his wife, but were resurrected. As soon as the god ruled that his family already had a sufficient number of children, further reproduction ended and a new phase of the godly family began. Its several members settled down in various places of the nsi, where they have been dwelling ever since in their shrines. They protect the nsi. The divine origin of the bankisi ba nsi is not explicitly stated in all the Kongo traditions. For instance, it is implied in the nomenclature used in Mayombe,1 where the tutelary deity of the country, the nkisi nsi, is also called god of the country, nzambi a nsi. In one of the Loango traditions, the divine nature of the protectors of the nsi is expressed in a different way.2 It narrates that at one time the god became upset because people constantly troubled him with complaints. As a consequence, he parted from the world of people, leaving behind a piece of himself in the earth, rain, and fertility, and he made protectors of these godly pieces. Nor are the northern Bakongo explicit about the divine origin of the pro-

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Crown and Ritual

tective deities of the nsi, although they are cautious to distinguish them in part from the founding ancestors, in part from the spirits of the dead. The Bampangu of the south-east of the Kongoland also do not state anything about the origin of the nkisi nsi Kiyengele.3 But again, they do not identify it with the ancestors' spirits. Woyo traditions make a clear distinction between Lusunsi or other bankisi ba nsi and the dead or founding ancestors, usually referred to by ethnologists as divinized ancestors.4 Members of the godly family may have been killed or poisoned, but they were always resurrected to continue their divine lives. The bankisi ba nsi are not dead' is a Woyo saying.5 The divine protectors of the nsi differ from the legendary founding ancestors, as well as from the spirits of the dead, called bisimbi, not only in their origin, but also in rank, responsibilities, and assignments. In worship, however, these three different religious categories may sometimes merge, or their ministry may be associated. The Lusunsi shrine, for instance, which was the sacred place of the nkisi nsi, also contained the epitome of the ancestral mother, the cap/crown. The spirits of the dead, bisimbi, are believed in Ngoyo to assist the tutelary deity of the nsi and to help in those cults which propitiate the nsi, for example, by the preparation of virgins for marriage.6 Missionaries of the past four centuries repeatedly wrote about the Kongo idea of the god called nzambi or nzambi a mpungu.1 Although they were cognizant of a number of the manifold Kongo uses of both the word nzambi and its connotations, they saw one single godly being as governing the Kongo customary religion. But Abbe Proyart8 in the 17705 found two opposing gods in the mind of the north-western Bakongo: the creator of all that is good in the world, and the opposite, the 'wicked god.' A century later, and in the same region, Pere Campana and Dennett9 noted that, in the narrations, nzambi a mpungu was associated with a large family; one spoke about his wives and many children. Doutreloux's modern findings in southern Mayombe10 have shown that the Bayombe speak about two gods: the god from above, nzambi a yulu, and the god of the nsi, nzambi a nsi. These examples establish that the idea of the plurality of the pantheon is neither unprecedented in the reasoning about Kongo religious beliefs, nor exclusive to Ngoyo and the discussed myth about the god's family." Existing in several versions and also recorded in various fragmentary forms, the Ngoyo myth is the only coherent legend on divine genealogy recorded to date in the Kongoland. Tastevin published two versions, one of which was communicated to him by the Mangovo. Father Joaquim Martins published yet another more extensive version from a manuscript of the elder Antonio Joao Fernandes of Cabinda.12 Some fragments of the myth focusing on one or two

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deities and their genealogy were published,13 and others were recorded in various unpublished manuscripts.14 Versions and fragments vary mostly in the identification of the relationships of individual godly kinsmen. The names of the principal deities, such as Kuiti Kuiti, Mboze, Lusunsi, and Bunsi, are invariable. The divine genealogy is most cogently construed in an unpublished manuscript, presumably written in 1937 by Abbe Mambuko (see Appendix IV), which summarizes what the Abbe recorded between 1933 and 1937 in Ngoyo.'5 Divine genealogy as rendered in the manuscript differs from the various versions in that all the godly offspring descend from one common mother, Mboze. Her name, which translates as 'fecundity,' predestines her for this role, unlike any other name within the godly group. Mboze creates a link between the godly generations, for she conceives both in marriage with the god creator, her brother, and in other incestuous relations with her sons. In Mambuko's genealogy, the names of Mboze's offspring are also more meaningful than in other versions, for they appear concordant with the deities' actions. Also, Lusunsi's position here makes better sense than in some fragments of the myth. It corresponds with the customary reference to the deity as Lusunsi ma Mboze, Mboze's ('child') Lusunsi. Finally, Mambuko's manuscript appeals as a workable synthesis of the myth, since, in contrast to another version and some fragments of the myth, it does not venture to ascribe to Lusunsi and Bunsi any particular sex, or to involve both deities in some divine marriage. The myth on divine genealogy weaves hints about the year's cycle into the narrative about the birth of some deities, their names, and their lives. Yet other information is conveyed by the toponyms related to the gods' birth and their travels. Most importantly, the myth encapsulates Kongo thought on the formation and growth of the kin group, which is the basic unit and focal element of the entire Kongo social structure. The myth exemplifies the position of the kin group's main figures and the actions of its members. Odd as it may seem, the myth provides no fabric for reasoning about the Kongo ideas of cosmogenesis. Kuiti Kuiti is postulated as creator, but the narrative does not portray him as creating the world. Rather, his creativity is manifested in exercising social tasks, those of a founding ancestor. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century missionaries were amazed that the Bakongo did not have anything to narrate that would be compatible with Genesis. As well, modern ethnologic studies are unanimous - with the exception of Laman - in concluding that while nzambi is described as the origin, source, or inspiration of everything in the world, Kongo traditions do not elaborate on the god's creation. Laman adopted a myth about the creation of the world by the god Mbumba Chembe, recorded in the late nineteenth century in the Kasai area.16 Yet neither Soret's17 nor my informants in the northern Kongoland and Manyanga, whence

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came most of Laman's records, were able to confirm any traces of knowledge of this myth. It tells of the creator Mbumba Chembe who vomited up celestial bodies, as well as plants, animals, and men. Perhaps the closest parallel, which I recorded on the northern bank of the Congo/Zaire River west of Boma, is a legend about a woman who, after a long period of pregnancy, gave birth to the river. Or, another legend noted by Laman18 which is about a woman who gave birth to a child, a young leopard, snakes, and the white chalk used in the chief's consecration. The god's creation, discussed in a recital published by Fu-Kiau,19 is a parable that compares cosmogenesis with the preparation offufu, a sort of porridge of manioc, and of the meat to be served with it. I also heard a variant of it in which the god prepares kwanga or shwang, 'manioc bread,' and then serves hot spices - that is, people - with it. These parables, too, omit any reference to the Kongo belief about the creation of the world; they just make a comparison. 'How would we know? We were not there,' was the disarmingly logical response of the chief of Bwende Mpinda on the Louvisi to my repeated questions. He suggested, like most informants, that the first Mukongo was created only after the world already existed. While Kongo narratives are silent about the creation of the environment, a large number of them describe the creation of man by the god. Mostly, the first people were a couple; in rare instances only a man is mentioned, as in a Solongo myth, or only a woman, as in a Loango myth,20 or finally, only a bisexual being.21 Often, the first human couple is a Kongo man and woman. Less frequently, the Bakongo are believed to have been born only in the second generation. In a typical case, the first couple is said to be large and great, nene, or to have other attributes suggesting that they are big in scale and great in potency. The woman has, for instance, many breasts; they have a very large number of children; their name contains the word nzau, elephant; their children break canoes by their weight. Also, their children sometimes have the epithet mani appended to their names, in the case of males, or have the names of Kongo descent groups, if they are daughters.22 Some myths refer to the first couple as being white,23 or albino, zindundu. Others describe a split in the second generation into black and white offspring. Yet another modality, which is rare, was noted in the 18705: the men were moulded in clay by the god and, as a result of different durations of the firing process, a black, a yellow, and a white human being were created.24 Potter's clay is mentioned rather frequently in various regions as the god's material for the creation of men. Infrequently, some other beliefs were noted, such as that the first people emerged from the sea, or from a sacred tree.25 According to the myth narrated in 1933 by the Mangovo, the first people were created by nzambi from the skin of a large snake.26

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a) God and His Kin

In both Mambuko's summary and other versions of the myth about divine genealogy, the standard passage deals with the birth of the god. Kuiti Kuiti, the god, is said to have been born together with his brother and sister. As a tripartite creature, so the Mangovo's version has it, they emerged from the lake with three heads but joined by their bodies. Kuiti Kuiti was the first to appear. He was followed by Nkunda Mbaki Randa. The sex of Nkunda is determined by his birth position; he was bom on the right - the male - side of Kuiti Kuiti. On his left, or female, side, Mboze appeared as the last of the godly triplets. Born united, the god, his brother, and his sister separated as adults. Mboze became the wife of Kuiti Kuiti. The incidence of the number three in Kongo art, myths, or behaviour is, in most cases, not accidental. I shall argue that the number three conveys the Kongo idea of the constitution and function of the descent group. A pot, a narrative, or a habit can be designed to promote this thought, acting as a memento. The idea of a tripartite creature is sometimes manifested in Kongo art. Mainly, it is the subject of a special type of pot (ill. i). Three rounded containers are joined together and their constricted ends create one common neck. The containers are associated with anthropomorphic motifs in the form either of faces modelled on each container, or of whole figures leaning upon each container. Or, in some cases, the three containers are topped by one larger figure. Sometimes, though not customarily, the anthropomorphic motifs are covered with polychrome. Such pots, usually about thirty centimetres high, may be found in some Woyo households, and occasionally in Kwakongo and in the hands of people in Manyanga. They are manufactured by Kwakongo and Dondo potters, and the formal features of the anthropomorphic motifs suggest their production in other Kongo regions also. They are made by male potters, which is exceptional in the Dondo country.27 A few specimens are in museums.28 Pots with multiple containers have also been made by Teke potters.29 But the figural elements are invariably missing in all Teke specimens I know of, and the connection of Teke pots with the myth is most doubtful. They also include examples of two, three, or five juxtaposed or superimposed containers, in contrast to this type of Kongo pot where the number three is constant. None of the Kongo tripartite pots which I was able to examine showed traces of use as containers for liquid. The shape is also rather inconvenient for that purpose. Like Kongo figural ceramics in general, these pots have been used in various contexts for non-verbal communication. The commonly perceived message conveyed by this pot is a triad. Three is good,' 'three makes a kin group, kdndaS is the usual commentary. The Bawoyo explicitly affirm that three is the

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most propitious number. Elsewhere in the Kongoland its importance is only implied. It is incorporated in a number of narratives, such as the one about the three brothers, Makongo, Maloango, and Mangoyo, who divided the nsi among themselves. The preference for the number three is also reflected in many patterns believed to be decorative, such as the triangle, three dots, three circles, or trilobate motifs. It may also be encountered in seemingly insignificant behavioural manifestations, such as the practice of maintaining a cooking pot over a fire with the help of three supports, rather than two or four.30 Female informants explained the three supports of the cooking pot as a reminder to the husband of his obligation to produce a child to multiply his wife's descent group. The third member of the primordial divine tripartite creature is the younger brother of Kuiti Kuiti. The Mangovo's version specifically indicates that Nkunda is younger by birth than Kuiti Kuiti; Nkunda's head is said to have appeared on the lake surface only after Kuiti Kuiti, and his place of birth is identified by the relationship to Kuiti Kuiti. His names are pronounced and transcribed in a number of ways: as Nkunda Bati Landa, Nkunda Mbaki Nranda, Nkunda Mbaki Randa, and Nkunda Batchi Randa. The name Kunda, which Mambuko's manuscript notes also as part of the name of his wife, characterizes the marriage as sterile, nkunda. None of the versions ascribes offspring to them. But the myth attributes to the younger brother of Kuiti Kuiti a vital part in the fertility of the land. By causing the circulation of water he makes rain, zimbula. Thus the triad of gods is portrayed as an older brother who is in charge of the progeny, a mother who generates the family, and a younger brother/rainmaker. Kuiti Kuiti distributes the mother's descendants in the world and sets the rules for what is right or wrong. Nkunda makes the country grow or makes it wither during drought. Mambuko's summary has it that the two sons of the god and his wife Mboze - Nkanga and Nembinda Nemboma - also beget incestuous offspring with their godly mother. Divine incest is a necessity. It resolves the problem of one single beginning which is fundamental for Kongo centripetal and centrifugal ideology. The assumption of the birth of two different groups of gods would be a contradiction in terms. The essence of the Kongo god is that he is one and he can be extended only by his own. The plurality of the Kongo pantheon arises from the multiplication of one single god, not from a multitude of different gods. The marriage of Kuiti Kuiti and Mboze is as much divine incest as the union of Mboze with her son Nkanga and her marriage with the other son, Nembinda Nemboma. Yet the myth exemplifies Mboze's relations with her sons as two antithetical types of union. The incest of Mboze and Nkanga is shown as unwanted by Kuiti Kuiti.31 By contrast, Mboze's marriage with Nembinda

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Nemboma demonstrates a union favoured by the god. The wrongdoing of Nkanga and Mboze is communicated in the myth by Kuiti Kuiti's anger, and the impropriety of the union is stated by Nkanga's name: nkanga translates as 'arid.' Punishment follows Nkanga's and Mboze's copulation. Kuiti Kuiti fights with Nkanga and kills both him and Mboze. The heavy mist which falls and the advice which Kuiti Kuiti receives from his brother the rainmaker to revive both Mboze and Nkanga attest to the effectiveness of the penalty. Nsi is propitiated. Once the appeasing mist appears, Bunsi, Mboze's and Nkanga's offspring, leaves his mother's womb. The deity's frequently used sobriquet, 'Bunsi that faces two gods fighting,' is thus illustrated in the myth by a dramatic event. In contrast, the narration of a favoured union, the marriage of Mboze with Nembinda Nemboma, unfolds without confrontations and abounds in positive factors. The name Nembinda Nemboma contains the prefix ne-, the abbreviated form of the adjective 'big,' nene, which implies that he is perceived as having a body, unlike other divinities. It also points to his earthly nature by the allusion to two toponyms, Mboma and Mbinda. By being different in nature from other deities, Nembinda Nemboma is suitable to marry his mother, Mboze. They are represented as not being consanguine. The progeny of Nembinda Nemboma and Mboze are entrusted to Kuiti Kuiti's custody and distributed by him to populate the world. The offspring also include Pygmies, Mbaka Mbaka- Mambuko's summary speaks of them, possibly erroneously, as 'two albinos'; Nvemba, or rather Mvemba, 'albino'; and Lusunsi. The correctness of Mboze's union with Nembinda Nemboma is confirmed when Mboze poisons the god, together with all the male deities, but saves Nembinda Nemboma, her husband. Lusunsi is thus represented as an offspring of an approved and proper marriage. The myth about the god's genealogy thus encapsulates the basic principles of the constitution and function of a descent group. The formation and the authority of the descent group, kdnda, is legislated in the Ngoyo code,32 which rules that kdnda is made of kin, butu, and that it starts with the first mama and tata. The founders are a brother and sister, zinkomba. The third one included in the code is a maternal uncle, mama-nkazi. In the myth, the mama-tata relationship is personified by the supreme couple of the divine brother and sister. As soon as Mboze marries Nembinda Nemboma and offspring are born of this marriage, Kuiti Kuiti assumes his other role, that of maternal uncle. It is he who decides the offsprings' destiny, and it is through him that people and deities come into their places in the world. Then, Kuiti Kuiti wants to retire. What the code states only elliptically, the myth narrates epically. Divine

120 Crown and Ritual genealogy describes a descent group of kin, not a family with parents and children. The descent group is constituted by the founding brother and sister, but it starts functioning only when the brother begins to exercise authority over the progeny of his founding sister. For this to happen, the sister has to enter into a proper marriage and beget offspring. Thus, three parties are essential for the functioning of a descent group. Of them, the code states two and one is implied: a founding brother, a founding sister, and her progeny. Moreover, the functioning descent group is based on three principles: the consanguine relationship of brother and sister, the exogamous marriage, and authority. Hence the esteem and reverence of the number three. I infer that, apart from the constitution of the descent group, the myth emphasizes a desirable marriage by pointing to the dramatic consequences of an undesirable union. The Ngoyo code33 also legislates that husband and wife must not come from the same descent group, must not be of the same maternal blood, and must not be of the same bingu. Furthermore, it defines bingu as a sacred symbol of consanguinity. The offspring of the marriage must follow the bingu of their mother. Breaching these laws is viewed by the code as a severe offence of the nsi. Failure to punish such an offence is a failure to purify the nsi, which would cause disastrous results for the inhabitants of the nsi. The emblem of bingu34 is a small basket, discussed earlier, nkobe. It is, in principle, cylindrical and made either of coiled material or of bark. Its contents include relics of the bingu kin, as well as a ring or armlet, nlunga. Other possible ingredients include a piece of currency and zoologic relics. The armlet and the small basket nkobe symbolize the togetherness of the consanguine kin, called butu bi nkobe i bingu. b) Lusunsi and Bunsi Lusunsi is remembered by the traditions of the northern Bakongo and of the Bawoyo as the protector of the descent group, kdnda or kifumba. Since the seat of the deity is in Ngoyo, it is conceivable that the respect given to everything that constitutes and maintains the descent group is even more conspicuous there than in any other Kongo region. That, of course, also includes marriage. Social life there clearly centres on such events and manifestations as the preparation of virgins for marriage, or veneration of the bingu, making economic concerns such as field cultivation or hunting, for instance, far less noticeable than in other regions. The Ngoyo code35 confirms this role of Lusunsi and elaborates further, attributing more responsibilities to Lusunsi than to any other member of the godly group. It ascribes conjointly to Lusunsi and Bunsi the introduction of the rule

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that every person has his or her own name, value, descent group, and bingu. Both deities also protect the marriage and the descent group and guarantee social order by enforcing exogamy through the imposition of great punishment on offenders. In the case of the omission of exogamy, states the code, the nsi will suffer through lack of rain. Marital behaviour is supervised by Lusunsi and Mboze. Both are said to rule that intercourse between a man and a woman must not occur on the ground or in a house whose door is open. Lusunsi is, however, the sole divinity, according to the code, with jurisdiction over such matters as the renewal of Ngoyo royal authority and the nsi. The Lusunsi priest is required by the code to provide sacerdotal services on political occasions crucial to the country, such as the investiture of the Ngoyo king and confirmation of the king's dignitary mambuko. In addition, the code legislates that the high officeholder mambuko also receives his cap from the priest, and not from the king. Moreover, the Lusunsi priest is instrumental in safeguarding social conduct. He determines and executes penalties for those crimes which are so obvious that they are not treated by the tribunal: theft caught in the act, intercourse with a young woman who has not undergone virginal seclusion and preparation to become a bride, and intercourse with somebody else's wife. Finally, the Lusunsi priest is recognized by the laws as the only one who is competent to purify the nsi after one of the two most serious sexual offences has been committed: when an initiated virgin not prepared as a bride is taken by a man as his wife, or when a man and woman commit intercourse on the ground or in a house whose doors are not closed. Lusunsi's and Bunsi's control of rains, stated by the laws, corresponds with the Lusunsi priest's assistance to the king in affairs of rain, discussed earlier. Oral traditions, however, are usually more specific about Bunsi than about Lusunsi as a supreme deity in matters of rain. The myth about the god's genealogy says that Bunsi's birth was accompanied by mbungi, which translates as 'mist,' and which is also sometimes employed to denominate Bunsi.36 Mist falls in late August through September, according to the Western calendar. It is a period during which the country becomes wet and green again. It follows the dry season and precedes the season of rains. Hence the sobriquet of Bunsi, 'who faces two fighting deities.' It is also the period when virginal brides, tchikumbi, leave their seclusion and marry. By extension, Bunsi is further associated with the fertility, growth, and generosity of the nsi. Within the framework created by these associations, the interpretation of the deity's jurisdiction within the Kongoland fluctuates. In the eastern part of Kwakongo and in Soyo, it was noted that Bunsi of Ngoyo is considered ultimately responsible for rainfall and is consulted when the arrival of the mist is delayed and their local priests fail to help. In southern Mayombe,

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Bunsi assumes the role of supreme god, whereas in central Mayombe, Bunsi is worshipped as the god supervising the hunt. As a nkisi nsi, Bunsi has been invoked and given offerings by hunters north of the Tchiloango River, in the Kunyiland, and by the Badondo. Also in Loango, it was noted that Bunsi was venerated for causing growth and affecting the harvest. As well, in northern Manyanga, close to the mining region, the Bunsi priest's prayers were required by the blacksmith before he undertook a major task, such as forging a hammer.37 Viable conclusions cannot be drawn based upon only one observation of Bunsi worship. Bunsi is not a hunter's 'fetish,' just as it is not a god of fertility. All these modes of worship, including respect given to bingu and observation of exogamous marriages, are only various aspects of the multifaceted and complex cult of the nkisi nsi. These various ways of venerating Bunsi are not contradictory, but complementary, and their variations within the Kongoland are understandable, since the different emphases correspond to the specializations of various regions and reflect the differences in their historical background and natural setting. What can, however, be deduced from these various records is wide cognizance of Bunsi as nkisi nsi. The popularity of Bunsi contrasts with confusion in interpretations or even ignorance of other godly kin, including Kuiti Kuiti, in Kongo regions other than Ngoyo. The common acceptance of Bunsi also overshadows the repute of Lusunsi. As a nkisi nsi, Bunsi is credited with control over winds,38 as is Lusunsi, who is believed to bring strong winds and occasionally a cyclone, as mentioned in the discussion on the deity's shrine. Strong winds occur in the north-western Kongoland, as well as inland as far upstream as Boma, and are associated with the west, as they come from the ocean. Meteorology customarily also expects a small amount of precipitation from the west and south-west. Rains, however, are brought by winds and by an overcast sky from the east.39 The location of the shrines of both deities evidently does not corroborate the deities' meteorological assignment of control of rains. Nor does the orientation of the Lusunsi shrine apply to the shape and size of Ngoyo as this country has been known to outsiders since the middle of the seventeenth century, and as its boundary is defined by the Ngoyo code.40 The Lusunsi shrine, which lies in the north-western peak of the triangle that outlines Ngoyo, is not specifically associated with the north or with northern winds. Rather, the location of both shrines and their reputation in the regions outside Ngoyo suggest that Lusunsi and Bunsi were believed to supervise the whole cycle of the year and all the winds. After all, nsungi translates as 'season' or cyclic change of the year, and designates also the most frequently used lead ore in the Kongo metalworking. -Nsungi could be the stem of 'Lialussingi,' a modern modification of Lusunsi's name, noted by Franque and Martins Campos.

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The Bunsi shrine is in the neighbourhood of Moanda. Its precise location is difficult to determine due to inconclusive information recorded in the last two centuries. Bastian's account41 of his visit to the Bunsi priest in Tchimsinda does provide a detailed description of access to the shrine. Only, he writes, his guides became evasive and did not allow him to view the spot where Bunsi's prophecy was heard. But the authenticity of the shrine in Tchimsinda (Lusinda, Nsinda, Sinda) was questioned altogether in the 18705 by participants in the German expedition42 as a result of their further inquiries about Bunsi. They depicted the chief of Sinda, whom Bastian had visited and whose possession by the Bunsi spirit he had witnessed, as an enterprising man who provided a good income for himself by running his own 'fetish' Bunsi. My Kwakongo informants spoke of the shrine of Bunsi ma Ngoy in Nsinga. Woyo informants locate it in Tchikai, in Kifindi, and, finally, conjointly in Tchikai and Nsiamfumu. Kifindi has lately been the seat of the female diviner Lilu Sengele, who might have been in her seventies in the mid-1970s. She is nganga Mbumba and, according to her information, she succeeded her own father, the former nganga Mbumba in Kifindi, in her priestly office. Traditions confirm that the cult was based there. Again according to the traditions recorded in the area, the power of the female nkisi Nkondi derives from Tchikai Ngongo. The old local nganga Luemba Kalala has complained since 1974 of being deprived of his power by witches or sorcerers, zindoki, of Nsiamfumu. At any rate, the Mbumba cult is in a different religious category from nkisi nsi Bunsi, and nkisi Nkondi ranks even lower in the religious hierarchy. Consideration of the relationship of these cults and their diviners with Bunsi would not be plausible. That does not, however, exclude the possibility that the shrine is located somewhere in the forest north of Kifindi and around Tchikai, in the area where an outsider cannot move freely. Consideration of the shrine's location in Nsiamfumu would pose a different problem. As it is the centre of the princess Mpuenya's territory, it would imply that the Bunsi shrine was controlled by the people of the princess. In that case, one would have to give ear to the Yombe tradition recorded in Loango43 which suggests the derivation of Bunsi from the Kongo kingdom. Although such an interpretation would contradict most other records, one cannot dismiss it completely until the Bunsi shrine is properly documented. Bunsi might have been introduced to create a twin sanctuary to the Lusunsi shrine, and thus to challenge its uniqueness and prestige. The Bunsi shrine is a twin of the Lusunsi shrine in Lombe, as Bunsi is only another facet of the same notion for which Lusunsi stands. The etymology of the names of both deities indicates this. Both names have a common stem, -nsi

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or -nzi, since sometimes their names are written as Lusunsi and Bunsi, sometimes as Lusunzi and Bunzi. Correct pronunciation allows both transcriptions. If the stem were -nzi, the translation of the names would not make much sense. The noun nzi is 'fly' or 'rope' or 'beans,' when one considers those meanings that are identical in at least two Bantu languages spoken in areas distant from one another, such as Kikongo and Kiluba. Such incidences may be suggestive of a certain longevity of the meanings. As the deities are bankisi ba nsi, tutelary deities of the nsi, the root -nsi of both their names sounds more logical than -nzi. 'Lusunsi' is then composed of lu-su-nsi; lu- means 'one out of many,' according to Meinhof's comparative study of Bantu languages, -su- translates as 'face,' and nsi denotes the notion of 'country' or 'domain.'44 The name originally can have meant 'the particular face of the nsi.' This interpretation would correspond to Ngoyo traditions which assert that Lusunsi has several appearances.45 One of the faces is said to be black, the other white. From a distance, the deity is said to take on the colour of fire. This etymology would also concur with the previous deduction that the Lusunsi shrine was the place where a new appearance of the future authority bearer was forged. Analogically, Bunsi can also be analysed as a composite name; bu-nsi. Bu is a prefix added in Kikongo and Kiluba to nouns not used in the plural, and designates abstractions or something which is widely spread. It also means 'place' in Kikongo.46 As well, in Van Avermaet's explication, it denotes the language, or way of speaking; for instance, buluba means 'to speak the language of the Baluba.' Bunsi thus can designate the place where the nsi manifests itself, or even more specifically the place where the nsi voices its opinion. The myth about the god's genealogy narrates that Bunsi spoke while still in Mboze's womb.47 Furthermore, after the election of a candidate for leadership, Bunsi was expected to communicate agreement or disagreement of the nsi with the choice. Moreover, traditions repeatedly state that Bunsi speaks or conveys opinions or talks through a hole in the earth.48 Also in the priest's prayer, Bunsi is invoked as 'minu ... ya Kongo ya Ngoyo,'49 'the orifice ... of Kongo and of Ngoyo.' The proposed history of Lusunsi's and Bunsi's names shows them as designations of two incarnations of the manifold nsi: its appearance and its voiced will. This interpretation explains the disproportion in cognizance and popularity of these deities within the Kongoland. The Lusunsi shrine, which held the prototypes of the tools and sacred insignia, did not obviously receive steady publicity. By contrast, the Bunsi shrine has been repeatedly remembered and its importance recalled any time approval or judgment, will, or orders of the nsi were solicited or heard in regions far beyond the territory of Ngoyo. Cited records on different ways of venerating Bunsi in various Kongo regions indicate that the Bunsi shrine in Ngoyo had outlets with derived power

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elsewhere, and that the satellite shrines were in the care of special priests. The priest of the nkisi nsi has a special name: ntomansi or ntomi. The seventeenthand eighteenth-century missionary accounts50 often speak of kitome, kitombe, or kitomi as the most powerful of all the wizards and gods of the earth. Yet many ethnological accounts of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries do not note the existence of the kitome in Kongo religious or social life. The historians Ihle and, more recently, Randies51 therefore offered two alternative versions of the kitome'$ role in the past; he was considered either an antique form of a modern consecrated chief or a residuum of the institution of Ambundu, who had allegedly been conquered by the founder of the Kongo kingdom. But the vanishing of the kitome, between the seventeenth and the twentieth centuries, from the Kongo priesthood is only illusory. Rather than being the name of a person, kitome with the prefix ki- could have designated a capacity and knowledge. Analogically to kimfumu or kindoki, kitome can be explained as the capacity of the ntome. And ntomansi, which still persists as the name of the priest of the nkisi nsi, is composed of the noun ntome (helper, assistant) and the predicate nsi. In some regions, the designation ntomansi is not used now, and the priest of Bunsi is called nganga, which is a general name for the Kongo priest. The role and responsibilities of the ntomansi, as they were stipulated by the Ngoyo code and the traditions, and analysed in the chapter on the Lusunsi shrine, correspond mostly with those of the kitome described by the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century missionaries, and interpreted by Thornton.52 Nevertheless, missionary accounts do not mention the link with smithing and the custody of fire. The performance of responsibilities, of course, underwent a substantial change, as is evident from the information on the Lusunsi priest of 1933. In one important point, perhaps, the ideology also changed in the last two centuries. The ritual death of the aging or ailing ntomansi, executed in public by his successor, which the Capuchins in the second half of the seventeenth century had apparently witnessed, is not mentioned by the recorded nineteenth- and twentieth-century traditions. c) nsi and Mother The narrative on the god's genealogy develops in a space which is mapped out by the movements of the god creator and the deities. It is mainly Kuiti Kuiti who excels in mobility. He travels with his younger brother, moves Mboze's white children overseas, and retires again to the country of the black people. Mboze is less mobile. Only after having given birth to the children who populated the world does she move to Buali. Once Kuiti Kuiti joins her again, they

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stay in Mbanza Nsonya, according to Mambuko's summary of the myth, or, according to the Fernandes version, they halt in Mbanza Kongo and return to Mboma after some time elapses. The myth thus develops in two spatial planes. The distant plane is created by the juxtaposition of Mputu and the nsi of the black people. Mputu is a rather vague designation for the world of the white, whether albinos or outsiders, and it may mean a country like Portugal, a continent like Europe, or, finally, the other world, the world of the dead. The nsi of the black is specified as Mboma in Mambuko's manuscript, and as Ngoyo where Mboze resides in Fernandes's version. In either case, that is where the world converges. The closer spatial plane is made up of the toponyms within the nsi of the black people. Convergence also overrides movements within this plane. The gods are said to be born in Lake Mboma Yelala Nsongo.53 Kuiti Kuiti and his younger brother leave Mboma for Nkamba Nyangi, but they return. Mboze leaves for Buali and retreats to live in Mboma together with Kuiti Kuiti. There, they persist in their favourite incarnation as two snakes: the male snake is called ntyama, which is the denomination for python in some languages in the Ogooue basin as well as in Kivili, and the female snake is named lubendo.54 Mboma is a widespread Kongo denomination for the black python. It gave the name to Mboma, now Boma in Zaire, the centre of several major chiefdoms also called Mboma. Originally, the name Mboma possibly referred to one or more islands in the Congo/Zaire River. In the late nineteenth century it still designated the region of Noki on the left bank upstream.55 Yelala is the name of the first cataract upstream from Matadi (see map 2). Between Boma and Yelala, the river has a relatively wide waterbed, is very deep, and creates areas of large and strong whirlpools. Finally, nsongo translates as 'childbirth.'56 It follows that the mythical lake where the gods were born, where Mboze gave birth to all her children, and where, finally, Kuiti Kuiti and Mboze are believed to stay, is the portion of the Congo/Zaire River between Boma and Yelala. It can also be deduced that the world of the genealogical myth converges on the region of the Mboma chiefdoms. The river and its banks in this region offer a rare image and create an uncommon piece of landscape. The hills and rocks are mostly barren. Both banks slope steeply down to the waterbed, providing little or no space for settlements and, therefore, have rarely been populated. Larger settlements, such as Binda, the place whose name makes up part of the name of Mboze's son and husband Nembinda Nemboma, have been situated somewhat away from the river. Only smaller settlements, such as Kongolo on the northern bank facing Noki, appeared in sight of the river. Kongolo, which for a short time in the i88os became a station of the Congo Free State,57 vanished in the twentieth century. Its name, however, indicates that it was an

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old settlement, as it also relates to the mythical snakes. Kongolo is 'rainbow,' and the rainbow, in many African cultures, is believed to be created out of two large snakes: the male on the exterior and the female on the interior of the rainbow. The river between Boma and Yelala has a very rapid stream. The mighty whirlpools, which open and close suddenly and unpredictably, and the velocity of the strong current make navigation extremely difficult. In view of the risks involved, the portion between Matadi and Yelala was called Hell's Cauldron by European navigators.58 Traditions say that the whirlpools are made by large snakes who live there. By derivation, sacred lakes also occur elsewhere in the Kongoland. Deep waters, such as lakes or wider segments of the streams, are sometimes considered sacred, and the two snakes are believed to live there. Such lakes were, for instance, noted in the shrine of Nto in Ngoyo, or in several places in central Mayombe.59 Also places of sprinkling and falling waters, which create rainbows, are frequently considered sacred.60 Mboma Yelala Nsongo is also believed to be the birthplace of the first human couple. The first two people were made of snake skins left behind by Kuiti Kuiti and Mboze. Kuiti Kuiti added hair and nails to the skin, and so human beings were created, says a Ngoyo myth.61 The myth of creation of the human couple from snake skins at Mboma Yelala Nsongo is not widespread in the Kongoland. The sacred place in the river, however, is often mentioned in different ways as the provenance of various Kongo groups. The Mbamba Kalunga, for instance, see their origin in the country called Kwingibiti,62 which alludes, beyond doubt, to Kuiti Kuiti, and, by extension, to the god's home. Most of the fabric sustaining the importance of the region between Boma and Yelala is concealed in pilgrimage myths. In their narrations, a number of Kongo groups claim to have crossed the river at Nsanda Nzondo on the way from Kongo dia ntotela. Whether they now live in the north-west in the Tchiloango basin, as does the powerful group Nanga na Kongo, or in the north-east in the upper Niari basin, as do some Bwende groups, they report the same crossing place. Nsanda Nzondo is even more frequently mentioned by those Kongo groups who describe the pilgrimage in the opposite direction. Traditions published in 1930 by Cuvelier63 narrate the journeys made southward by either the founder of the group or some of his children to found Mbanza Kongo and Mbata, one of the principal provinces of the Kongo kingdom. Their crossing place is again in Nsanda Nzondo, whether the pilgrimage started in Manyanga, in Bwende or Sundi country, or on the Nteye plateau. Where is this point which attracted such traffic? Is it a historical place which can be traced, or is it a mythical metaphor which does not necessarily corre-

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spond to a particular spot or ferry on the Congo/Zaire River? Midway between Boma and Noki, the expedition of Captain Tuckey in 1816 noted two rocks for which the captain recorded in his diary the name Sanda or Zonda.64 They were situated close to the northern bank of the river. One of the rocks had a very large tree at the top. The same two rocks, separated by a distance of some fifty metres, appear on Chavanne's map of 1885 of Bruder Inseln, 'Brothers' Islands,'65 presumably due to the symmetrical image they created. They are situated between the Mfuma-mfuma whirlpools, the area of huge and deep vortices, and a series of seven cliffs a little upstream in another area of strong whirlpools. The two symmetrical rocks cause heavy surges in the stream, forcing boats to navigate along the southern bank, Chavanne writes.66 Nsanda-anzondo is explained by Laman67 as a tree which grows on a rock in the middle of a river, and a Bwende or Sundi tradition has it that Mbakala Nzondo, the One-Legged Man, was the first man and founder of many descendants whom he left behind when going towards Boma. He crossed the river at a place which is thus called Nsanda Nzondo.68 This identification of the mythical Nsanda Nzondo with the crossing place of the One-Legged Man and with Tuckey's Sanda or Zonda appears convincing. The tree observed by Tuckey's expedition at the top of one of the rocks was a nsanda, a fig tree. Apart from the meanings which nsanda conveys and which were discussed in the previous chapter, the greatest significance of this tree is relevant in this context. According to Kongo custom, when the two branches of a descent group separate, they plant a fig tree.69 Nsanda is therefore a landmark of the segmentation and partition of the Kongo groups, being apparently the opposite of the meaning of mbota, which stands for togetherness of the Kongo groups. That also explains the parable of the One-Legged Man crossing the river. Nzondo translates as 'one of two,' or 'one of a pair,'70 pointing to the separation of one branch from the other of the same descent. Nsanda Nzondo is apparently a Kongo sacred place, a memorial of the function of the descent group, the fundamental unit of Kongo social organization. The spot was hardly convenient for crossing, if nineteenth-century outsiders do not exaggerate the risks attached to the approach to the northern bank. Crossing the river, passing from one bank to the other, is presumably a metonym for one of the degrees of separation of the two branches of common descent. Tradition speaks of night separation and day separation. Equally, traditions distinguish between a night crossing of the river and a day crossing. Buakasa71 explains the night separation as a provision preventing sorcerers, kindoki, of one branch from eating the human flesh of the other branch, since too many people were sick or dying. One can infer that night separation is for sanitary reasons. The day separation is, in his interpretation, manifested by the foundation of a new

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chief settlement, vata, by the separating branch. By implication, it is thus a separation of administrative functions of the two branches, as well as their cleavage in physical space, while the space of both of them remains within the boundaries of their descent group's nsi. Whereas Nsanda Nzondo had a symbolic meaning rather than being the spot of an old ferry, somewhere within the sacred lake of the Congo/Zaire River there was at least one real and safe ferry in the past. The ancient caravan road from Mbanza Kongo and the Zombo plateau touched the river in the area of Noki.72 Mboma, either the islands or a market place on the northern bank, was important as a commercial hub of the Kongo kingdom, mentioned by the sources from the time the Europeans came there to trade.73 It was also in this area between Boma and Noki that the Bakongo controlled the shortest access to Mbanza Kongo for outsiders. In times of tension, for instance in and after the middle of the nineteenth century, the area was closed and outsiders were not allowed to pass.74 The region of Mboma was also the source of the white mineral pigment mpezo or bwene or luvemba lua nsi15 which Bunsi was said to safeguard. This indicates the existence of some ancestral custom according to which either the leader's consecration was bound by the approval of Mboma, or the principles of consecration derived from the religious prominence of the Mboma region. Also, the lithic material for figural gravestones, called bitumba ki ntadi and carved for the tombs of consecrated chiefs and founding mothers, was supposed to come from this region.76 The various aspects of its importance lead towards the conclusion that the region between Boma and Yelala has the prestige of being the religious core of the Kongoland. Myths portray it as the origin of gods and people and as the cradleland of the godly invention of the way to constitute a group of kinsmen. Traditions have it that the ancestral ingenuity in organizing the basic social unit so that it would grow, prosper, and populate the country arose in the region of the sacred lake. The custom stipulates that Mboma is the provenance of the stone for the dead, and of the white mineral mpezo which activates the sacredness of the authority. What other places which the gods are said to inhibit in the nsi are included in the genealogical myth? Mbanza Nsonya, where Mboze and Kuiti Kuiti retired after they had been reunited, could be the name of a place within Mboma. Nsonya points to the brown colour of the river, and Mambuko's manuscript says that the lords of the nsi are invested - tumba, 'to invest' - in Mbanza Nsonya, which presumably refers to the provenance of the white pigment. Buali, Mboze's refuge after she had departed from her children's birthplace, is in Loango. It is the mythical 'village of the two,' in which the traditions situate the

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second phase of the polity in Loango.77 Ngoyo is included implicitly in the nsi, as several of the creator god's kin settled down in their shrines, which are in Ngoyo. Mbanza Kongo is embraced by the gods' movements, according to Fernandes's version. Kuiti Kuiti and Mboze halted there after they had left Buali. Nsi, often translated as 'earth,' also involves waters, as noted earlier. However, its content also supersedes a more geographic translation, such as 'domain.' For nsi not only expands in space, but extends in time as well. The opposite of virginal nature, nsi encloses the human past, of which it preserves a visible record. The Kongo nsi shares an important feature with Kongo society: the imprints of the organizing principle. The roads and paths follow distinct patterns tested and codified by the past. The vegetation reveals the history of the region for those who know the logic of its planting. Groups of particular kinds of trees still give evidence of old villages or towns which might have been displaced or destroyed a long time ago. The necropolis is marked with a small planted forest in which special kinds of trees divulge the status of the buried generations. 'No trespassing' signs in the form of planted fields of blooming makunda, whose adhesive flowers cause a high fever, may still protect a shrine or the peace of the ancestors, although their descendants have moved. Annual fires help preserve the history of the botanical organization of nature. The rocks and caves, made by nzambi as they say, were integrated into the society in the distant past when they were marked with petrographic and petroglyphic signs by human hand. In the areas where lithic artifacts are found on the surface, the Bakongo keep them in situ, for they are convinced that they are works of the former lords of the nsi. The nsi is manifestly a concept which is called, in art-historical geography, die Kunstlandschaft, 'the artistic landscape.' It is a symbiosis of the material testimony of ideology and lives past with present human content. It results in a profound aesthetic effect. The means are not architectural monuments, but a monumental environmental design, realized through time, in which myth and history merge. As the organizing principle is optically more perceivable in the savannah, it might be one of the reasons for the covert yet firm disdain which most of the Bakongo have maintained for the Mayombe and its inhabitants living in the confusing, uncontrollable forest. The design of the nsi makes the conceptual bond of the descent group with the nsi visually apparent. Each descent group is not only a unit of the living and dead kin, but has a spatial dimension by being attached to a particular portion of the nsi. The descent group and the nsi are interconnected,78 as they have been developing simultaneously. The dead kin have left their visible marks in the image of the nsi, and they are believed to dwell there as ancestors. The nsi has a

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quality of permanence and provides the ground for the coexistence of the past and the present. It transforms metaphysics into visible history. The founding couple laid the ground for the descent group, and the first brother is the group's first mfumu, master of the nsi. It is, however, through the founding mother that the kinsmen justify their rights to the nsi. Ngu, the mother, is also a four-dimensional concept. Her position in time determines the group's bond with the space. The first mother is the beginning of the descent group, and one of the mothers of a subsequent generation is the onset of the branch, ngudi. The later generations of progeny within the group go back to the founding ancestress as their own mother and origin. Or, conversely, each birth within the group is a renewal of her existence and her actualization, since the group's own children are believed to be born with her blood.79 The group's own children are said to be ya menga, in contrast to the incorporated persons who are, together with their offspring, foreign children, bana be ngana. The degree of relatedness to the founding ancestress varies. An important factor of relatedness among children is the individual's position as older or younger brother. That is why the myth ascribed a younger brother even to the god. The 'older brother' has a closer relationship to the genetrix than the younger. He is, however, not necessarily either a brother or older by his birth, but rather by his position within the structure of the kin group.80 The individual's value is determined by the degree of relatedness to the founding mother within his or her kin group. It is this particular value that Lusunsi is believed to supervise, as ruled by the Ngoyo customary code. Since the time when the leader was consecrated by the rules of the ngunda, the cap-mother, the election of the leader has consisted mainly in searching for and debating this particular value of the various candidates within the ever larger number of kin. In the myth on the god's genealogy, the genetrix is typified by Mboze. She gives birth to all kin of the second as well as subsequent generations. The narrative thus exemplifies the perpetuation of the mother, disregarding the generation's strata. A special array of Kongo sculptures was made and used to manifest the bond of the descent group with the nsi, to represent the part of the first mother, and to state in the form of an icon the different roles of the female and male sexes in the perpetuation of kinship. Each piece is a composition of several anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures, invariably embedded in a box-like framework. They are all made of porous light wood,8' which receives polychrome most easily. The compositions I know of are all in museums. If sculptures of this type are still in use, their religious nature remains hidden from any outsider. In their form, these compositions correspond to the art expression common in the north-western Kongoland, which also concurs with the records on their collection.

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The best preserved and at the same time the most elaborate composition is in the museum in Copenhagen (ill. 2).82 A group made up of five human figures and three animals, the Copenhagen sculpture is typical of its kind. The figures are placed in a rectangular boxlike frame which is topped by a drum. Two large snakes create lateral supports, and delineation of the rectangular space is articulated by the plinths into three superimposed registers. From the mouth of one of the snakes protrudes a human figure and from the other a halved fruit, chiali mioko, botanically Schrebera arboreal In Kongo symbolism, the halved chiali mioko stands for the vagina, and, by extension, for a woman. There can be little doubt that the snakes represent Kuiti Kuiti and Mboze, and that the scene is an image of the creation of the first human couple. Anthropomorphic figures also create an eloquent icon. Within the rectangular space the constitution of the descent group is represented in three sequential phases. The founding brother and sister are seated in the lowest register, the marriage is depicted in the middle, and the upper plinth carries two authority bearers. Polychrome and postures convey further messages. The four men represented - that is, the founding brother, the groom, and the two authority bearers - are differentiated by colour, dress, and pattern; they are meant to be four different males. Posturally, the brother conveys distinction, the groom a readiness to fulfil his task of husband, while both authority bearers sit in state. The one on the viewer's right is ailing or dead, while the one on the left is in command. By contrast, the same woman with the same scarification and hairdo is represented in two different registers. In the first, she is the founding ancestress sitting in the pose of a person tied to the nsi. In the middle register, she is prepared as a bride painted with tukula, the red vegetal pigment. With her posture, she again conveys her tie with the nsi, but she expects to raise the progeny 'on her knees.'84 The boxlike, clearly delimited space within which the foundation of the descent group develops can be interpreted with marginal risk of error as the outlined nsi which belongs to the group. History thus unfolds in consecutive time segments which are, at the same time, portions of a defined space. The ancestress extends over the time segments and endures within the nsi. Invariably depicted at the top of the compositions is a round drum usually covered with a snake skin. Special types of drums belong to the insignia of the descent group; called masi kulu, they are said to be the voice of the ancestors, and are beaten on special occasions, such as funerals, together with the blowing of ivory tusks or wooden trumpets, zimpungi. An elephant carrying the entire structure on his back is represented at the base of the Copenhagen composition. Elephants alternate with leopards to create the supporting elements of these genealogical sculptures. 'Elephant,' nzau, connotes physical strength, very large size, and quantity, and is considered

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male. Nzau appears in the mythical names of the first human couple.85 In proverbs, the elephant also connotes the elder brother.86 A version of the myth on the partition of the world among the sons of the father Ne Kongo gives the name Nzau to the ferryman on the Tchiloango River. The myth is narrated in various versions within the Kongoland. In the version noted in southern Loango,87 the ferryman Nzau is said to have made three efforts to ferry one of Ne Kongo's sons to the northern bank, but his canoes always sank under the passenger's weight. Other versions of the myth, noted in the north-western Kongoland, narrate that the first Ma Loango arrived in Loango either from the sea or by crossing the Tchiloango on the back of an elephant. Compositions supported by a leopard have the same theme as those carried by an elephant but differ in the emphasis on the female role within the descent group. Their iconography is focused on the mother. Thus, elephant-supported compositions are genealogical sculptures exploring the role of males. It follows that the leopard concurs with and connotes the founding ancestress, while the elephant is synonymous with the male authority bearer. The German director of a Dutch company in Kaio, Robert Visser, who between 1882 and 1904 collected such a female-focused 'family tree,' now in the Berlin museum, reported that it came from the Ma Loango's residence.88 It was reportedly shown in public only on festive occasions when the priests explained the history of each figure, presumably in the form of an incantation accompanied by the little drum at the top. Differing in their emphasis on the depicted phases of the genealogical history, the carved male and female 'family trees' draw attention to the diversified roles of female and male sexes in the constitution of the descent group. It was concluded that the first mother endures through various time segments. Since the ideology of the matrilineal Bakongo sees women as transmitters of the blood of the founding genetrix, all the group's mothers are subsumed in the first ancestress. Or, conversely, she is contained in all of them. Like the nsi, the mother is believed to have no end. In contrast to the role of the mother, the part of the founding brother is viewed as finite, as with all other male parts in the constitution and functioning of the descent group. Analysis of the Copenhagen genealogical sculpture has shown that the rendering made it evident that four different men were depicted. Physical fitness and perfection, stipulated as indispensable qualities of the leadership candidate, are limited by time, as is the leader's life. Even Kuiti Kuiti, in the genealogical myth, wanted to retire at a certain moment, against the wishes of Mboze, who found it upsetting and poisoned him. The Ngoyo code is explicit about the finitude of the authority bearer. It rules that the authority of the descent group must not end. When its bearer can no longer exercise his respon-

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sibilities - that is, when he dies, or when his health fails - then another takes his place.89 To make the authority endure, its bearers change. The biala joins the bearers, whose lives are finite, with the authority, which is believed to share its endlessness with the descent group. To be eligible for union with concepts/entities which are infinite, such as the god, the elected male has to be elevated in his human nature by way of consecration. The metonym for this elevation of his human rank is his marriage with his own kin.90 Since the kin group is symbolized by the genetrix, he is united with the first mother. The exchange of objects is testimony to this union: the cap-mother, ngunda, is bestowed upon him, and intimate parts of his body, such as hair and nails, are removed, and in the form of a bundle are added to the group's reliquary. By being consecrated, the leader assumes motherly responsibilities. He becomes the maternal uncle, since the mother's progeny, mbongo muntu, 'treasure constituted in people,'91 is placed in his custody. The progeny, in turn, are inseparable from the nsi, the place where the mother's offspring have been living and expanding, and which they populate. Hence the praise name of the Nzinga leader, which states that Nzinga has enveloped all the kin, or that Nzinga has encircled all the nsi, or, finally, that Nzinga, with his band mpondo, has encompassed the Kongo,92 meaning both the people and the nsi. Hence also the Mpangu maxim: 'It is the cap which makes the nsi live and endure.'93 Kongo traditions cite a number of legendary first mothers of the large descent groups or smaller branches. The Mbenza, for instance, speak of Mbuta, the fecund, whose nine daughters founded the first Kongo groups which dispersed subsequently from Kongo dia ntotela; the Bampangu call this first mother Mpemba Nzinga. The Balingi tell about the first mother Makaba, with nine breasts, who is believed to have given birth to nine Kongo princes or princesses.94 Among the first mothers, Ngunu, from ngu, 'mother,' is perhaps most explicitly related to a large and defined space. In the northern Kongoland, one hears about Ngunu rather frequently. Laman and Andersson introduced Ngunu into the literature as the name of one of the Kongo kingdoms.95 However, in the Niari and Ngounie basins it is a common female name, and the traditions explain Ngunu conclusively as the name of the ancestress, as Lethur also recorded in Loango in i960.96 Long recitations repeated by informants list a great number of peoples with common ancestry; for instance: 'Muhidi (Muvili) a Ngunu, Mukunyi a Ngunu, Masundi a Ngunu, Muteke a Ngunu...' The meaning of ngu, they say, is kifumbi kimosi, one single descent group. Vansina reported that, according to the Tio (Bateke), the meaning of the saying is that all of the named peoples are men.97 It is thus possible that the original message of the saying was forgotten by the Tio (Bateke) in the region of the Malebo Pool. The Bateke in the west, in the area of Komono, however, clearly explain the

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saying as a common ancestry.98 In that, they agree with their Kongo neighbours. Ngunu is used in this recitation interchangeably with nguna, ngunda, and ngundu. Kunyi and Dondo informants assured me that all four modalities of the word have the same meaning. Hagenbucher-Sacripanti enquired about the meaning of the Vili version of the saying, namely, 'Muteke nguna, Muvili nguna, kifumba kimosi.' He received the explanation that nguna refers to a place in the forest." This interpretation, for which there is no lexical support in the saying, prompts a conjecture that his informants, in fact, alluded to the Lusunsi shrine containing the cap/crown ngunda, and to the convergence of the Bavili and Bateke at the shrine. That would also explain why informants insist that ngunu, nguna, ngunda, and ngundu have the same meaning. Informants also define Ngunu geographically, explaining that the peoples of this common ancestry once inhabited a large territory of the plateau, Diangala, stretching from Mayombe eastward up to Mindouli (see map 4), or even farther up to the Djoue River. Ngunu, however, also incorporates Bavili and Bayombe west of the plateau. Moreover, it also includes peoples who do not claim to be Kongo dia ntotela, yet with whom the northern Bakongo have maintained close relations: the Bapunu, Banzabi, Bayaka, and Batsangui. They are all said to have come to their respective countries from Diangala. The claim of a common Ngunu as a token of the relationship is not made unilaterally only by the Bakongo, nor are these peoples linked together solely by the saying on Ngunu. The Teke contention on Ngunu has already been mentioned. What is more, the people who are now Bateke are included in pilgrimage stories of some of the northern and north-western Bakongo.100 Furthermore, the Bapunu are also incorporated in one large group of people with the Bakongo by the myth of the genesis of Kongo authority,101 and the Banzabi link themselves with the Bavili, Bapunu, Bateke, and Batsangui as one common group.102 Traditions of the northern Bakongo, agree that the period of occupation and settlement at Diangala preceded the origin of their ethnic names, such as Kunyi, or Kamba, or Teke. However, they do not provide further material for speculation on the dating of the 'Diangala period.' Designed to show the exodus from the Kongo dia ntotela as the onset of their history and the pilgrimage story as its next development, the myths consider the occupation of Diangala implicitly but inevitably as succeeding both these mythical events. d) Fire and Marriage 'In the lake created by nzambi one can take a bath only ashore. What is it? Fire,' says a Kongo riddle.103 The Bakongo, like some of their neighbours, ascribe

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divine origin to fire. They say that it was brought to the people from the god by lightning. Or else they narrate that the god or the god's mother once wept, and his or her tears changed into fire and fell to the ground. Or they also say that once, when there was a quarrel among the godly kin, the stars came loose and fell to the ground.104 The Bakongo do not think highly of the period when fire was not yet known to the people, nor of the people who allegedly do not know fire. They are associated with the lack of basic achievements of civilization. Also, such people are usually described as somehow physically deficient. Fire is said to have been brought in various ways, according to the Bakongo.105 The god taught them to forge iron and to use fire, says one tradition. Or the Badondo believe that a legendary man named Moanda was the first to discover how to light a fire. After his death, his body was reportedly carried from village to village before being buried at a place called Konde. The tradition of the Nkumba kin says that the first Nkumba made the first fire. The most elaborate narratives about the introduction of fire were recorded in Loango. They make up part of the myth about the son of the father Ne Kongo who came to Loango, carried by an elephant, and introduced authority there. Father Ne Kongo, so that myth goes, sent his many children to various countries. Wherever they arrived, rain fell and animals and fruits were abundant. At places where they rested, fire burnt, water welled forth, and the vegetation was green. From- Ne Kongo's son, who crossed the Tchiloango and came to Loango, a glow emanated causing the spot where he stood at night to be as bright as daylight. Several deductions can be drawn from the myths on the introduction of fire according to the Bakongo. They relate the knowledge and the use of fire to smithing. Yet another tradition even gives the blacksmith credit for making lightning.106 It is noteworthy that none of the legendary persons to whom various Kongo traditions attribute the enlightenment of inventing work in clay, whether male or female, are also mentioned as inventor or initiator of the use of fire. Oddly enough, the importance of fire is not raised in connection with the beginning of potting and clay working. Moreover, one infers that some Bakongo link the beginning of the use of fire with their own beginning, or rather with the onset of their functioning authority. Finally, the Dondo tradition about Moanda shows that the initial use of fire is viewed as a centrifugal process; Moanda's body is said to have been carried from village to village. Like the authority and various types of power, fire is believed to be diffused by derivation, and not started independently in several places. The inference can be supported by other behavioural rules honoured by the Bakongo. When it is decided that the village moves, fire is moved too,

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although now the moving of fire may exist only nominally. According to custom, and even today, one does not light a fire every time one needs it; the fire is transferred. At the end of the dry season, when large fires are made to burn dead vegetation and to hunt, they should not be started but transported in the form of, say, a smouldering piece of wood or plant. The men in the caravan of the German expedition in the 18705 still carried a piece of vegetal ash with some remaining sparks to make fire and light when they rested. Currently, the availability of flashlights and matches has suppressed this custom. Fire is a peculiar phenomenon. Since it is transportable, it can endure, theoretically, forever. However, unlike an object which embodies the matrix of a Kongo concept of endlessness from which power is communicated to objects of cognate shape and form, the source fire can be temporarily extinguished and again lighted. But, in contrast to the cyclic reappearance of rain, which is believed to be in the god's hands, the relighting of fire has been entrusted to people. Through godly endlessness and human control, fire is akin to authority and its human bearer. Upon the installation of Ma Loango, the tradition narrates,107 fire was ritually lighted in Buali, the place of Ma Loango's residence. Thence, fire was brought by state messengers to the leaders of the local government within the state. By accepting the fire, each of them is said to have acknowledged Ma Loango's authority. During Ma Loango's reign, the sacred fire was reportedly maintained in all Bunsi shrines in Loango, marked in the late nineteenth century by offerings in the form of piles of animal skulls and bones. Bunsi shrines in Loango are revered as places where Ne Kongo's son rested on his pilgrimage to Loango, and where the elephant blew through his trunk so that a fire was started. Pechuel-Loesche recorded that the name of this sacred state fire was ntufia, and speculated that it comes from tuvi — he writes ntufi — 'animal excrement,' and that it is reminiscent of the elephant who carried the future leader on his back. When Ma Loango died, the sacred fire was extinguished. Again by derivation, all the state fires were extinguished. In the Kongo kingdom of the seventeenth century, the perpetual sacred fire was maintained in the house of kitome, the leader's investor. The royal officeholder had to request it from there. By receiving the fire, the leader submitted to kitome.10* The extinguishing of fire doubtless expressed the finitude of the leader's life and reign. The return of fire to the people paralleled the renewal of authority. The transmission of fire from the state source fire is mentioned by Dapper as being practised in the state of Monomotapa,109 whose centre during the seventeenth century was in northern Shonaland in the Zambezi basin, in southeastern Central Africa. The existence of a sacred state fire was furthermore noted in the kingdom of BUganda, in the very north-eastern area of Bantu-

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speaking Africa. Roscoe records110 that the state fire burned during the king's reign and in his presence, at the entrance to the residence. The fire travelled with the king and was extinguished upon his death. It was believed to have been introduced by Kintu, the legendary father of the Ganda kings. Both the practices and the belief are strikingly close to those recorded by Pechuel-Loesche in the Loango state. During my observations of the smelting process in the Kongo mining area on the Louvisi in the region of Mfuati, the smelters' conduct, incantations, and other working habits made it clear that fire bears the meaning of a union of male and female sexes, and specifically of marriage.111 Unlike most phenomena considered by the Bakongo to be either female or male, fire stands for a coupled principle. In this sense, fire can be paralleled with the double bells; their two tones are explained by informants as a concordance of male and female sexes and their sound accompanies the authority bearer's life, becoming silent after his death. The apex of the biala includes the future leader's symbolic marriage, as was argued in the earlier section. The fire lit upon its conclusion burns to honour this union of the finite with the endless. The association of fire with male and female union is evident also in an ancient custom of lighting a fire. Two pieces of a special kind of wood were rubbed to produce smoke and sparks, and thus to start a new state fire, according to Pechuel-Loesche's record.112 This lighting is also said to have involved the intercourse of a young couple and eventually their burial. Furthermore, the custom explicitly associates custody of the family fire with Lemba marriage and with female privileges gained by such marriage. The Ngoyo code113 legislates that upon arrival at the marital residence, the woman who has been married according to the Lemba cult conducts a ceremony of seizing the fire, simba mbdzu. It gives her control over cooking for her husband, as well as the prerogative to maintain the fire. The female united with her husband under the Lemba cult acquired a new social status; she is called a married woman, nkama, in contrast to a wife-friend, nkento-ndiku.114 Lemba marriage is an extension of religion into marital life, and it is the consecrated marriage of a man and his favourite wife concluded upon the approval of the woman's kin, both dead and alive. Membership in the Lemba elite imposes upon the couple a number of restrictions in their social and marital behaviour. However, it gives the woman various inalienable rights. Control over fire is one of them. Whereas the maintenance of fire, in principle, has been referred to now as well as in the past115 as a woman's job, the state fires in Loango were reportedly guarded by the male priests-blacksmiths. These state blacksmiths - Reichsschmiede, as Pechuel-Loesche calls them - were the priests of the Bunsi cult. Custody of fire thus affiliates marriage and smithing. It does not appear inap-

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propriate, therefore, that customarily it was the blacksmith who was called upon to purify the marital house and bed after adultery or another marital offence was committed. It has already been mentioned that he accompanied this purification by striking two hammers, two specimens of nzundo. Lusunsi, who is said to be the colour of fire from a distance and whose shrine was a priestly smithy, is also a protector of marriage, together with Bunsi. Ngoyo tradition116 has it that it was Lusunsi who instituted the Lemba cult - the consecrated marital bond - and, as noted earlier, Lemba marriage was a component of the leader's biala. e) Sacredness and Regalia Discussions of religious ideas and processes surrounding the regalia and the shrine inevitably turn into social considerations. The god-creator is found impersonating an older brother and fulfilling the maternal uncle's duties. Lusunsi is discerned as guarantor of kinship relations and supervisor of marriage. Nsi is the mother 'homeland' which makes possible and commemorates various forms of life of the organized progeny. Even the seasons of the year's cycle and fire, two godly phenomena linked with the shrine, are translated into human and social equivalents. The mist that terminates the dry season and introduces periods of light and heavy rains is associated in social practice with the conclusion of marriage negotiations and the release of nubile brides. Fire is perceived as an element of dual sex, a union of female and male and fulfilled marriage. Kongo anthropomorphism is, however, not accompanied by a secularization of religion. On the contrary, it is the godly principles that interpenetrate individual and collective life. Under normal circumstances, interpenetration is such that the sacred and profane become almost inseparable. Works of art manifest this fusion even more overtly than social institutions. For instance, representation of the descent group in a work of art exposes its religious component, whereas the operation of the descent group, though permanently involving religious principles, reveals them only on critical occasions. However contradictory it may sound that the sacred content of a phenomenon is more evident in its representation that in its performance, it is very natural. For the work of art is made explicitly for that purpose. In either iconic or aniconic form, that is, with the help of a figural composition or patterns, the art object keeps reminding the people of the association with God. Sometimes it is also reflected in its material, and frequently in its visual methods. Genealogical sculptures have a clear political significance. Like the pedigrees of Roman emperors, they authenticate the leader and legitimize his prerogatives.

140 Crown and Ritual However, the authenticity of the Kongo leader's value and the appropriateness of marriages in his pedigree are a matter not only of his personal ambition, but also of the collective interest. They are believed to be tied to the well-being of the nsi, and the nsi is a piece of God which he has left with the people. The soundness of the reference which the art work makes to God corresponds then to this religious importance. Genealogical sculptures thus cite the creation of the first human couple to stress how directly and closely the subject concerns the realm of God. The collective interest in and purpose of the object make it more authoritative in the eyes of the Bakongo than one which is made to satisfy merely individual needs. On the chest, for instance, the same reference as that on a genealogical sculpture can be applied, but it is decreased in intensity. Two depicted godly pythons or a pattern for one of them, in each case with no further development of the motif of creation, is more typical for this kind of personal rather than communal object. At the same time, a reference to God is in place. The analysis has shown that a chest for riches is not an entirely secular object. Its final function as a personal reliquary and the utilization of the pieces of cloth (formerly kept in the chest) for enveloping the owner's dead body do require a reference to God. For God is believed to give and take a person's life. Instead of announcing that a person has died, in tonal language the drum says: 'Nzambi bokele,' 'God has called.'117 Among art objects, there is thus a religious hierarchy. The epitomizing regalia of the Lusunsi shrine rank highest in their relation to God. Most legitimately they were called 'sacred objects' by the elder Domingo dos Nsangu. Their reference to God is not communicated by an image or a motif. They are not even representational. They stand for what they are. Their sacredness involves their entire essence; it is conceptual, material, and visual. Like all things godly, the regalia share the ubiquitous Kongo anthropomorphism and balance both sexes. The cap and neckpiece are female both conceptually and visually. Their leopard iconography reinforces the notion of the mother embodied in them. The belt/ band is female in its purpose. Double bells communicate both sexes by two tones and double cones. Knives are male. In order to define analytically the sacred nature of objects, the concept of sacredness as such must be addressed. The adjective 'sacred' has been too easily used in connection with African art objects. As a result, it sometimes appears to be free of all content. What properties does the Kongo mind attribute to sacredness? One can best deduce them from Kongo ideas about God. The most prominent of God's qualities is his endlessness. He had a beginning and has persisted ever since. The genealogical myth and a number of beliefs were contrived to manifest this prop-

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erty. Another powerful characteristic of God is his oneness. He was born first, and his brother's and sister's birth is said to be relative to him as antecedent and source. His godly kin are the subordinate extension and enlargement of his operation. God is also the organizer. He is credited, for instance, with having established the year's cycle as well as the fundamental ethical laws.118 The genealogical myth condenses his organizing capacity into his activity as uterine uncle. Furthermore, God has space and time dimensions. In the genealogical myth, he is portrayed as enduring in time while moving in space. The beliefs see him as present always and everywhere. The name Kuiti Kuiti, known to the Bawoyo and some of their neighbours, is sometimes perceived by others as an onomatopoeia of a special drum with a voice that carries everywhere. Finally, God is creative. He is assumed to have created the world, and there are several descriptions of how, in one way or another, he created the people. His other qualities are transient rather than stable and permanent. God is, for instance, good, the Bakongo assure us. But he can do ill. Incorporeality is also his attribute, in principle. Yet he can become incarnate and is, after all, frequently represented as a python. God is believed to have no sex. Nevertheless, he is referred to mostly as a male and sometimes also as a female. How do the godly attributes project into phenomena? Rather simply, the Bakongo believe. For instance, rocks, together with the iron or copper which are extracted from them by humans, were created by Nzambi so that a piece of him is in them. From various forms of their behaviour, one can infer that the Bakongo do not see the distribution of the godly in the created world as being everywhere of identical intensity. They pay more attention and respect to some components of their surroundings and less to others. One concept is definitely dominant; it is that of the nsi. Indeed, stepping for a moment into their minds - if such a step from analytical into total and holistic is at all achievable — I venture to propose that the nsi encompasses for the Bakongo the wholeness of the world created by God, and includes, in addition, the Kongo contribution. In any case, the nsi is holy. It shares the most prominent properties with God. It will never end, they believe. There is only one nsi, since Ne Kongo was entrusted with it by God. It is organized. In its space time is manifested. A proverb says: 'Nsi is old, traces are recent.'119 And it is creative; when people conform to custom - yet another way in which the Bakongo express time - the nsi prospers; earth, streams, and sea yield their fruits abundantly. Three other concepts which are connected with each other and with the nsi are next in their relatedness to God. Among them, the mother is the first, as she is the origin and source, sina or kisina. It is not a particular mother, but rather motherness, kingudi. Moreover, the other notions - authority, kimfumu, and the

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descent group, kdnda - are related to the endlessness of nsi. A proverb says: 'Nsi does not perish, mountain kdnda is not finished.'120 Endlessness is an attribute of all three notions. Oneness is innate to both the mother and authority. The kin group is an ingenious piece of organization, and the authority acts as the organizing principle in both the society and the nsi. The nsi, in its turn, provides the spatial dimension to all three principles, which persist in time. And the mother is reproductive, creative by definition. Thus one can conclude that the notions which are critical because they underpin the regalia can be aptly characterized as divine, although they relate to the society and politics. It is important that the sacred authority is that of the 'older brother,' the chief, mfumu. In that, it is consistent with the iconic properties of the copper cap/crown analysed earlier. This authority is not absolute; nor does it apply to a state. It stems from the kin group and is controlled by it. Even Kuiti Kuiti is pictured by the myth as having listened to the advice of his younger brother, or as being punished by his upset wife. Control by others does not decrease the divine nature of the authority. Says the Kongo maxim: 'Konso kimfumu ku Nzambi Mpungu,' 'Every kimfumu comes from God the Creator.'121 While the authority is sacred, there is no evidence to date which confirms that the leader is divine. He is neither a living god nor an incarnate god. Like the Kongo founding hero Ne Kongo, the leader is a man, muntu. Kongo maxims122 specifically to characterize Ne Kongo as a muntu. A maxim states that he is man, muntu, who is free since he has a nsi. Or, that he is man, muntu, who came from God. A descendant of people created by God, like his kin, the leader differs from this kin by his, ideally, close relatedness to the mother. He is, temporarily, one with her. That also qualifies him to become invested by way of consecration, becoming Mabiala, the consecrated, who bears the authority. Although he is closely linked with or 'married' to two divine concepts, mother and authority, his life and bodily vigour are limited. He is thus replaced by the next leader, who, again, excels among other kin by his temporary oneness with the concepts. As far as his nature has been established through analysis of genealogical sculptures and comparison with the oral tradition, the Kongo leader does not exhibit godly attributes to the extent that would justify the title 'divine king.' He does not match the theoretical pattern of the divine king postulated in 1890 in The Golden Bough by J.G. Frazer. Although the manifestations of the African divine king are diverse, as highlighted in 1959 by Bulck,123 an examination of the Kongo leader reveals that manifestations of divinity in the Kongo case are tied to a figure other than the leader, or are shared by the leader and another figure. Ritual death, for instance, the theme of J.G. Frazer's Dying God (1912),

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is a critical attribute. It prevents the divine leader from becoming senile and circumvents his human mortality. In the Kongoland and in the period of kingship, ritual death of the priest, ntomansi - not the leader - is documented as having been practised. Cavazzi goes even further by saying that in the Kongo kingdom, kitome was considered a living god. Still in the 18705, Bastian noted that the kitome of Soyo was believed to be immortal.124 Furthermore, the practices connected with effecting rainfall have been shared, from the times of kingship until now, by the leader and the priest at both central and local government levels.125 The connection of the king's reign with permanent fire, also stipulated by several authors126 as the divine king's attribute, is of special significance in the context of the metal insignia. The already cited example of the Ganda leader, whom Irstam interpreted as a divine king par excellence, and another one in Darfur (1200-1700) analysed by Arkell, seem to correspond to the kingshipand-fire relationship in Loango. Yet, in the case of Loango kingship, fire appears to be associated with authority rather than with the king. State fires are said to have burned in the shrines of the bankisi ba nsi. Therefore, the Loango king was in contact with his state fire only during his biala, if he was at all. After his investiture, he had no access to the shrines of the deity of the nsi.121 On the local government level, perpetual fire was noted among the Bampangu.128 It burned in the house where the chief performed his sacerdotal services of ancestor veneration. Only the chief and the custodian of fire have access to this religious house. The fact that a range of people may be the custodian of perpetual fires in the Kongoland, whether in government or the family, points to a more conclusive pattern. The custodian has been the blacksmith, or the ntomansi, or the woman married under the aegis of the Lusunsi's Lemba cult. They shared this responsibility only with the virginal male - as seen in the Mpangu country in the twentieth century - or with the virginal female - as recorded in Soyo in the eighteenth century. It was also the virginal couple who were said to have lit a new perpetual fire. The cases of the priest of the Lusunsi shrine and Bunsi priests in Loango strongly indicate the existence of an ancient bond between the blacksmith and the ntomansi. Fire is thus the blacksmith's professional and religious realm. He either exercises the responsibility himself, or extends it to the female member of the elitist cult associated with blacksmiths. Only a sexually neutral person, a virginal male or female, can be a substitute. Divine attributes are thus found distributed among the leader's authority, the blacksmith, and the priest of the nsi. The blacksmith, by performing the responsibility of the Lusunsi priest in Ngoyo, may have had several of these attributes. However, at present and in the absence of further evidence, one has to leave open whether ritual death also applied to the Lusunsi priestly blacksmith, and

144 Crown and Ritual whether the part of the guarantor of rains was played, among the Lusunsi priesthood, by the same person who acted as the leader's investor-blacksmith. By contrast, the blacksmith's direct and primary association with fire and its permanence is well grounded. One godly property the blacksmith has in abundance. On that, the Bakongo of a representative number of regions agree. He is creative. He made the knife, which God did not create, say some. He made the drum, which God did not give the people, say others; and he carved figures in stone, bitumba ki ntadi, say informants in the Mboma chiefdoms. The blacksmith is the Kongo creative professional, the artist par excellence. Through godly inspiration, the blacksmith ranks high; in fact, the blacksmith and the priest, ngangula and nganga, are seen as alike in excellence, though they differ in kind in some of their performances and correspond in others. A Ngoyo proverb says that the blacksmith 'drinks the water' and then uses his force, meaning that he first thinks before working manually.129 In this context one more deduction can be proposed. The Kongo god is believed to work occasionally in clay, but, to my knowledge, he is never viewed as a blacksmith. It was the Kongo blacksmith, not the potter, who received fire from God. In other crafts and arts, the Bakongo see a chronological order in which their own ancestors proceeded from one stage to another. Most overtly, perhaps, they honour relative chronology in clothmaking. They distinguish the distant past - when their ancestors did not know how to weave and dressed in bark - from the past, when they already knew how to weave and made pieces of cloth. Yet they do not see themselves firing their pots in a past more remote than when fire was used for smithing. Nor do they admit a relationship between their ancestors and lithic tools found in their country, although their blacksmiths used some stone instruments until the past century. The Bakongo apparently date their ancestry from the start of the age of metal working. By picturing their god as an occasional ceramist, they presumably indicate that the pre-iron period was still the godly stage preceding the creation of the Mukongo. How else do the Lusunsi prototypes of the regalia adhere to the value scale of sacredness? All the copper pieces of regalia are skeuomorphic. In the prototype, copper was substituted for the perishable materials of the cap, neckpiece, band, and basket, to provide the epitome with relative permanence. The paradigms of the ephemeral objects were made to endure and to participate in godly endlessness. Do they also share God's oneness? Several factors indicate that they indeed do. It has been deduced in the previous chapter that the copper regalia were unparalleled among the objects in the inventory of the Kongo shrines, as far as this is known to date. Furthermore, it was established that the cults related to

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various aspects of the nsi referred to Bunsi, Lusunsi's speechmate in Ngoyo. Such religious manifestations were recorded mainly in the regions north of the Congo/Zaire River. South of the river, Ngoyo's convergence to Bunsi was noted in Soyo, and it can be traced in a fragmentary form also in Mbanza Kongo. A dance and song accompanying a healing procedure called ekinu were performed in the region of Sao Salvador in the i88os.'3° During the procedure conducted by the nganga lembe, the people sang: 'Chalk which gave me life on the Ngoyo road.' The original meaning of the song had already been forgotten when the record was made. It was, however, remembered that it was part of a ceremony introduced by a Ngoyo priest. The reference to chalk, luvemba, suggests that it was the Bunsi priest. It was he who supervised the store of white mineral pigment. Mainly, it indicates that the chant originally had some bearing on authority renewal. The issue of oneness of the copper regalia has, of course, weighty historical implications connected to the centripetal convergence on Ngoyo of authority renewal in the Kongoland. That was precisely what the Woyo elders claimed in 1973 when they first mentioned the existence of the cap, ngunda. In the following chapter the subject will be revisited. f) Mboma and Ngoyo Analysis of the myths has shown that the religious core of the Kongoland was situated in the region of Mboma. It was from there that the sacredness was derived in the form of white mineral pigment. The Ngoyo narratives portray Mboma as the cradleland of God and his kin, and as the region where their life unfolded. The traditions of some of the other Bakongo see there the place of their own original country. Still other traditions locate their kin group's segmentations there, as well as the nucleus from which the kin have spread in a fanlike shape northward and southward through the entire Kongoland.131 Whereas the deities Lusunsi and Bunsi are believed to supervise the constitution of the kin group and marriage, Mboma apparently supported and regulated such dynamic operations of the kin group as segmentation and movements in space. Mboma's socio-religious role in the ideology of the kinetic processes and its relation to shrines reflect Mboma's prestige as the epitome of the Kongo nsi, the space in which the bond of the Bakongo with the godly legacy originated. It is logical to presuppose the existence of a close interaction and sharing of religious responsibilities between Mboma and the Lusunsi and Bunsi shrines in the past. After all, the provenance from Mboma of the mineral pigment used in Ngoyo to initiate authority reactivation prompts such an assumption. Mboma

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and Ngoyo were clearly two ancient Kongo religious centres which were interrelated, and the postulation of Sao Salvador or Mbanza Kongo as the Kongo origin and core by the myth of Kongo dia ntotela is posterior. The results of Father de Munck's inquiry conducted in 1960 in the region of Sao Salvador132 sustain this relative chronology. All the Bakongo, except those in Ngoyo, claim to have come from Kongo dia ntotela. By contrast, all the inhabitants of the Sao Salvador region claim their origin either from the coast or from Nsanda Nzondo. One can propose that in their pilgrimage myths they referred to the derivation of either their group's authority or their group's legitimate segmentation and bond with the nsi. In the absence of further evidence, there are no grounds to speculate whether and where in Mboma a central sacred spot could have been - a shrine which could have served as the matrix for the concept of the sacred space. The northern bank of the area is scarcely populated now. However, the old groves and graveyards testify to a higher population density in the past, and could conceal a shrine of such importance. Nevertheless, considering the inferences drawn from the myth of godly genealogy and the myths about the crossing, it is more likely that the area of Mboma, and mainly that segment of the river, including both its banks, was such a large sacred place. The landscape and human interventions have combined to create a unique setting there. The rocks in the area were marked with petroglyphs and petrographs, or figures and signs were moulded and applied to the walls of the rocks. Captain Tuckey's expedition in 1816 noted such rocks along the river.133 Signs made on the rocks by men are alluded to in the myth about the One-Legged Man. On his way from his kin's country, before he crossed the river, the One-Legged Man is said to have left an imprint of his leg in the rock.134 The environmental marking and shaping of the core of the holy nsi starts upstream between Mateva Island and Boma. The pyramid-shaped granite obelisk on the north bank, called Ntadi Nzazi, Lightning Stone, has a counterpart on the south bank. It is Ntadi Nkisi, a stone of granite mixed with quartz and mica.135 Still an object of great veneration in the nineteenth century, Ntadi Nzazi continues to be revered by the Boma people of today. Only a few traces of the large village which once extended north and north-west of Ntadi Nzazi survive - mainly in the form of botanical evidence. Helped apparently by local traditions, Bastian'36 hypothesized that Mboma's name designates it as a 'country of horrors' because of the bloody wars fought around Ntadi Nzazi, which marked the boundary of Mayombe. The wars were reportedly led by the leaders of the coastal states who wanted to monopolize the trade of Mboma's important market. On some rocks of Ntadi Nkisi on the south bank numerous figurative and non-figu-

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rative reliefs were clearly visible in 1816. They were modelled in sand and ashes, according to the tradition noted by Lieutenant Hawkey, by a learned priest of Noki. Drawings Hawkey made of the reliefs show that most of them depicted subjects related to movements in space, and more than one-third dealt directly with travelling. People travel in hammocks, in a boat, or they walk. There are two elephants, the Kongo heraldic animal believed to have carried the authority bearer across the waters. Also there are crosses, a strong Kongo sign which stands for the spiritual power of the core or cross-section where the roads intersect, and whence they diverge in four different directions.137 The link of the core of the holy nsi to the coastal shrines of Lusunsi and Bunsi also relates to the territorial magnitude of Ngoyo and its changes in time, as well as the political status of the Mboma chiefdoms. The Ngoyo code specifies the borders of the Ngoyo kingdom. Ngoyo starts, says the code, at the frontier, chi nkakua, of Boma, and runs westward along the right bank of the Congo/Zaire River, Nkwangu Nzekele. There it turns northward along the coast until it reaches the mouth of the Lulondo River, and then, from this peak of the triangle, goes back to the original point at the frontier of Boma.138 In contrast, Pirenne in his history of Mbanza Inga,139 outlined Ngoyo as a large country, including the Mboma chiefdoms as far as Mbanza Inga in the Yelala cataract region. Since the middle of the seventeenth century, sources have referred to the Ngoyo kingdom as a small country. Dapper mentions its small territory; Merolla considers Ngoyo to be only nominally a kingdom, since it is small; and Proyart also speaks of the little kingdom of Ngoyo.140 The chiefdom of Mboma, in the late eighteenth century as well as in the early nineteenth century, depended on Mani Kongo;141 and Boma-a-Ngoyo, a large town in the Ngoyo kingdom, mentioned by the sources in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries,142 was not identical with Boma. From the sources one infers that it was located somewhere close to modern Banana. Still, the territorially large extension proposed by Pirenne, or, rather, the historical connection of Mboma and Ngoyo, can be further supported. Before the railroad to Matadi was finished and before the new caravan road to the Malebo Pool was opened on the left bank of the river, caravans used the old caravan road from the coast, on the right bank. It crossed the Mboma chiefdoms and went northward through Isangila. An old participant143 remembered that the caravans, made up of 'Cabindas,' had refused to pass the Lowa River, so that the Zanzibarites, the caravans' mercenaries, had to provide transportation themselves. Lowa is a little stream running north and south on the high plateau west of the region of the Yelala cataracts and north of Mbanza Vivi. The reaction of the Bawoyo was fully compatible with the customary behaviour of a Mukongo

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as soon as he arrives at the delimitation point of the nsi of his kin group, his chiefdom, or his state. Lowa was apparently the border of the nsi of the ancient priestly influence. The kingdom of Ngoyo, from the middle of the seventeenth century, had become a country with a small territory. Missions had no success there until the late nineteenth century, as one can read in missionary accounts such as Merolla's or Zucchelli's. The small size of the Ngoyo kingdom, its absolute lack of religious tolerance, and the hostility of its inhabitants to visiting missionaries gained for Ngoyo a rather poor reputation as a polity among outsiders. However, Ngoyo had and retained a strong reputation, not so much as an imperial power, but as a priestly country. This role was not noticed by seventeenthand eighteenth-century missionaries, although it was clearly the reason for their repeated failures there. A maxim which one records frequently in the northern Kongoland spells out the special position of Ngoyo in relation to the Kongo and Loango states: 'Makongo nuni, Maloango nkazi, Mangoyo ntomansi,' that is, 'Makongo is the husband, Maloango is the wife, Mangoyo is the priest of the nsi.' This role of Ngoyo remained unknown to outsiders visiting the kingdom of Ngoyo. Some outsiders did hear about it in the Kongo kingdom, however. During his travels to Sao Salvador in 1857 along the southern road through Ambriz, and before his exploration in the Kongo north-west, Bastian recorded information about the organized and prestigious priestly caste in Ngoyo and Loango.144 It is most likely also that Lopez, who stayed in Sao Salvador until 1583, was made aware of this priestly country within the Kongoland. Otherwise, there is no historical explanation for Pigafetta's conclusion that the people along the coast and 320 kilometres inland were called Bramas.145 'Bramas' is possibly Pigafetta's version of 'bramanes,' used by Joao de Barros in his widely read Decadas, published in Lisbon in 1552. In the first Decada, he often speaks about bramanes, the priestly caste in India. In the same Decada, in the sections on the Kongo, he does not use the term, nor does he speak about the priesthood. Lopez had read Barros's popular work, as I noted earlier in the discussion on the shrine, and could have adopted the term and applied it, by extension, to the Kongo priestly caste whose country, says Pigafetta, extended both along the coast and far inland.

5

Copper

This chapter is divided into five sections, each of which analyses the historical role of copper in the insignia and in the history of the Bakongo. The first section, 'Material Properties of the Insignia,' describes the condition of the insignia when they were discovered in the Mus6e de 1'Homme and discusses the scientific analyses of the copper used to make the insignia. The data are also placed within the broader context of copper objects elsewhere in Africa. The second section, 'Manufacture of the Insignia,' examines the techniques used to create the insignia. Comparisons are made with metalworking techniques used in West and Central Africa. The mineral resources of the Niari-Congo, mining methods and the division of labour in mining, and smelting processes are examined in the third section, 'Mining and Smelting.' The fourth section, 'Copper Production and Copperworking,' analyses the role of the Kongo mineral wealth in the history of European-Kongo political negotiations from the earliest contact up to the twentieth-century European exploitation of the mines. The final section, 'Exchange,' deals with trade in Kongoland, in particular of copper, iron, and lead. It also examines the role of the smith and explores possible trade links with West Africa. a) Material Properties of the Insignia Condition of the Insignia Of the set of insignia from Lusunsi, only the structure of the crown (Appendix la, no. i) and neckpiece (Appendix la, no. 2) are entirely preserved. Some of the attributes originally attached are missing; the losses are more appreciable on the neckpiece than on the crown. The basket lid (Appendix la, no. 3) is in poorer condition. Relatively small fragments from the basket (Appendix la,

150 Crown and Ritual nos. 5, 6) and the belt (Appendix la, no. 4) are preserved. Available art-historical evidence, however, most importantly the data collected in the study of material properties, encourages the inference that the unevenness in condition does not imply substantial differences in age of individual pieces. The fragmentary condition of the basket and belt can be more aptly explained by the vulnerability of the iron armature, over which were originally woven copper ribbons of the basket and coiled copper strips of the belt. Fragments show that the corrosion of the iron bars occurred more quickly than the oxidation of the copper parts, with the result that the structure of both objects loosened. The two fragments of the basket show that the object, before its fragmentation, was repaired. A copper strip was wound in an irregular way through the weaving ribbons and over the iron rim to slow down the loosening of the weaving. The repair did not, however, stop the effect of the corrosion of the iron rim which, finally, caused a deterioration and fragmentation of the basket. Corrosion of the iron bars also resulted in the dismemberment of the belt. The armature (over which were wound the strips of the crown), the neckpiece, and the lid are of copper. The thicker bars of the crown and neckpiece strengthened the objects, whereas the thinner bars and strips used for the manufacture of the lid, which was also coiled more loosely than the crown and the neckpiece, made the object more fragile. Differences also exist in the patina of the objects. The effects of museum storage since 1933 on the patination of the insignia are negligible. Other artifacts and art works brought to the museum decades earlier shared the same storage conditions. Their patination is not noticeable. The crown and the neckpiece show an evenly formed green corrosion on the surface. The circular bars covered by wound strips retain their original lustre and pale yellow-reddish colour. The intense green corrosion of the lid is more advanced and is evenly distributed on the bars and the coiling strips. The corrosion of the belt fragment's copper strips is comparable with that of the crown and the neckpiece. The difference in the patina of the lid is partly explained by the loose coiling, which exposes the bars to oxidation, unlike in the crown and the neckpiece. The bars of the crown and neckpiece are covered not only with thicker coiling but also with a layer of hardened red earth. The preserved lustre of the bars of both these objects indicates that the clay was introduced during their manufacture or soon after it. The occurrence of red earth, although more sporadic, on the fragment of the belt supports this contention. The layer of red earth, which apparently protects the copper of the crown, the neckpiece, and the belt, is absent on the lid. Instead, yellow dust has accumulated in its coils, presumably during use of the ritual object. One infers that the manufacture of the crown, the neckpiece, and the belt included the introduction of red earth, whereas the thinner coiling

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of the lid was not provided with such an investment. The condition of the copper insignia also indicates that the environment in which the objects were manufactured was different from the place where they were used. The red investment introduced in the process of manufacture points to the incidence of iron oxide in the environment, whereas the environment of the objects' use would have contained the yellow dust accumulated on most of the pieces. Even more important is the difference in the patina of the two fragments of the basket. One (Appendix la, no. 5) shows the evenly distributed corrosion on the copper elements and a crust of yellow dust in the stitches. The second fragment (Appendix la, no. 6) has no dust accumulated and displays a heavy green patina concentrated in a few clusters, whereas on most of the surfaces of the wide weaving strips the copper retains its reddish colour. The second fragment was likely covered by some sort of wrapper, which adhered only partially to the surface, and which loosened either in transport or as a result of diminished care. The difference in the patina of the two fragments suggests that considerable time has elapsed since the dismemberment of the basket. It also shows that the religious power of the epitomizing insignia outlasted the object, its form, the coherence of its shape, and its ability to perform its ostensible function. Although the dismembered basket long ago lost its usefulness as a container, its metallic fragments persisted, were cared for, and mainly, at least in the last few Ngoyo investiture rituals, fulfilled the religious role of an integral object. The completeness of the epitomizing emblem apparently was not a condition of its use, and its iconic existence was not indispensable. What was essential were the emblem's material properties. The Connotations of Copper andiron Copper and iron, the two metals of which the Lusunsi insignia and the investor's tools were made, are closely related to Kongo leadership. A religious value is vested in both of them. Both were materials used to make the leader's emblems, such as the iron double bells (Appendix la, no. 13) and the copper neckpiece. They also were manifested in the leadership in a metaphoric way. The leader's consecration connotes iron forging, and the leader's colour- red is the colour of copper. The western-minded dichotomy of utilitarian function and ornamental adornment used sometimes to contrast iron and copper does not appear relevant in African art. The two metals were not necessarily equally valued. European travellers in Africa often mention that in trading transactions copper had a higher value than iron.1 But neither of the two metals had an exclusive function, whether aesthetic or practical. Iron as well as copper fishhooks, spearheads, knives, pins, bracelets, necklaces, and chains were, for

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instance, part of the burial inventory in the tenth-century necropolis at Lake Kisale in Shaba.2 Other burials in south-eastern Central Africa yielded copper needles, staples, and a razor.3 The Bayeke, in the mining area of the Copperbelt, were observed to use a copper hammer to break the copper bloom and slag and to produce copper hoes and bullets.4 The combination of copper and iron in the manufacture of a single object, as was the case with the epitomizing basket and the belt, also occurs in many examples in the corpus of African artifacts spanning a period longer than the last millennium. The two metals were combined, for instance, in a number of objects from the burials of the classic Kisalian culture of the early tenth century, from the tomb of Cyirima Rujugira, king of Rwanda, deceased in the late seventeenth century,5 and in art works and artifacts collected in the Chokweland in the late nineteenth century.6 Kisalian burials also yielded close analogues of the Kongo epitomizing belt:7 a belt of an adult and another of a child combine elements of iron with elements of copper. Old burials of Rwanda and Shaba, moreover, contained objects of either copper or iron, to which were attached objects made of the other metal, such as an iron necklace with a copper ring from a burial at Katongo or a copper belt with attachments of iron from Sanga.8 The use of copper and iron in the Kongo status emblems and their connotation of leadership indicate that the two metals have two different symbolic values which are complementary rather than antithetical. Metallic copper is held to be synonymous with suffering and blood shed in childbirth.9 A proverb, for instance, hinting at torments of the human heart says: 'Mbundu kimbuta nsongo.' The human heart (suffers from) pains of childbirth.'10 The synonymity of copper and suffering is clearly based on the experience with copper smelting which involves a laborious and risky operation and produces liquefied metal. Copper was also always spoken of by my informants as female in gender. Iron, however, connoted male properties such as toughness and strength. Having in mind the higher vulnerability of iron compared with copper - vulnerability so evident in the Lusunsi insignia - I am led to believe that the symbolism of iron developed from the experience with smelting rather than from the use of iron. If, in the course of the operation, the slag is not tapped, solid iron bloom and slag are not entirely separated upon the removal from the furnace, and the metal then has to be beaten out of it by force. Thus, the greater durability of copper, which is seen as female, and the lesser durability, of iron, which is believed to be male in nature, are also compatible with Kongo ideology. Permanence in society is represented by women, not men, as descent is through the female line. Nsongo is a designation commonly applied in the Kongoland to metallic copper. Other denominations such as mongo, recorded by Laman, and utari wa

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nkobre, noted by the seventeenth-century Capuchin dictionary of Kikongo,11 were not confirmed by my inquiries. Mongo translates as 'mountain,' associated usually with sites where metallic ores are found. Nkobre is an alteration of the Portuguese cobre and, in dealings with Europeans, utari [stone] wa nkobre may have denoted the copper ore, that is, the stone from which copper was extracted rather than the metal. In the Kongo context, the most frequently occurring copper ore, green malachite, is in my record called nginu, but in the south Bentley noted also ngwento.12 Significantly, nginu designates both the mineral, which is the carbonate of copper found in the oxidized stratum of the ore deposit, and the patina formed on metallic copper by the chemical action of oxidation. The denomination of iron is variable; it is called ntddi, tddi, or tari,13 and the variations in the use of the terms do not seem to follow any particular regional or professional pattern. For instance, the blacksmith in Mindouli, in the western part of the metalliferous area, used tari for 'iron,' tddi for 'stone,' and ntddi for 'cave,' whereas smelters as close as sixty kilometres east spoke of tddi as 'iron,' ntddi as 'stone,' and ntari as 'cave.' Informants in both cases were careful to stress the differences. Often sengwa is used with the exclusive meaning 'iron.' It is possible that it designates a special kind of iron since tddi and sengwa are sometimes used in discussions together in an additive form.14 The entirely mineralized iron armature in the preserved fragments of the Lusunsi basket and the belt made any technical study impossible. Also, two fragments of what was likely an ingot (Appendix la, nos. 15, 16) show a complete mineralization. The two iron hammers (Appendix la, nos 10, n) and the iron ring (Appendix la, no. 14) brought from the Lusunsi shrine, however, have only a corroded surface. Microscopic study has identified the material of a sample removed from the ring as a low-carbon iron. The content of a carbon-14 analysis was too low to make dating by the isotrace facilities possible (see Appendix III). Technical Analyses of the Insignia This section should be read in conjunction with the scientific analyses in Appendix HI. The insignia are described in detail in Appendix la and are listed in Appendix Ib (A-K). The material properties of the copper used for the Lusunsi insignia and these objects' mode of manufacture were studied in several laboratories in Paris and Toronto (see Appendix III). Elemental analyses of copper were carried out upon application of two different methods by the Laboratoire de Recherche des

154 Crown and Ritual Musees de France (spectrometry) and by the laboratory at the University of Toronto (neutron activation) with the goal of finding out the kind of copper and to determine whether it was native or smelted - that is, to determine whether the material used indicates uniformity or diversity by determining its chemical composition. The analysis of the isotopic composition of the lead content in the insignia copper, done by R.M. Farquhar in the laboratory of the Department of Physics, University of Toronto, was carried out in an effort to specify the provenance of the insignia material. The study of isotopic ratios was accompanied by yet another chemical analysis of examined samples. However, based on the elemental analyses, it was impossible to determine the provenance. Microstructural study, undertaken by U.M. Franklin and the laboratory of the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Science, University of Toronto, was pursued in order to clarify the processes employed in the preparation of the raw material in, for example, the strip, the ribbon, or the rod, and of elements such as extensions in the form of leopard claws. X-ray study of the crown, the neckpiece, and the lid, done by the Laboratoire de recherche des musees de France, was to assist in the reconstruction of the manufacture of the objects. The reconstruction, the processes and results of which are examined in section b ('Manufacture of the Insignia,' page 166), was undertaken to ascertain the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of the working process, the proficiency in the use of the tools, and the conditions necessary for the process. Technical Analyses of a Comparative Set of Objects The objects forming the comparative set consist of neckpieces, armlets, bracelets, anklets, necklaces, and pipes which are listed in Appendix Ib (nos. 1-53) and discussed in Appendix III. To be able to evaluate further the data obtained in elemental analyses and metallographic study of the insignia copper, it was necessary to juxtapose the results with the corresponding data from plausibly related subjects. I therefore assembled a comparative set of fifty-six15 art objects and artifacts from museums in Paris, Berlin, and Toronto, and from my own collection (Appendix Ib). Most of them are emblems of social or political prestige. The objects of the set were collected mostly north of the Congo/Zaire River, either in the Kongoland or in the adjacent regions. Chemical analyses of the comparative set were then undertaken by J. Fran9aix in the Laboratoire de Recherche des Musees de France (spectrometry, see Appendix III), J. Riederer in the Rathgen Forschungslabor (atomic absorption, see Appendix III), and at the University of

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Toronto laboratory (neutron activation). Of this comparative set, only a minority of the objects proved to be of reasonably pure copper (19 per cent) (Appendix Ib, nos. 1-3). The majority are of brass with variable zinc content and significant traces of lead. No bronze was found in the set. Technical Analyses of Ingots and Currencies This group of objects consists of twelve ingots and currencies which are listed in Appendix Ib (nos. 54-65). Five of them are discussed in Appendix HI. In addition to this comparative set, I assembled a group consisting of three types of ingots of copper, brass, and lead (Appendix Ib). My field inquiry has verified that in the Kongoland all these types of ingots are used to this day, on specific occasions, as standard objects of exchange, and that they either originated in the mining district in the Niari-Congo watershed or came from the regions encircling the mines. Four items of this group were excavated earlier in this century and are in the Ethnographic Museum in Goteborg. They were analysed by N.G. Vannenberg in Chalmers School at Goteborg University.16 In the years 1975-8, I collected the rest of the pieces of currency in the field. They were chemically analysed by two different methods in the laboratories at the University of Toronto. Their microstructure was studied by U.M. Franklin. Moreover, pieces of currency and, where appropriate, a selection of objects from the comparative set were included in the study of isotopic composition carried out by R.M. Farquhar. Technical Analyses of Ores and Metals The five samples composing this final group are listed in Appendix Ib (nos. 66jo) and analysed in Appendix III. Finally, samples of ores of the known metalliferous deposits of the Kongoland had to be assembled to make possible a definition of the lead isotopic characteristics of the Kongo ancient workings (Appendix Ib). While in 1974-5 assembling a collection of ore samples in Bembe proved not to be feasible, in 1978 I was able to collect samples of ores in the Niari-Congo mining district: galena in Mindouli, cerussite in Mfuati, and copper oxide in Boko Songo, together with slag from the lead-smelting operation which I witnessed in the lodge at the upper Loutete River in the Mfuati region. Isotopic ratios of these samples studied by Farquhar thereby represent the mining district in its entire length.

156 Crown and Ritual Results of the Analyses Insignia Elemental analyses have shown that the epitomizing insignia were made of reasonably pure copper (Appendix III). Silver creates the most significant impurity. Its content, however, varies throughout the analysed samples and is associated with variable traces of arsenic. Technical studies have shown that arsenic introduced into copper either by smelting arsenic-containing ores or by co-smelting copper and arsenic minerals was significant in the composition of early European and Asian artifacts predating the introduction of bronze.17 Experimental evidence revealed that arsenical copper excels in hardness and tensile strength, properties important in the manufacture by hammering. Even though the highest level of arsenic traced in the insignia copper is much lower than 2.16 per cent, which is the usual arsenic content in the early European or Asian arsenical coppers, the incidence of the element presumably contributed to its hardness. Elevated arsenic contents in some of the samples, pointing to differences in mineralization of the ores used, seemed in the first set of analyses to correspond to two different times of intervention in the Lusunsi insignia. Copper with richer arsenic was found mainly in the samples of a strip used in the repair of the basket, whereas the strip used in the original manufacture of the basket had lower arsenic impurities (Appendix III, Fran9aix). But later analyses of further samples from the insignia pointed to a somewhat elevated arsenic also in the copper used in the manufacture of the crown (Appendix III, Farquhar). The dating implications of the changing arsenic content were thereby dismissed, and instead the issue was raised of the insignia manufacturers' access to a supply of the material. Elemental analyses also made it clear that all analysed samples of copper used for the epitomizing insignia had a consistently low content of iron. The traces in all samples were also weak, likely a characteristic of the mineralization of the used copper resources. Copper Currencies and a Closed Ring with a High Level of Purity With their high degree of purity and available trace elements, the two pieces of copper currency (Appendix Ib, nos. 54, 55) correspond well to the copper of the insignia. One of the pieces of currency also contains copper with an important arsenic content. The copper currency consists of small bars with tapered ends, called milambula by the informants. Among the other objects of the comparative set, only a plain closed ring (Appendix Ib, no. 2) is comparable with the Lusunsi insignia in the purity of its copper.18 In the distribution of trace elements, two objects correspond with the arsenic-rich samples of the insignia: a chiefs solid neckpiece (Appendix Ib, no. i) collected in the region of Boko and

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identical in form with necklaces worn usually by the Kongo moukes figures, and a fragment of the cylindrical bar, which is a piece of currency (Appendix Ib,no. 59).I9 Comparative Set of Copper Objects Eight leaded copper armlets of the comparative set create a distinct cluster (Appendix Ib, nos. 4-11). They have a high arsenic content comparable to that of the arsenic-rich samples of the insignia copper, and their iron traces are even lower. Characteristic for the cluster is a significantly high content of lead, indicating that it was intentionally introduced into the copper.20 Five of these leadrich objects are plain armlets, two objects are Lemba armlets with figural and floral reliefs, and one is an open ring with twisted ends. Six of these eight rings were collected in the Kongoland, two of them in the Teke country. One of the Lemba armlets was collected in the 18708, the other one and the plain armlets in the late nineteenth century.21 All the analysed artifacts of leaded copper were cast. The Lemba armlets especially, with their relief intricacies, indicate that the elevated lead content was meant to increase the fluidity of the copper and ensure that the liquid metal would enter all the voids of the mould. Comparative Set of Lead Objects Lead is the metal associated with an ancient tradition and a widespread symbolism in the Kongoland. In the past, some artifacts, such as small pipes, were cast entirely of lead (Appendix Ib, nos. 51, 52). Lead smelting from cerussite was still going on in 1978, and lead was traded to be made into bullets. Dondo smelters call the liquid metallic lead mayela (pi.). Spheric and hemispheric lead ingots are also denoted yela (sing.). Cerussite, the most frequently smelted lead ore, is called nsungi. Another denomination for lead I recorded in the NiariCongo mining area is nkumbula.22 It is likely a designation resulting from the modern use of lead to make bullets.23 Like copper, lead is considered female in gender and yela connotes pain.24 Comparative Set of Brass Objects The majority of the analysed artifacts of the comparative set proved to be of brass with highly variable zinc content and with significantly high lead. Neither bronze nor any other alloy of tin was found. As with the pure copper, marginal traces of tin appear to be typical for the brass. Lack of tin in the Kongo material concurs with the lexical evidence. No authentic word in Kikongo designates tin. Estano, tagna, lata are borrowings from the Portuguese.25 The only Kongo designation, kinzu,26 noted by Bentley in the Sao Salvador region, confirms that tin was imported and elucidates the form in which it was brought. Kinzu is a large

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pot with a wide opening used for bathing babies. It follows that kinzu noted in Sao Salvador most likely designated imported tin basins and bowls similar in shape to the customary clay pot kinzu. In 1514, they are already mentioned by Afonso among the gifts which he had received from the Portuguese commissioner at St Thome.27 There is no denomination for bronze, the copper-and-tin alloy, either. The seventeenth-century dictionary recorded a borrowing from the Portuguese, and what Bentley noted as a name for bronze may translate as 'copper with iron and another metal.'28 Considering the zinc content, the brass of the analysed artifacts clusters in three groups. First, there are three objects with low zinc content ranging from 3.3 per cent to 7.7 per cent (Appendix Ib, nos. 12-14). Analysed bracelets made of the alloy of this group were collected in Loango and in the region of the Ndasa, a Kota people, in Mossendjo and Komono. The second group, of medium-zinc brass, includes a bracelet found in Kunyi hands in Mossendjo and a piece of brass currency (Appendix Ib, nos. 15, 58).29They contain 17.2 and 13.6 per cent of zinc, respectively. This U-shaped brass currency is called lengela, and I collected the sample piece in the country of the Balari, in the eastern Kongoland. The third group consists of thirty-five objects forming the majority of the analysed brass, with the zinc content ranging from 20.1 to 34.89 per cent (Appendix Ib, nos. 1650). The artifacts of the zinc-rich group include armlets from the north-western Kongoland and from the northern adjacent regions such as Mossendjo and Komono, and a neckpiece and five rings made in the late nineteenth century by the blacksmith of the makoko. In order not to diverge from the main issues which deal with copper rather than alloys based on copper, there will be no further discussion of brass in this book. A later section of this chapter discusses exploited deposits of the Kongoland and smelting practices. Some of its inferences suggest caution in taking for granted the commonly accepted opinion that the source of brass of the Central African artifacts is solely the alloy imported from Europe. Rather, I prefer to leave the issue of brass in Central African art open at this point, until some evidence is produced to corroborate or disprove the contention that Europe was the exclusive supplier of brass. In Kikongo, brass is called ntaku and, by extension, it may also denote a brass ingot or a brass ring.30 Technical Interpretation of Trace Elements Returning to copper, the comparison of the elemental composition of analysed samples has shown a reasonably high purity of the insignia copper and pointed to its correspondence to the copper of milambula ingots. Variability in the distribution of silver and arsenic traces suggests that the metal for the insignia and the milambula currency was extracted from ores containing various minerals.

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Analysed samples of the copper objects of the comparative set point to a reasonably coherent homogeneity existing in the distribution of most trace elements in the copper of the insignia, mildmbula currency and compared copper artifacts. However, close analogues to the high purity of copper and its elevated traces of silver in the insignia and mildmbula currency were not found in the comparative set of copper objects. But a number of correspondences to the copper with elevated arsenic was found. The distribution of the trace elements in the copper is also indicative of some commonalities in smelting. The low level of iron found in the copper of the insignia, in the relatively pure copper of the compared artifacts, in the leaded copper, and in the low-zinc brasses makes the base metal distinct from the copper alloyed in the medium- and high-zinc brass of the artifacts of the comparative set. In the low-iron copper, the traces of iron are as small as 0.07 per cent and less, with two exceptions, namely, one sample from the Lusunsi crown (o. 17 per cent) and another from a low-zinc brass bracelet (o. 19 per cent). In the copper of the medium- and high-zinc brass, the iron content rises, ranging from o. 12 to 0.45 per cent. Iron is introduced in metallic copper in smelting. A study of European Bronze Age and Iron Age copper proposed that early copper, typically containing low iron, was smelted from rich ores by a simple process which involved lower temperatures and in which no slag was formed.31 Later, more complex processes smelted lesser ores in which iron occurred or to which iron mineral was added as flux. Iron lead in the insignia copper and other low-iron metals of the artifacts of the comparative set correspond to the European early copper of the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze age. Because the evidence on smelting procedures and the remains of old slag in the Kongoland are limited, it would be tenuous at this point to suppose that all analysed Kongo low-iron copper was smelted by a non-slagging process; in leaded-copper-smelting operations, for instance, slag was abundantly formed. But what the analytical data show rather convincingly, in my opinion, is, first, the absence of iron mineral added to the smelt and absence of a rich iron compound associated with the smelted copper ore. Second, they corroborate the differences in the smelting processes of copper, leaded copper, and low-zinc brass, on the one hand, and of copper in the medium-and high-zinc brass, on the other. With regard to the extraction process, another inference to be drawn from the analytical data concerns the lead content. Its elevated level in the group identified as leaded copper is strongly indicative of an intentional introduction during smelting. This deduction is in agreement with the observations of the smelting of crushed malachite with metallic lead noted in the late nineteenth century by several European visitors in the Niari-Congo mining area.

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Comparison with Other African Data Ogooue Basin The specificity of the Kongo copper and its alloys can be verified in juxtaposition with the data known from other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Most useful and most appropriate would be a juxtaposition of the insignia copper and copper-based alloys with the chemical properties of the copper used in metallic artifacts from the Ogooue basin. Field inquiries and the study of the comparative set encouraged me to search for relations in metalworking between the northern Kongoland and its adjacent areas. The incidence of high-zinc brass in the artifacts found on both sides of the Ogooue is likely a result of trade in the imported alloy, but the parallel occurrence of low-zinc brass appears more important and calls for a closer consideration. Also, as discussed earlier, frequent references by the Diangala plains informants to close social contacts mainly with the various Teke groups living in the northern regions of Sibiti, Zanaga, and Komono provide a strong impetus for an exploration of historical links between the two areas of ancient metalworking. To date, the results of comparison are inconclusive because of the unevenness of our knowledge about the ancient metallurgy of the northern Kongoland and its adjacent regions, particularly with respect to the archaeological evidence and the analytical study of the used metals. In the basins of the Upper Ogooue and Ngounie, in recent years, ironworking sites were found which belong to the oldest in sub-Saharan Africa. Sites of ancient exploitation of iron ore and smelting activities, mainly in the region of Franceville, produced carbon-14 dates distributed over the five centuries preceding the beginning of our era. Archaeological evidence from some of the sites also yielded later dates and corroborated the continuity of ironworking activities until the sixteenth century.32 By contrast, archaeological evidence in Kongo metallurgy is still almost non-existent. In the technical study of artifacts the relationship of the two areas is reversed. None of the copper of the Ogooue basin artifacts has been analysed, to my knowledge. The recently analysed brass has notable traces of silver, arsenic, and iron, but, regrettably, the two elements critical for a comparison - zinc and lead - were not measured as they were beyond the level of calibration. As a result, a juxtaposition with brass of the Kongo comparative set is not feasible.33 Central African Copperbell The second most important areas of comparison for the Kongo copper are the resource districts of South-east Central Africa. According to the archaeological evidence, copper was exploited in the Copperbelt as early as the fifth century.34

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Dated ancient artifacts of copper are abundant, but to my knowledge only a few samples from this large number of cupreous objects, likely from the Copperbelt and found mostly in archaeological sites in various places of South-east Central Africa and South Africa, have been chemically analysed. Three analysed objects from the Sanga necropolis were two bracelets and a cruciform ingot, a typical piece of currency of the Copperbelt.35 Dates of their deposition are the tenth and thirteenth century, respectively.36 The copper corresponds with the insignia copper in its purity, but the traces of silver which it contains are weaker. Silver impurities occur also in the copper of two analysed cruciform ingots from archaeological sites in modern Zambia, such as the Ingombe Ilede burial dated to A.D. I4OO.37 The iron content in the analysed artifacts of the Copperbelt is low, as it is in the Kongo copper.38 Apart from the copper, analysed metallic objects of South-east Central Africa also include artifacts of tin bronze and of copper containing tin traces.39 One can thus observe that, while the Shaba copper bears some characteristics - namely those pointing to the mineralization of resources and to the smelting process - which are comparable with the Kongo copper, the south-eastern metalliferous area appears distinct from the north-western Kongo area by the presence of tin and alloys of tin. The precondition of a cogent juxtaposition of the two major Central African districts of copper-bearing ores is, however, comprehensive analytical research to be effected on a larger number of artifacts of the Shaba region. West Africa - Western Sahel Systematic study of the metal art of West Africa is more broadly developed than it is for Central Africa.40 The study of copper objects advanced in the 19708 and 19808, activated mainly by the series of surprisingly early carbon-14 dates which situated the exploitation of copper at the sites of the Sahel, stretching east and west adjacent to the Sahara, to a time span between 2000 B.C. and A.D. I5O0.41 The new dates - most significantly, the duration of copperworking in sub-Saharan Africa - extended and deepened the time frame, thereby cutting down the gross time gap which previously appeared to separate the history of art in the Nile valley and in black Africa. The earliest known copperworking in Nubia dates to 2800 B.C. The finds documenting the earliest copperworking in sub-Saharan Africa in about 2000 B.C. are not associated with coeval artifacts.42 The evidence of operations of this historical phase was excavated at Agadez in modern Niger. The operations were based on native copper-smelting technology.43 Small quantities of native copper are found to this day on the site. For the later phase, the copper production of the first millennium B.C. was

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noted both in the east in the Agadez region and in the west in Akjoujt in modern Mauretania. In this instance, archaeological evidence involved the manufacture of copper objects as well as the production of metallic copper.44 Excavated artifacts and art works include rings, earrings, bracelets, and other accessories of jewellery, as well as tools, weapons, plaques, and ingots. Western Sahel Copper and Alloys - Comparison of Trace Elements The copper worked in Akjoujt differs from the copper found in the Agadez region - where it is available in lumps in furnaces or in the artifacts - by its low traces of iron.45 Both the Akjoujt and Agadez coppers are relatively pure, like the insignia copper, and have traces of tin, but they differ by their lower traces of silver (0.008 to 0.08 per cent for the Agadez region and 0.005 to °-10 Per cent for Akjoujt) and much higher arsenic (0.15 to 2.5 per cent for the Agadez region and o.io to 2 per cent for Akjoujt).46 Sahel material of the first millennium includes brasses with elevated lead traced in the objects of both the Akjoujt and Agadez districts. The Agadez region yielded bronzes and mixed alloys with high ingredients of copper, lead, tin, or zinc.47 A large number of cupreous artifacts unearthed in the last decade by the archaeology of western Sahel are dated to the end of the first millennium and the beginning of the second millennium A.D. Some of the sites, such as the city of Tegdaoust in modern Mauretania, an important trading centre related to the ancient empire of Ghana, gave evidence of local manufacture of metal objects.48 Analytical studies of found artifacts and art works led the archaeologist to speculate that local workshops, active mainly until the middle of the eleventh century, were supplied with copper from the mines in western Sahel and not imported from Maghreb. Some of the mines where ancient workings are documented belonged to Ghana. Copper worked in Tegdaoust is high in arsenic and iron content and low in nickel. The material includes low-zinc brasses with a significant and fluctuating lead content (up to 20 per cent).49 The high lead content in the alloys corresponds with the material of artifacts found in Koumbi Saleh, another important site of western Sahel.50 Among the various alloys found in Koumbi Saleh are bronzes with a high lead content, but also leaded copper with as much as 19.3 to 28.5 per cent lead. This lead content is significantly higher than that of the Kongo leaded copper and of the brasses of North-west Central Africa. Kongo leaded copper is also weaker in the content of arsenic.51 Silver occurs in the mixed alloys of the Koumbi Saleh material of the end of the first millennium A.D. not only as a trace element, but in a large quantity reaching 27 per cent. In the Kongo material, neither a comparably high level of silver nor an artifact made of silver was found. If the relationship of the copperworking and cupreous objects' manufacture

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in Tegdaoust and other related centres with the copper mines in western Sahel can be supported by further evidence, there still will remain important queries, such as the origin of other metals or ores found in the alloys. For the time being, the workshops of Tegdaoust's metalsrniths are hypothetically held to be places where copper was alloyed with lead.52 Leaded copper may also, however, have been produced in smelting. West Africa - Eastern Sahel The current state of knowledge of the next stage in the history of metallurgy in eastern Sahel in and around the district of Agadez is different from that for western Sahel. Excavations at the site of Azelik, identified with Takedda, the city described by Ibn Battuta as a booming copperworking centre upon his visit in 1350,53 yielded evidence supporting the incidence of an integral metallurgic process from the resource to the metal objects' manufacture. Earlier, Azelik was the subject of a professional dispute, being considered a centre of copper metallurgy on one view and an important salt-producing place on the other.54 Modern archaeology has shown that native copper was exploited in Azelik and that it was locally liquefied and worked.55 Likely due to the lack of fuel, its economy turned by A.D. 1500 to salt production, so that when Leo Africanus stayed in Agadez in 1515-23, the economic thrust of Takedda was already changed. The history of employment and production of copper in the region of Agadez closed about A.D. 1500 with the native copper technology, with which it had started about 2000 B.C. But its final phase is also documented by locally made artifacts. Native copper from which these artifacts were manufactured is of greater purity and differs also in chemical composition from the insignia copper, which was produced by smelting metallic copper from the ore. The incidence of copper-based alloys worked in the artifacts and art works in the important metalworking centres east and west of the Lower Niger from the ninth or tenth century onward poses considerable problems in the interpretation of the sources of the base metal as well as the alloys employed. Analytical studies of archaeological finds of Sahel coppers have demonstrated that mixed alloys, whether copper-based or not, were worked and produced in the first millennium B.C. and the first millennium A.D. and have therefore a long tradition in sub-Saharan Africa, although this tradition may not have been continuous. Earlier studies tended to seek outside the African continent for the origin of metallic metals - apart from copper - of the Igbo Ukwu, Ife, Benin, and Lower Niger sculpture, and saw bronze and brass of various compositions brought through the trans-Saharan trade in the alloyed state.56 More recent reassessment searched in sub-Saharan Africa for the source of coppers and alloys worked in

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the Igbo Ukwu art works, but the material of all the later art remains linked with the history of European metallurgy.57 West Africa - Igbo Ukwu Because it includes a sizeable number of objects made of copper, the Igbo Ukwu corpus is of importance for issues related to the insignia copper. According to the analytical study, the Igbo Ukwu copper material falls into several clusters, such as copper, arsenical copper, leaded copper, and tinned and leaded copper.58 The copper consists in part of copper of lesser purity and higher tin traces than the insignia copper, but the level of silver traces and the low iron level are comparable in the two coppers. Three samples of arsenical copper show the arsenic content exceeding 1.39 per cent, a notably higher level than in the insignia and other Kongo copper. Four samples of leaded copper, however, compare well with eight analysed objects of the Kongo comparative set by the distribution of traces of iron, tin, arsenic, and silver. The elevated lead content also corresponds, ranging from 1.05 to 4.3 per cent in the Kongo leaded copper and from 2. i to 3.4 per cent in the Igbo Ukwu material.59 Among the analysed Igbo Ukwu leaded-copper items, the bar with extended ends found in the pit at Igbo Jonah prompts a morphological comparison with the Kongo mildmbula copper bars.60 The Igbo Jonah bar is one of two found in the same place. Both the Kongo and the Igbo Jonah bars are oval in centre cross-section, flattened towards both ends, and rectangular in sections at the ends. The flattened portions of each mildmbula bar are slightly and unevenly twisted, each in the opposite direction, like the Igbo Jonah bars. The mildmbula bars and the Igbo Jonah bars vary in size, the former ranging from 14.5 to 22 centimetres, based upon those which I was able to examine, and the latter measuring 20. i and 18.3 centimetres. Both the mildmbula and the Igbo Jonah bars are also of varying weights. The two collected bars with tapered ends (Appendix Ib, nos. 54, 55) weigh 20.3 and 21.7 grams respectively; the weights of the Igbo Jonah bars are 106 and 78 grams and their heaviness is accounted for by the higher specific weight of lead which they contain. The shaping of the ends of the mildmbula and the Igbo Jonah bars is the only notable difference in form between the Kongo copper and Igbo Jonah leaded-copper ingots. This morphological dissimilarity may be a visual outcome of the differences in the bars' chemical composition. Further research would be needed to prove whether the correspondence in form of the mildmbula and the Igbo Jonah bars reflects their common origin. However, considered together with the comparable elemental composition of the Kongo and Igbo Ukwu leaded coppers, the cognate form of the ingots indicates a connection between the resource of Kongo copper and part of the Igbo Ukwu metallic material. The assumption of a common source

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for the Igbo Ukwu metals and alloys also needs to be proved.6' The metalsmiths who made the Igbo metal art works may have been supplied from several sources, possibly including the local ones.62 Early African cultures worked a variety of copper smelted in Africa, apart from native copper used in several periods. All these early coppers are relatively pure, like the insignia copper. However, they are distinct from each other, differing not so much in iron traces, but rather in the lead and silver and arsenic components. The insignia copper is not sufficiently similar to any of the known coppers to allow one to speculate about a common source. The closest comparison is to the Igbo Ukwu copper. Summary of Comparisons with Other Copper and Copper-Alloy Objects In summarizing comparisons with other ancient copper objects of West and Central Africa, one concludes that the purity of the insignia copper is not unique among the coppers smelted and worked in the past in sub-Saharan Africa. In its elemental composition, however, the insignia material is exceptional in the sub-Saharan context. It remains best comparable with the copper worked into objects collected in the Kongoland and adjacent regions and corresponds most closely to the mildmbula ingots. Important analogues to the Kongo leaded copper were found, however. Authorities earlier assumed that none of the black African cultures produced true bronzes, that all incidence of brass in black Africa was due to importations, and that lead and zinc were never or only rarely mined and worked in sub-Saharan Africa.63 Many of these assumptions still persist. Yet Sahel material involves a large array of alloys, including bronze and brass, and the incidence of lead spans more than two millennia. Intentionally introduced lead occurs in brasses and bronzes of the first millennium B.C., and leaded copper was worked into objects and was available in ingots in the ninth through the mid-eleventh century A.D. The incidence of leaded copper was proved analytically also in the Kongo material, where it has provided an alternative to pure copper since at least the seventeenth century. It is evident that the Kongo leaded copper is neither unprecedented nor unique in the sub-Saharan context. Chemical and morphological correspondences between the Kongo and Igbo Ukwu material, moreover, attest to more than a parallel incidence. They suggest some historical connections between the two cultures. Further research would show whether the correspondences reflect a common root for the two distant - and quite dissimilar - metallurgic traditions, or a common source for the leaded artifacts. The incidence of brass in the Sahel since the first millennium B.C. has been substantiated. And the medium-zinc content determined analytically in some of

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the brass objects from the Kongoland and other regions of North-west Central Africa is comparable with analytical results from the Sahel. The 'Kongo' lowzinc brasses are more rare. By contrast, analogues to brasses with a rich content of zinc are compatible with some of the Benin and other West African brasses. These analogues suggest that the 'Kongo' brass is unexceptional in its variable content of zinc but do not reveal the origin of the brass, as this study does not pursue the issue of the provenance of brass in North-west Central Africa. The incidence of brass in the Sahel artifacts of the first millennium B.C. and A.D. has shown that conclusions about importation as a sole source of African brass were too hasty. Leaving the issue of the provenance open, as it remains to date, one notes that the occurrence of brass is not unparalleled among African metallic materials and that it was used by only some metalworking traditions in subSaharan Africa. The Kongoland is one of them. By contrast, bronze and other alloys of tin, which have an equally long tradition in sub-Saharan metal art work, were not found in the analysed artifacts of North-west Central Africa. This absence of bronze also appears characteristic for the Kongo technological area. b) Manufacture of the Insignia General Description of Elements and Methods The copper and copper-and-iron insignia from the Lusunsi shrine were created by winding, weaving, bending, and binding. Building elements were strips, bars, wide strips or ribbons, and plaques. Sheets and sheeting do not occur. Microstructural studies have established that all the elements used were hammered, and the material was annealed in the course of working. No parts were cast, nor was the copper used otherwise than in a liquefied state. The X-ray photographs and the replication experiments revealed that the artist was highly skilled in the technical processes used. The properties of the material were, however, exploited only partially. The treatment of the copper is rather reminiscent of wrought iron. The basket was woven with copper ribbons attached to a rim made of two iron rings. The two fragments (Appendix la, nos. 5, 6) easily allow a reconstruction of the process, using only the naked eye. Irregularities of edges and consistent unevenness in the length of ribbons indicate that they were not cut out from larger sheets, but were hammered out of uneven pieces of raw material. Long ribbons made up of smaller pieces of uneven length, ranging from 2 to 10 centimetres, were bonded together to provide a strip of sufficient length for weaving. Spots where the individual pieces were connected do not show any evidence of a solder. Having been woven, the ribbons of the basket were con-

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solidated by rings made of the thin strip. The ends of the weaving strips were attached to the iron ring which likely formed the upper rim of the basket wall, or, in a slightly different fashion, to two iron bars forming, presumably, the circumference of the basket bottom. It is evident from the present condition of the fragments that the well-organized over-one-under-one weaving pattern was disturbed by another strip, thicker than the consolidating strip, which was introduced into the weaving to stop the loosening of the horizontal weaving ribbons. That is the repair. The wall of the copper basket may have been reinforced by some inside structure, in the same manner as the Kongo twill-woven cylindrical baskets, of which good examples are known from the seventeenth and the late nineteenth century.64 The copper basket was likely woven over a basket of plant material, in the same way in which baskets of plant material are manufactured to this day. Doing so would have made the cylindrical shaping easier, and the vertical ribbons could have been temporarily attached before the first horizontal ones were introduced. X-ray radiograph has shown that the foundation of the lid was made of concentric circles and that the larger outer circles were made of more than one bar. The bars' ends overlap and are bound together by strips wound around them. Mechanical damage to the lid has occurred mainly in the areas of overlapping bars. Broken coils observed on the most peripheral bar suggest that originally the disc had a larger diameter. The intricate method of winding of the lid has no parallel in Kongo basketry, as far as I was able to study it in the field and in museums.65 Lids of the round type of the Kongo reliquary baskets also are commonly coiled on a foundation of circular bars, but their coiling method corresponds more to the winding of the copper crown or neckpiece. The circular lids of cylindrical twill-coiled Kongo baskets are either woven or twill-woven, and thus are not reminiscent of the Lusunsi shrine's copper lid. A different method of winding from that found on the lid is used on the crown, neckpiece, and belt. A thicker iron rod and wider copper strip make the stitches on the belt look different from those on the other elements. The Kongo reliquary baskets of plant material were made in this same coiling technique. The winding process proceeded from left to right, showing that the maker of the copper insignia was right-handed. Kongo artists and craftsmen, both male and female, whom I was able to observe at work, were right-handed, which also complies with oral and lexical evidence. 'Right' is called 'male' (bakald) and connotes physical strength. It is interpreted as ngolo nsdla, the leading hand, which implies physical effort. 'Left,' called 'female' (nkento), is also referred to as lusatusu, the helping and watching hand.66 The right hand does the physical work, the left one makes the work possible. The gender differentiation of right and left, collectively shared by the Bakongo, finds expression in most of

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their behaviour and conveys a division of labour and a complementary cooperation of both hands, both sides, and both sexes. 'Pre-eminence of the right hand,' to use Robert Hertz's idiom, and an implied superiority of the male factor, to recall inferences by Hertz's followers interpreting the lexicology of several Bantu languages,67 is not a viable theorem in the Kongo context. The right and left hands are named by the Bakongo as cooperating and interdependent. The complex operation of coiling a brittle copper strip required skill and physical strength and presupposed two active hands, and possibly also the cooperation of the feet. Replication Experiments Replication experiments (ill. 3) of the crown revealed that the copper dome cannot have been wound over a solid-shaped matrix.68 A large amount of room is needed inside the dome to accommodate two hands, so that using even a flexible basket as a support would have interfered with the working process. In the process of construction, the dome likely rested on a simple, vertical, wooden support. The artist could have held it steady with both feet, leaving both hands free for the winding. As with other round objects, such as a pot, a basket, or a netted crown, the work on the copper crown's dome proceeded from the point of the smallest to the largest diameter. The first upper bar, where the artist started winding, is wider (0.4 centimetre) than the other forty bars of the armature. This strengthening also made the aperture more capable of stabilizing the heavy ivory tusk which was possibly inserted into the crown. The X-ray radiographs disclosed that the bars are open circles with overlapping ends. The artist had considerable flexibility in shaping the object. Yet he could not proceed by tightening and loosening the metallic coiling, as the size of the coil was, to a high degree, limited by the properties of the material. He increased and modelled the dome's volume by inserting additional stitches. X-ray radiographs of the crown and neckpiece as well as visual examination of the fragment of the belt have shown tails of individual strips. In the fragment of the belt, the tails are longest, likely because of the difficulty of handling the wider strip. The tails of the crown and the neckpiece range in length from 3 to 10 centimetres, and one finds a higher frequency of tails, indicating repeated breakages of the strip, on the neckpiece. It suggests that the neckpiece, which was easier to shape, was made prior to the crown, enabling the artist to experiment with annealing the coiling strip. Tails add to the weight of the object, and represent an increase of invested labour in the preparation of the winding material. In the replication, the average length of strip for winding was 60 centimetres. During coiling, the strip was repeatedly low-annealed to make it workable.

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Strips of 120 centimetres and longer were tried, but they broke off after some few windings, so that decreasing the number of tails and trying to lessen the invested labour by lengthening the coiling strip proved not to be workable. The ideal of securing two tails of each strip under the winding is far from typical. As a result of progressive hardening, the strip frequently broke off during winding, so that ending tails are often missing. That also explains a large number of short loose ends extending from the neckpiece and the wall of the crown. Replication experiments have also shown that the manufacture of the wound copper insignia included an appreciable amount of 'wasted' work invested in the preparation of the pieces of winding strips which broke and were too short to be reused. Although the wall of the replicated winding was identical in depth with the Lusunsi crown, the replica acted as a transparent piece of sculpture. By contrast, the Lusunsi crown has a compact wall separating the cavity from the outer space; the exterior of its dome bears the whole semantic message of the piece, whereas the inside cavity is visually meaningless. The wall of the ancient crown is also about 50 per cent thinner than the wall of the replica, and the twists of the stitches are far more obvious and flatter, although it proved technically impossible to make the wrapping tighter. Discrepancies in visual properties make it clear that after its coiling was finished, the wall of the Lusunsi crown was beaten, presumably with a large wooden hammer. The work likely proceeded in the annealed state. At this stage, a thick layer of clay was introduced into the wall, providing a certain protection against breakage of stitches during the treatment and also distributing the heat.69 As a result of the pressure produced by hammering, the coiling took on its present two-dimensional appearance, the clay-filled wall acquired its solidity and compactness, and the earth hardened so that it was well-preserved. The increase in the object's weight caused by the earth was - like the strengthening of the upper aperture - welcome, as the crown was able to carry a heavy elephant tusk extending from its aperture. The same visual effects can be observed on the neckpiece. Analogically, Kongo reliquary baskets coiled in plant material have a different texture on that part of the coiling which is compressed by the adhering lid and on the other parts of the basket walls. Method of Making the Elements (Strips, Bars, and Plagues) Used in the Insignia Metallographic study made it clear that the winding strip for all the items of the Lusunsi insignia was hammered in an annealed state.70 The angular crosssection of the winding strip conforms to this technology. Because of the thinness of the wrapping strip (o. i centimetre) and its length, evident in the X-ray

170 Crown and Ritual radiographs, a high level of skill in handling it and experience in annealing it were required. Study of the microstructure of the bars of the lid and the plaques used for the ribbons of the basket shows that they also were hammered. In order not to interfere with the objects' condition, samples were not removed from the bars of the crown and neckpiece armature, and, as a result, metallographic examination to determine the method of their manufacture was not possible. However, one of the semicircles representing leopard claws and attached to the crown wall had become loose and could therefore be studied. Its microstructure also gives evidence of hammering. A lump of copper was hammered into a small plaque, which was bent several times to create the desired form and then hammered into a semicircle. Evidence that a plaque was subjected to bending can be seen through a magnifying glass on the other preserved claws. Cut-out motifs representing leopard teeth and attached to the wall of the crown were also examined in situ on the object. They were made of plaques or sheets, as were the weaving strips of the basket with which they were identical in thickness (o.i. centimetre), but they appear to be much longer, and also wider. The uneven edges of the openings in the motifs' crest corroborate that they were extended by hammering. The hollow shapes representing leopard molars were made of two plaques with flared edges joined by a welded seam, in which evidence of a solder was not found. These hollow shapes were presumably hammered over a wooden matrix and vary slightly in shape, indicating that the artist or artists used various matrices. To create the lateral pointed extensions representing the premolars, the two plaques were hammered together. The two strips between each cut-out motif and between the ends of each set of motifs of the band were bent twice, so that the extremities and intervals of each unit are made of eight layers of the plaques. The layers were hammered together. The cut-out motifs, each of them incorporating a leopard molar and two premolars and some also with two prominent incisors, vary in shape and in number within a unit. Their variation does not follow any particular pattern. The lengths of the units, too, are uneven. Before being attached to the dome, the units were slightly curved to adhere to the wall of the crown. Curving and circumference were not accurately coordinated, so that the ends of the units or even their cutout motifs overlap in some cases. The units were attached to the wall of the crown by a copper binder, creating a continuous band. The ends of the binder are usually twisted to create bosses. The binder also ties the claws together, affixing them to the wall of the crown and neckpiece by multiple windings; as well, in some intervals between the claws, the binder creates extra loops to finish the strip. The direction of the work with the binder goes from left to right, which again reflects the artist's right-handedness. The same type of binder attached some ephemeral attributes

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to the crown and neckpiece. These attributes have not been preserved, and the binder now extends from the wall of both objects. Like the winding strip, the binder is angular in cross-section, but double its thickness. It was also produced by hammering. In all its functions, it was used in large quantities. A similar attitude to the material is revealed by all the Lusunsi copper insignia. The processes used would have created substantial scrap metal and consumed a considerable amount of material, indicating that conserving copper and other raw materials, such as the strip or binder, was not a concern. The method of attaching and joining parts also required the use of more than the bare minimum of material. The method of manufacture of the copper insignia thus clearly indicates that their makers had access to a steady and abundant supply of copper. Tools Few instruments left their traces on the surface of the copper insignia. Most tool marks were found on the leopard claws. They suggest an instrument, possibly a hammer, that was used to tap the annealed surface. Its traces are also on the winding strip although there they are less frequent. On the units of the bands are small traces (0.2 centimetre by 0.2 centimetre) presumably left by tongs, which held the hot bent plaques. No tooling is visible on the weaving strips although the microstructure bears evidence of heavy local deformations. The instrument apparently struck the metal over an investment, possibly of clay. Analogically, the Sala Mpasu, Luba-Hemba, and Yira blacksmiths used clay investment in welding together pieces of iron without using solder.71 Little is known about the Kongo blacksmith's tool kit. A small or female and a large or male hammer together with a mallet were recorded in the early twentieth century,72 and older sources mention a large hammer of stone or iron which was used interchangeably as an anvil. A large stone anvil was still in use in the early twentieth century in the vicinity of the Niari-Congo mining district.73 An exemplar of the hammer/anvil is also in the museum in Tervuren.74 Tongs (ndma) were presumably a traditional tool. Tongs are part of the Kongo metaphoric language, being referred to on various occasions and in a proverb.75 Their depictions in reliefs on Woyo pot lids show that the tongs varied in their form. Their modern substitute was made of a gun barrel and was reported in the early twentieth century.76 It is hard to say whether the sharp cutting instrument used mainly on the bands attached to the crown was a knife or the wedge-shaped end of a hammer serving the purpose of a burin. The knife, called mbele lukombo, belonged to the blacksmith's tool kit, according to one of my informants.77 It was also observed in the early twentieth century that the blacksmiths in Mayombe used a knife and

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sand for polishing the Lemba armlets.78 The knife in general (mbele) is considered synonymous with the Kongo blacksmiths' product. The use of a knife for cutting red-hot iron is reported with the Mongo smiths and in Rwanda,79 and a burin also belongs to the tool kit of most Central African blacksmiths. The epitomizing insignia show minimal tool marks, because the technique evidently involved processes which disguised traces of the tools. This inconspicuousness of instruments in the art work conforms to the secrecy surrounding the Kongo blacksmiths' tools. The concealment is not an expression of disrespect for the tools. Their incorporation in the Lusunsi shrine inventory, on the contrary, manifests the high respect the blacksmiths' tools enjoyed. The same respect is shown in the practice of passing on the tools to a younger follower, symbolizing the continuity of the blacksmith's workshop. In cases where the tools were not passed on to the successor, they became part of the blacksmith's grave goods, or 'the authority leaves with the dead,' as Malanda Banda, a former assistant to his older brother, the blacksmith, put it in our discussions in 1975. Techniques Used to Create and Assemble the Objects The epitomizing insignia include large hollow objects such as the crown and the basket. The belt and most likely the lid were flat, but demonstrated threedimensionality through the texture of the coiling. To make these copper and copper-and-iron art works, the artist employed diverse processes. Additive methods of metallic coiling and interlacing were used together with subtractive processes of cutting and bending. The attributes were made and composed as separate elements, as were the crown dome and the circular band of the neckpiece, and were subsequently assembled with the basic units and made to match them. Additive, subtractive, and assembling processes were combined uninhibitedly and inventively, despite the fact that each of the methods imposes upon the artist different requirements with respect to the orientation in three dimensions, the properties of the material, and the shape and size of the object. The necessary technology was at hand, not needing to be sought. The material of the epitomizing insignia, copper, was critical for the objects because of its symbolic value. But none of the employed techniques used all the material properties of copper. Consistently, copper used in the manufacture of the Lusunsi insignia was in a solid state. The objects bear no evidence of liquid metal; there is no casting or soldering. Copper was struck, beaten, and tapped to be shaped and joined by mechanical pressure or attached by binders. Heat was used, but only to make copper more malleable so that it could be extended in length or width, joined or folded.

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The maker showed no reluctance to borrow working methods used to create non-metallic works. The miniature leopard molars of the cut-out motifs of the crown share the same technology with Kongo single and double iron bells. Bending and hammering multiple layers of metal together is, moreover, reminiscent of lamination used sometimes in Africa to produce iron knives and hammers.80 The way in which copper was worked into the epitomizing insignia copper is reminiscent of ironworking methods. And iron technology is associated with methods allied to work with rope and to basketry. Comparison with Objects Made of Plant Fibres Neither the technical parallel with iron nor the borrowings of working methods used with plant materials, however, make the insignia pseudomorphic. The paradigmatic copper crown, the neckpiece, and the belt do not mimic coiled emblems. It was shown earlier that, normally, the crown worn by a leader was knotted or netted of fibres, his belt was woven, and his neckpiece was made in various ways, but not using basketry techniques. The epitomizing basket was woven, as are many Kongo baskets. But reliquary baskets made of plant material are normally coiled, not woven. Also, pseudomorphs are usually explained in art history by the inability of their makers to work in a more demanding medium. By contrast, however, the Lusunsi insignia are made in a difficult medium, in which the use of methods borrowed from the working of plant materials was technically a demanding task. The artist's skill was evidently at such a high level that the know-how was not a concern. The use of copper, the choice of which was guided by ideology rather than necessity, extended the life of the otherwise materially perishable insignia, enabling them to reflect more aptly the endlessness of the godly authority. The use of copper also enhanced the ability of the insignia to express the authority's awe-inspiring qualities, which plant materials do not convey. Comparison with the Technique for Making Copper Ingots Their microstructure revealed that the copper mildmbula ingots were also made by annealed hammering. The process is even stated in the Kongo name for these ingots. Mildmbula, in my interpretation, comes from lambula, which means 'to stretch,' 'to elongate,' or 'to extend.'81 The insignia material studied and the mildmbula ingots are indeed identical in their microstructure, a fact which, together with the identical elemental composition of their copper material, corroborates a close historical interrelation between the ingots and the insignia. Either this type of ingot served as the raw material for the epitomizing

174 Crown and Ritual insignia, or the insignia and the mildmbula bars were made by metalworkers of an identical metallurgic tradition who had access to the same copper resources. Taking into account the average weight of the mildmbula ingot, we can further infer that some 280 bars with tapered ends would be needed to produce the crown of the Lusunsi shrine, given that the crown represents, by a conservative estimate, some six kilograms of copper, supplemented with five kilograms of clay hammered into its wall. Such a quantity of bars does not strike one as unrealistic even today. In my counting of the contents of his treasury, from 1964 to 1971 the prophet Malanda in Nkankata, in the Lari country, collected about the same number of mildmbula bars - as distinct from other forms of payment - in return for pharmaceutical and spiritual services. Comparison with Techniques Used to Make Objects in the Comparative Set In order to maintain their material integrity, other objects of the Kongo and Teke comparative sets were not sampled for metallographic study. Tool marks on the surface of the leader's solid copper neckpiece collected in Boko indicates smithing and hammering (Appendix Ib, no. i). Its manufacture likely involved rough casting and subsequent shaping by hammering. Teke neckpieces made of high-zinc brass in the late nineteenth century by the makoko's blacksmith were also cast and then worked by chasing.82 Similarly, the Yeke blacksmiths in Shaba and the Kutu blacksmiths in the Mongo rain forest region combined casting with hammering in their manufacture of copper and brass objects.83 In the comparative set, all objects whose material was analytically identified as leaded copper were cast. The plain armlets (Appendix Ib, nos. 4, 5, 6) were likely cast in an open mould, a simple casting method used commonly in the Niari-Congo mining district. The mould for the armlets was of porous stone.84 Until the end of the nineteenth century, ingots of leaded copper were cast in a sand mould, as lead ingots were into the late 19705. Leaded-copper ingots are small cylindrical bars, while lead ingots have a globular form. The shape was impressed into wet sand packed down in a large vessel. The Soyo blacksmiths also used sepia bone as an open mould into which they carved the negative form of the object.85 A more elaborate method of casting was employed to make Lemba armlets of leaded copper (Appendix Ib, nos. 10, n). On the Lemba rings' outer side are displayed reliefs. Their casting in the open form would have posed problems. Models of Lemba armlets were, therefore, carved of a light porous wood Ricinodendron heudelotii, which is also commonly used by the Kongo carvers to manufacture lighter portable objects such as specific types of masks. The model was enveloped by an investment of clay. The clay or mud of the mould contained

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pieces of grass and other minor vegetal ingredients. These impurities enabled the mould to absorb gases during the casting process. Together, the investment and the model were heated until the wood pulverized. Liquefied leaded copper was then introduced to replace the wooden model.86 This method can thus be called the 'lost-wood process.' It was practised by metalsmiths of some Kongo regions, such as southern Mayombe, until the twentieth century.87 The artifact, made either in an open mould or by the lost-wood process, is a full cast, which determines its size; both methods are suitable only for smaller objects.88 There were, in essence, two modes of manufacture among the chemically analysed examples of copper objects from the Kongo and Teke country. The pure - or relatively pure - copper was worked in a solid state, being fashioned into ingots and art works by annealed hammering. Leaded copper, by contrast, was melted and shaped in a liquefied state by casting. Copper with a rich content of lead was well suited for casting, as lead lowered the melting point of the alloy and made it more fluid. Corresponding to the cast leaded-copper artifacts are ingots of the same alloy cast in the past in the Congo-Niari mining district. Comparison with Igbo Ukwu Copperworking Techniques The use of processes based on copper in a solid state in the Lusunsi epitomizing insignia is especially noteworthy as these art objects are large and display threedimensional values. Analogous African art works and artifacts manufactured by annealed hammering are neither the size of the Lusunsi crown and neckpiece nor are they three-dimensionally developed. From the known material, the closest parallels and analogues to the insignia, with respect to mode of manufacture, can be found in the Igbo Ukwu objects, among which those made of copper with a content of the base element of over 97 per cent were likely manufactured by hammering.89 Among the twenty-nine Igbo Ukwu objects most are of relatively pure copper, some of arsenical copper and some of leaded copper, so that annealed hammering, well-suited to copper and even more so to hardened arsenical copper, was also used by the artists who made these artifacts with softer and more malleable leaded copper.90 This method was used for both art objects and raw material. In the elemental analysis, one of the bars with expanded ends excavated at Igbo Jonah showed an elevated lead content (2.1 per cent) with copper exceeding 97 per cent.9' Both bars are most likely ingots. They correspond to the Kongo mildmbula bars with tapered ends both in dimensions and in the mode of manufacture by hammering. The closest correspondence between the Lusunsi insignia and the Igbo Ukwu objects is found in the employment of the hammered strip. It was used mainly for the handles and surface decorations of Igbo Ukwu calabashes.92 The way in

176 Crown and Ritual which the strip is looped and twisted into bosses is akin to the way in which the bands with cut-out motifs and the leopard claws are attached to the Lusunsi crown. The braiding of the strip on the rims of the Lusunsi crown and neckpiece is related to the twisting of several strips together in the Igbo Ukwu objects. A hammered strip was employed in the Kongo insignia and in the Igbo Ukwu objects in the same way that rope is used in netting and attaching. In the bronze roped pot found in Igbo Isaiah,93 the hammered strip was translated into casting. The most demanding and most frequently used method of manufacture in the Lusunsi insignia - the coiling of the strip - is not present in the Igbo Ukwu objects; the closest analogues are the knotted wristlets and the bars of copper and leaded copper.94 Igbo Ukwu hammered-copper works,95 principally the items of the leader's panoply from Igbo Richard, are planar. They are decorated by cutting and perforation, like a piece of leather, or bear linear incisions and resemble a piece of embroidered fabric. The leader's headband from Igbo Richard has leopard iconography, as does the Lusunsi crown.96 But the prominent leopard incisors and premolars on the Igbo Richard headband are shown as planar cut-out and perforated motifs, differing from the three-dimensional attributes projecting from the dome of the Lusunsi crown, which, in addition, is double the size of the Igbo Richard headband. Kongo cast leaded-copper objects have a counterpart in the Igbo Ukwu bronzes. The lost-wax method, a more complex process than the Kongo lostwood technique, is also more effective. The hollow cast significantly reduces the weight of the metal employed, and allows a larger-sized object and a fully rounded shape. The Igbo Ukwu practice of the lost-wax method is not unique to sub-Saharan Africa at the turn of the first and second millennium A.D. Between the end of the eighth and the middle of the eleventh century A.D., it was employed by the metalsmiths of western Sahel, in Tegdaoust.97 The mastery of the lost-wax technique evident in the art objects from the Igbo Ukwu sites also indicates that those who made them belonged to a wider and presumably older tradition. The Igbo Ukwu works, however, do not exploit all the possibilities of the technique. Most of the objects are small and are not developed as fully rounded sculptures.98 Finally, the simplest mode of casting employed by the Kongo metalworkers, that is, the open mould, has a number of analogues in West African metallic art; casting into a mould carved in the sepia bone was also practised, for instance, by the Asante." Implications of the Size of the Objects Size is a critical issue in metallic sculpture. Concerns involve not only the

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amount of labour and manpower involved, or the weight of the artifact and the quantity of metal needed to make it, but also the level of artistic skill required. These demands increase with the increase in size. The artist also has to be familiar with a large variety of techniques and ways of using them in combination to join the separately produced parts. The earliest copper objects in the inventory of sub-Saharan artifacts are rather small. Pieces of strip of the first millennium B.C., excavated in 1973-5 m Azelik in central Sahel, are oval or round in section and were supposedly produced by hammering.100 They match the rectangular forged strip worked in the Lusunsi insignia in diameter (1-2 millimetres), but are shorter, not exceeding a few centimetres. The longest of the strips used later in the Igbo Ukwu art works was 25 centimetres.101 The length of the coiling strip of the Lusunsi crown is more than double that, averaging about 60 centimetres, based on both the X-ray radiograph and the replication experiments. Other Azelik artifacts, such as hammered bars and plaques, including a folded one, also offer points of comparison with the basic elements from which the artist built the Lusunsi insignia, but, again, are smaller, with the bars not exceeding 4 centimetres and the plaques not larger than 2.5 by 1.3 centimetres.102 Their size was likely a consequence of the size of the ingots. The role of the bars and plaques in the process used to make the objects remains to be clarified, as do the technical procedures that helped the artist cope with their smallness. Treatment of Raw Material for Use in Making Objects Ingots The ingots or primary material, from which the Azelik artifacts were presumably hammered out, were small globules of melted native copper.103 Thus, metal was first shaped in a liquefied state and then processed in a solid state into semi-finished products. In that, the processes employed in the Kongo copperworking differ from that used for the earliest sub-Saharan copper artifacts known to date; Kongo pure copper was shaped into hammered ingots and into hammered artifacts, while leaded copper was in all stages worked in a liquefied state, that is, cast into ingots and into artifacts. In the later periods of the central and western Sahel copperworking, ingots were also cast. Found ingots of copper and copper-based alloys were not, to my knowledge, microstructurally studied, but written and material evidence corroborates their casting. For instance, the Arab trader of the fourteenth century, Ibn Battiita, reports on the casting of copper ingots in Takedda, in central Sahel. Also, moulds for casting barlike ingots were excavated in Tegdaoust, in western Sahel.104 Evidence corroborating a tradition of the casting of ingots in the Sahel copperworking areas should

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be kept in mind, as authorities frequently seek the sources of both Igbo Ukwu copper and copper-based alloys in Sahel.105 The provenance of Sahel for the large ingot of relatively pure copper (99. i per cent) - a bar with extended ends excavated in the leader's burial site at Igbo Richard - was supported also by a contention regarding the ingot's weight. It weighs 1.204 kilograms, which appears to comply with the Arab weight standards used in the North African trade.106 However, the two Igbo Jonah ingots already mentioned as well as another from Igbo Richard were, in Shaw's inference, made by hammering. A convincing link between the Igbo Richard ingot, as well as the two others from Igbo Jonah, and the Sahel resources or some other ancient copper workings located perhaps even closer to the Igbo Ukwu sites has to be corroborated by evidence that hammered copper and leaded-copper ingots were produced in or around the mines, as was the case in the Kongoland. Copper ingots distributed through Central and South Africa from the Copperbelt and South African resources have the form of various types of cross, as well as a few other shapes.107 Clay moulds for casting cross-shaped ingots are known from the fourteenth century A.D. onwards in the Copperbelt, and the casting of ingots in shapes other than a cross was observed in Shaba as late as the early twentieth century.108 From cast ingots, the Yeke blacksmiths then hammered copper implements such as hoes,109 so that the progression from cast ingots to hammered artifacts noted in the twentieth century followed the same pattern as the early copper technology in central Sahel. Drawn Wire The wire drawing of the Copperbelt is unique and unprecedented in the known history of sub-Saharan copperworking. To produce wire, early-twentiethcentury Yeke metalworkers of Shaba used an iron draw-plate which was attached to a tall post and through which they pulled the annealed ingot, which had been hammered into an extended rod.110 By contrast with the hammered strip which occurs among the early Sahel copper products, which played such an important part in the manufacture of the Lusunsi insignia and which was also employed in the Igbo Ukwu art works, drawn wire was used to make a large number of Copperbelt artifacts. It is not yet known whether drawn wire or a hammered strip was used to make the earliest known copper antiquities from South-east Central Africa: necklaces and armlets dating from the fifth to the ninth century A.D. found at such sites in modern Zambia and Zimbabwe as Dambwa, Kamadzulo, or Leopard's Kopje.111 In the Sanga gravegoods dating to the beginning of the tenth century, the application of drawn wire was common.112 Much thinner (about two-tenths of a millimetre) and more pliant than hammered strip, the drawn wire was wrapped around a perishable tubular

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matrix measuring from two to three millimetres in diameter. Several helices of wire were then intertwined into necklaces.113 The techniques of wire drawing and wire marking employing drawn wire were part of the Copperbelt tradition of the manufacture of metallic art works. For centuries, drawn wire, diffused through the markets also as currency,114 was worked into rings, armlets, and necklaces, in which copper was combined with iron and braided, or interwoven helices of drawn wire were intermixed with semi-finished material such as loosely or tightly twisted bars.115 The flexibility of drawn wire gives the artifacts visual properties highly distinct from the qualities of the Lusunsi insignia, which were coiled using a hammered strip. The compression of the winding, achieved in the Lusunsi neckpiece by mechanical pressure which flattened the coils, contrasts with the higher density of the drawn-wire wrapping of necklaces from the Copperbelt and with the transparent appearance of the assembled wire helices. Also, the artifacts of drawn wire are explicitly curvilinear, without the angularity characteristic of objects made from hammered-strip coils. Drawnwire objects show an evenness and fluency of patterning which provides the artifacts with an almost mechanical quality, whereas the irregularities in the coiling on the Lusunsi insignia provide obvious evidence of their manufacture by the human hand. Apart from the differences related to wire drawing and processing, the ancient copper artifacts of the Copperbelt resemble the Lusunsi insignia in their use of basic building units. Plaques were worked, for instance, into a bell, folded into tubular beads, or rolled into a rattle; or wider copper strips were bonded together into a ribbon."6 Summary of Comparisons of Manufacturing Processes Correspondences and analogues of the work procedures effectively integrate the Lusunsi insignia into the context of the artifacts preserved in sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, comparisons with other African works corroborate their originality and uniqueness. Annealed hammering, so consequentially applied on all items of the paradigmatic panoply, was a process employed also in the manufacture of the small artifacts of native copper from central Sahel which are, to date, the earliest copper products known in sub-Saharan Africa. But in contrast to them, the Lusunsi objects are large and built of longer and wider units. The Igbo Ukwu corpus provides an even closer correspondence; here, too, the copper regalia constituting part of the leader's posthumous outfit were made by hammering. But the Lusunsi insignia are again distinct. They are larger-than-lifesized objects and are manifestly three-dimensional, whereas the items in the Igbo Ukwu panoply are lifesized and two-dimensional. A hammered copper strip was used to tie, bind, and attach parts on both the Lusunsi

180 Crown and Ritual insignia and the Igbo ritual vessels. But the strip used in the Lusunsi objects, longer than the one employed on the Igbo Ukwu bowls, was also coiled over an armature. An analogue of this most demanding use of the copper strip, which is unparalleled in the manufacture of African antiquities as far as they are known to date, is the spiral winding of the drawn wire over a core, documented in the corpus of antiquities from the Sanga burials in South-east Central Africa. c) Mining and Smelting God is the creator of the environment, according to the Kongo ideology. He made mountains containing ores and caves. He also brought the first fire to the Bakongo. But the myths and narratives do not refer to God as the creator of artifacts or as a metalworker. The mining of ores and the extraction of metals from the ores are human initiatives for which the Bakongo credit their ancestors, who also invented fire. Sometimes they give a name to the ancestral inventor. A certain Muanda or Moanda is mentioned most frequently. In various parts of the Kongoland, he is remembered as a discoverer of fire, and in Boko Songo he is said to have taken ore from the local large mine and undertaken the first smelt. On other occasions, namely in the incantations sung during the smelting operations, metalworkers designate the first smelter with a generic name. He was, they sing, an invested leader, the mabiala. Minerals in the Niari-Congo area In the Niari-Congo mining area, exploited mines stretched over the entire area - some 3,000 square kilometres - of the metalliferous district at the time of the arrival of the first Europeans in the late nineteenth century. All the customary workings were in the territory which became, according to the Berlin Conference, part of the French colony. About 1900, French explorers traced more than one hundred mining spots in the area, with a prevalence of copper and lead ores. Copper and Copper Alloys The western and eastern ends of the area differ in their mineral deposits.117 Between the Louvisi and the Loudima rivers in the west are rich deposits of malachite and azurite. The most extensive customary exploitation was carried out in the region of Boko Songo. Malachite was mined there together with the lead ore cerussite. The first European prospectors also found there silver-rich galena, an ore which is richer than cerussite in lead.118 Zinc-bearing calamine ore, associated with malachite and azurite, also occurs in the Boko Songo region.119 The red-coloured Boko Songo region abounds, too, in iron ores.

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Early Europeans, however, did not find any ironworking there.120 The conclusion drawn at the time that the indigenous population did not know how to use iron ores may not be totally erroneous; it may also suggest that by the end of the nineteenth century there were no ironworkers left in the Boko Songo region. The eastern end, east of the Louvisi River and the basin of the Loukouni, is mainly cupriferous, but malachite is rare. By 1900, it was exploited significantly by the local population in only one locality, in Touta Lemba, apart from less important mining in Mindouli.121 Copper ores in the Mindouli region are predominantly compounds of silicate and sulphur. The incidence of chalcocite, a sulphur ore with a high content of copper, attracted European exploitation to Mindouli. European geologists considered chalcocite to be too complicated an ore for what they termed the 'primitive' African methods of smelting, but in 1893 the local people were observed to be preoccupied with notable quantities of chalcocite.122 Copper ores were found on the northern slopes in Mindouli, and in pockets of 'terres noires' - a surface alteration of the local limestone by atmospheric water - containing insoluble matters including veins of various copper ores.123 In 1978, miner and metalworker Martin Nkunku, to whom I am indebted for the information on the mining in Mindouli, gave me from his own collection several customarily exploited minerals. Among them were chalcocite and galena, the lead ore. Early French explorers found active mining of galena in Mindouli.124 Customary copper smelting was often noted by the Mindouli informants. But by contrast, references to the local extraction of lead in the past were unavailable. Blacksmith Gabriel Mbemba went so far as to deny that lead production took place at all in Mindouli. In the central part of the Niari-Congo mining area, the basins of the Nkenke, the Loutete, and the Louvisi have some copper-ore deposits, but the area is rich mainly in minerals containing lead and zinc. In the Loutete valley, mining of cerussite was still active in 1978, and local informants spoke of a long tradition of lead production and of lead-ingot trading. Some native copper was found in the west, in the Boko Songo region, and some native silver and gold in the east, around Mindouli. Although no evidence collectable to date corroborates the use of native copper in the past, it would be unwise to exclude such a possibility. Native copper, normally occurring in the top layers of copper deposits, might have been used and exhausted in the past. The analysis of the method of manufacture of the Lusunsi insignia makes credible the contention of an old tradition of native copperworking. The copper insignia were made by consequential annealed hammering. This process did not need metal in a liquefied state and is reminiscent of ironworking. Such a method may well have stemmed from the way in which native copper was worked in the solid state and not melted.

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Silver and Gold In the absence of material evidence, a weaker case can be made for silver, whether native or processed from an ore, and for gold. Informants in Banda Mamba in the Boko Songo region were explicit in stating in 1978 that milunga ndimba, rings of white metal, were locally made for trade in the past, not only copper rings. They did not identify the metal, however, so an assumption that the rings were of silver would be risky. Although European sources often mention the incidence of silver and gold mines somewhere inland, and in spite of frequent references by European visitors to utensils of gold and silver that were allegedly used by the kings or nobles of the Kongoland,125 neither metal fits well into the Kongo culture. Nor has either of them an authentic designation in Kikongo.126 The denominations wolo or uolo for 'gold' and palata for 'silver' were noted in Sao Salvador and in the port of Landana in the late nineteenth century.127 Both were places of major European mercantile impact. The denominations are clearly borrowings from Portuguese. The seventeenth-century dictionary of Kikongo shows, symptomatically, a lesser degree of deformation of the two borrowed words.128 The expressions aulu, ulu, and pilata used in Kimbundu in the early nineteenth century doubtless have the same European provenance. A document of 1512, attributed to Afonso and presented as a manifesto sent to his royal subjects, instituted the new imported arms of the Kongoland. In a detailed description of the arms, the document speaks at length about silver and gold. It was introduced by the chronicle as a translation of a manifesto in Kikongo dictated by Afonso for his subjects.129 For lexical and historical reasons, the document is more likely a Portuguese apocryph. In 1512, not only were the overwhelming majority of Afonso's subjects illiterate, but the Portuguese designations of the two metals would not have communicated any meaning to them and could not yet have been widely spread. By contrast, the two customarily produced metals in the Niari-Congo mining area, copper and lead, are fully integrated into the Kongo culture. Minerals in Mayombe The existence of copper resources in Mayombe must remain an open issue until geological prospecting is carried out. In the late nineteenth century, the Mayombe blacksmiths worked copper brought from Boko Songo.130 Although other European sources of the nineteenth century indicate the region of copper exploitation in Mayombe, they are vague. They point to a place forty-eight kilometres from the Mayombe leader's capital, Kitabi, or to another one situated some sixty kilometres northwards from Loange-Luiz.131 It may be that native copper was exploited in Mayombe. European records note that native copper, not the ore, was found there on the surface or in shallow pits.132

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Mining of Copper Copper occurs in Bembe deposits as copper carbonate, malachite, and the copper silicate, chrysocoll. In the nineteenth century, the Kongo miners exploited malachite.133 In the early twentieth century both malachite and chrysocoll were exploited,134 but by that time the Bembe output was already under Portuguese management. To a large extent the customary exploitation of ores was also determined by the depth of mining, which did not exceed the hydrostatic level.135 The oxide and carbonate minerals such as malachite appear in this upper zone.'36 Local informants recounted to me in 1978 that, in the past, mining was conducted in western and central parts of the area in open pits. Miners of Mindouli spoke both of open workings and horizontal 'caves' and of deep mining. Sulphide ores such as chalcocite are formed in the second zone, under the level of carbonates, and at a subterranean water level.137 However, in Mindouli these ores also occurred abundantly in the upper layer, in the 'terres noires.' Of the three mines in Boko Songo and vicinity, the only one worked in the late nineteenth century138 was the mine at Kimbauka called Paka Zongolo, from paka, 'to dig,' and ngolo, 'physical strength.' Chief Albert Makwelo of Banda Mamba spoke in 1978 of the exploitation there of malachite, directed by his predecessor. The open excavation was some three metres by six metres and one metre deep in i886.139 Although Songo, the large mine in the current locality of Boko Songo, was more extensive, it was not exploited in the i88os. However, if Dapper's information is correct, it was the output of this mine which, in the seventeenth century, supplied the coastal trade with copper. Traces of important old workings of past excavations reached more than ten metres deep over an area of about one hundred by two hundred and fifty metres.140 The mine covered by red ferruginous clay, was shallower in 1978 due to inundations occurring during the rainy seasons. Smaller but still important traces of workings are to be seen in the mine called Little Mine by modern geologists and Songudi Misombo by the local population. At the time of arrival of the first Europeans, the open excavation was four to six metres deep in an area forty by fifty metres.141 Customary exploitation of the Bembe deposits also occurred in the first half of the nineteenth century in open holes which were mostly between 0.9 and 1.2 metres in diameter.142 The holes were dug along the whole length of the mine running for about 1.6 kilometres through the rivulet valley. Mining Methods and Tools The method of mining and the tools used in the exploitation were identical in

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both northern and southern areas. Miners dug small holes into the deposits in a zig-zag manner to the depth of about a man's height. Into the walls were driven pointed pegs of hard wood, enabling the miners to descend and ascend within the holes. The miners brought the clay to the surface in baskets, but since the holes were not timbered they sometimes collapsed and buried the miner. Full baskets were brought to the stream where the clay was washed to separate it from the malachite. Apart from the baskets, only three other tools were employed in mining: wooden pegs were used for steps and for digging; for the excavation of the holes the miners used large knives; and along with the knives, they used iron hoes to dig out pieces of ore and break them into smaller bits.143 A corroded blade of such a mining knife and one or more hoes were in the inventory of the Lusunsi shrine. Miners and Access to the Mines Mining was a collective endeavour. In 1884 and 1885 when the Congo Free State agent Destrain visited the mining area in the Niari-Congo watershed, he observed that some 350 persons worked in the mine near Kimbauka.144 My informants asserted that both men and women customarily participated in mining. Men excavated and brought full baskets to the surface, and women carried them to the place where the ore was separated from the clay. Who were the people who undertook the mining? The informants working with me in 1978 were unanimous in their answers: kdnda, the kin group. In agreement with their answer the early European visitors to the Niari—Congo mining districts noted that the ore, after being mined and washed, was distributed by the chief to the 'family' or village.145 In Bembe, too, the mining rights were possessed by the inhabitants of several villages in close proximity to the mines and mainly by the people of Matuta,146 whose interest in the mines persisted in the nineteenth century. The Europeans engaged in political manoeuvring in earlier centuries who believed that the mines belonged to Mani Kongo were obviously in error. So, in fact, were the Portuguese in the nineteenth century when they strove for control of the king and the kinship system in order finally to seize the mines. The inhabitants of the Niari-Congo mining area claimed to allow what seems at first a very open access to the mining. 'Muntu ni muntu,' 'absolutely everybody,' they kept saying in response to my queries about who held the rights to the mineral resources' exploitation. The dictum was usually accompanied by an explanation that the slave, ndongo, too, was allowed to mine. The entitlement was then further specified by a definition of the wide term 'everybody.' 'Mukongo ba sumbu,' they said: 'A Kongo person who belongs to the relatives.' Their definition clarified that the mining interests

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possessed by the kin group were shared by other acknowledged residents of their existential space, including slaves. Visitors and outsiders were not entitled to mine. When in 1887 one of the European explorers collected fragments of malachite in the large mine at Songo - which at that time was dormant - his guides claimed a payment from him.147 He was told that the people of several villages who exploited the mine would raise a dispute if somebody carried away a piece of mineral without paying them. When the inhabitants of the villages not entitled to mine wanted to exploit the malachite in Bembe in the early nineteenth century, they could be given permission but had to pay for it with one part of the exploited ore.148 Even in 1978,1 had to pay with gifts for all samples of minerals collected in the Niari-Congo mining districts. The people with the primary residents' rights had a claim to exclusive mining but were not owners of the resources; nor was their leader, despite what European visitors of the nineteenth century believed. Mines were, like their entire nsi, part of the godly endowment which the Bakongo control as a legacy of their first father, Ne Kongo, to whom God entrusted the endowment. The residing kin group possessed exclusive mining rights under custom and because of their residential priority. They required a tribute from those who were permitted to exploit the mineral wealth and other resources of their territory. The mine and the ore it contains are, however, believed to be God's. Due to the invested labour, only the mined ore is owned by the kin group and, by extension, by individuals. Both free people and slaves received their shares. The mines were believed to be protected by the nkisi nsi. Shrines where the godly protector was worshipped by the residents are often situated in the caves of the mining district. In the central part of the Niari-Congo resources there are, for instance, two such shrines, the ntari hubuka and the ntari milandu. Unlike the paramount shrines of Bunsi and Lusunsi, these caves are accessible to all members of the governing kin group. Also, their slaves have the right to pay respects and be heard there by the nkisi nsi, sharing the protection as they shared the output of the mine. Access to the mineral resources was thus regulated by clear rules which were respected until the European invasion of the late nineteenth century. The rules are likely of ancient origin, as they are rooted in the very principles of the kinship system. The portrayal of chaos in the Kongoland of the eighteenth century, perpetuated sometimes by writers who depicted a country through which bands wandered enslaving the population, mining the ores, and trading both commodities to Europeans, is an academic imposition. Until the onset of colonialism, the Kongo mines were managed by their customary users who also protected the sites against trespassers.

186 Crown and Ritual Protection of the Mines: Comparison with Shaba When the Congo Free State agent approached the mine at Kimbauka in 1884, he found all the miners armed.'49 The agent, in the invasion of the Niari-Congo resource area from both its southern and northern edges by the French in the later i88os, had to cope with a dramatic resistance of the population who, although not residing directly in the region of the mines, were ready to protect it vigorously. The access to the Bembe mines was not any easier. It took the Portuguese four centuries to penetrate them. In this, the situation in the Kongoland differed from Shaba. European occupation of the Shaba copper resources occurred with no resistance and no military action. The first geologists and explorers arriving in Shaba after 1891 did not encounter any customary mining activity and found open pits partly inundated. They did not meet any people to object to their exploitation initiatives.150 Europeans speculated that Shaba was in the midst of wars. No permanent inhabitants or traces of them were observed in the mountains of the Shaba cupreous deposits.151 By contrast, the Badondo, who in 1978 were almost the only residents of the Boko Songo region, have for a long time been widely known among the northem Bakongo as 'the people of the mountains.'152 And the Babwende, whose mfumu nsi was still in charge as a leader of the central part of the Niari-Congo mining area in 1978, have been recognized in the north as 'the people of the mine.' In Shaba, a number of peoples from far away claimed that in the past they had exploited the large copper mines in the uninhabited mountains.153 Their tradition asserted that mining was done by men who stayed in simple temporary camps during the period of their work. Unlike in the Niari-Congo mines, men were not assisted by women in the work and were, in addition, prohibited from sexual intercourse. The operations in the mines were directed by a master miner to whom the tradition ascribed the necessary authority and the knowhow. As both the authority and the knowledge have vanished, the people explained, mining has ceased. Access to Mines by Neighbouring Peoples Europeans in the late nineteenth century observed that copper and lead ores exploited in the mines of the Niari-Congo watershed were not traded. They were smelted locally.'54 Almost a century later, my informants also explicitly noted the various forms of ingot in which copper and lead were traded and stressed that the extraction of ores took place in the mining district. However, both archaeological and historical evidence show that from at least the sixteenth

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century onward, the smelting of malachite also took place in the southern region adjacent to the mining area.'55 This indicates either that the immediate neighbours of the mining resources were permitted to exploit the mines to some extent, or that the miners made an exception in their trading customs and ceded mined malachite to the residents of the adjacent regions. In return, the mining districts were provided with protection against invaders in the form of a ring of bellicose peoples encircling the resource area. In the late nineteenth century, at least some of these neighbours were Sundi. The first Europeans speak of meeting them to the north as well as to the south of the mines.156 But the Basundi were neither the exclusive inhabitants nor the masters of the adjacent regions, contrary to the European perception. They settled down close to the mines, presumably as a result of the northward expansion of Sundi. The motive of the expansion was most likely the desire to benefit from the mines. As noted above, the archaeological evidence dates the smelting operations in the southern mining area to the sixteenth century. If the Sundi expansion occurred in the middle of the seventeenth century, as is now commonly accepted, it did not take the form of an occupation and an economic supremacy, which would have introduced new policies for the economic exploitation of the mining population. Rather, the incoming Basundi integrated themselves into the old policies of the region, trying to take part in the preexisting system of deals and arrangements and, in this way, to profit from them. The Sundi expansion apparently took a shape which was not too dissimilar from customary movements regulated by the Kongo kinship system. Different procedures were followed in Bembe. The established trade with the Bembe mines - which was under way prior to the Portuguese occupation of Ambriz in 1855 - involved malachite, not metallic copper. Broken into pieces, the malachite was sold by measure, using small baskets.157 It was either brought to the coast or the Ambriz inhabitants went into the interior to buy it. No information on the exact location of the market where malachite was traded is available, but it was situated outside the area of the nsi of the miners; the coastal people were not allowed to pass the Luqueia River. The trade in malachite continued until even later, when the Portuguese, who had occupied the mines, started to direct operations there. In the early twentieth century, the Portuguese engineer Freire de Andrade estimated the possible return on an investment needed for the improvement of transportation between Bembe and the outlets of international trade, basing his considerations on the trade in malachite. The Division of Labour in Mining and Smelting The Bembe operations, in which mining was separated from smelting, were not

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unique in Central Africa. During the preceding centuries, the divided working process in copper production had several variants, as archaeological evidence from the Copperbelt attests. Lumps of smelted copper were, for instance, found in a burial of the Ingombe Ilede site, dated about A.D. 1400, although copper exploitation did not occur in the area.158 In 1871, Livingstone noted mining activities conducted under Arab management in one region, while he encountered smelters who produced ingots in another region about a month's journey away.'59 Tools for wire drawing were recovered from three burials of Ingombe Ilede, suggesting the incidence of wire production far from the copper outcrops. The crosses, another form of trade copper of the Copperbelt, were made in the Lomagundi area, which is also distant from the nearest copper mines.160 Examples yielded by archaeology show various forms of division of labour. In the history of African copper production, smelting was apparently often dissociated from mining; moreover, ingot production was occasionally also separate from mining and even from smelting operations. The association of mining and smelting as documented in the operations of the Niari-Congo watershed therefore appears rare or even exceptional. Whether a split or integrated working process, the Kongo copper production was a seasonal occupation. By necessity, mining was carried out only in the dry season; the open pits where the ores were dug were flooded during the rainy season.'6l The smelting of malachite, which took place in a lodge sheltered by a roof, was done at the end of the dry season, or in the period of the first rains.'62 Until then, the copper ore mined during the dry season was stored. Lead, however, is still extracted from the ore only during the dry season. The lead smelters in 1978 were very concerned about the effect of the weather on their operations. A little cloud appearing towards the end of the dry season causes a sudden termination of the operation, or else, so they said, a great disaster may result. Lead smelting, which is conducted in the open because of the noxious smoke, is more directly affected by weather conditions than copper smelting. Methods of Extracting Copper Reduction in a Small Pit Furnace Three modes of extraction of metallic copper from the exploited ores were practised at the turn of the twentieth century in the Niari-Congo copper resource area. Two operations involved malachite. The first was a simple reduction in a small furnace which had a pit equipped with refractory clay and used charcoal as fuel.' 63 Regrettably, however, information about this process is scanty, and it is not clear whether the operation involved reduction of copper in a liquid or a solid state. The roasting of malachite, in which the copper is not liquefied but is

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beaten out of slag in a solid state, would be analogous to iron roasting, which was practised in the late nineteenth century in some places of the Kongoland, such as the Zombo plateau.164 Mixed Smelt Using Malachite and Lead The second mode of extracting copper from malachite was more complex and engaged lead. It was practised in the Boko Songo district and in the adjacent region. With the use of a crucible, malachite gravel was smelted together with metallic lead in a liquid state.165 The operation proceeded in several steps. A crucible was placed at the bottom of a semicircular furnace filled with malachite, metallic lead, and charcoal. During the smelting, the furnace was driven by one or two bellows with muzzles. The alloy which sank into the crucible was malleable and resembled tin. It was smelted again with a high charge of malachite. After the second smelt, the full crucible was removed and liquid metal was poured into a mould of clay or sand to produce ingots in the form of cylindrical bars of various sizes. Before being used as a currency, the bars were roasted on a crucible which had holes, or on a porous stone over a charcoal fire. The purpose of this part of the operation was to release most of the lead from the alloy. Copper bars were either traded or used by the smelters for casting armlets in an open mould. The furnace used in this mixed smelt and resembling a section of truncated cone was built in clay on a circular base. Its lower internal diameter was thirty to thirty-five centimetres and its upper internal diameter was twenty centimetres. The furnace was twenty-five centimetres high, and its walls were some six to eight centimetres thick.166 It was situated in the centre of the smelters' workplace which was an open hut with a high bamboo ceiling. Captain Pleigneur noted in 1887 that lead was smelted in the same furnace that was used for the malachite mixed with metallic lead. But in 1978 the smelters extracted lead from cerussite in a different furnace and did not use a crucible. I witnessed two lead-srnelting operations in the upper Loutete in the Mfuati district. In the first — a reconstruction of the lead-smelting process undertaken upon my request - the pit was only twenty centimetres deep and was enclosed by pieces of refractory clay about twenty centimetres high (ill. 4). The other occasion was a direct observation of a customary smelting process. It took a considerable amount of time for me to obtain permission to participate as an observer in this second smelt, but the results were incomparably more rewarding than those obtained from the reconstruction of the operation. The smelters' customary workplace was situated on the slope of the river valley. The furnace was a bowl about forty centimetres deep with a diameter of about fifty centimetres and was dug into the incline of the bank. Over the bowl was

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built up a superstructure of pieces of a termitary, bikuku, to a height of about twenty-five centimetres (ill. 5). The bowl had a narrow drain for the flow of liquefied lead and the release of slag. Their workplace was called by the smelters luvu or sdkusulu, from sdkasala, 'to work the bellows,' or 'to breathe fast.' The furnace is called mukama. It was driven by bellows with one tuyere, named nkela. Apart from the high furnace noted in the late nineteenth century in the smelting of malachite mixed with metallic lead, and the bowl which I observed in 1978 in the lead extraction from cerussite, the tradition also mentioned a low furnace called bulu used in copper extraction. The pottery furnace operated in the Niari-Congo mining area by women and referred to by them as mututu does not seem to be related to the smelting furnaces. Calcination and Reduction The use of a tall furnace was observed in the 18908 also in copper smelting in Mindouli.'67 It had a thirty-centimetre-deep bowl dug into the ground. This third observed mode of copper extraction consisted of three or four steps involving calcination and reduction. Chalcocite could be used in the process. This mineral was broken into pieces and mixed with clay and charcoal, one observer notes. The other reported that the principal mineral used was malachite, and chalcocite was added only at the end of the last operation. When in action, the furnace was driven by one or two bellows. The metal sank into a crucible placed at the bottom of the furnace. Smelting Process Copper-smelting practices in the eastern and western part of the Niari-Congo resource area apparently differed in both the extracted mineral and the process. The metallurgy in the Boko Songo district was based on malachite, which, in the smelting, was mixed with lead. The reason for mixing lead with copper mineral was not necessarily an effort to lower the melting point. Lead does have a lower melting point than copper, and its addition to the smelt would bring down the temperature which has to be attained in the furnace. But the use of a relatively tall furnace suggests that reaching the temperature necessary to extract copper from malachite alone would not pose a problem. Rather, the reason may be historical. Co-smelting and mixing metals or minerals has been practised in black Africa since the first millennium B.C., and the production of leaded copper, specifically, has a long tradition in the black subcontinent. Earlier discussion has shown its occurrence in the materials of eastern Sahel in the first millennium A.D. There may also be local reasons for mixing lead in copper

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smelting in the Niari-Congo mining area. Cerussite, abundant in the western and eastern part, is a direct source of white pigment. Heating of cerussite at a relatively low temperature in an open pit easily produces other pigments such as yellow, orange, and red. All these colours are well-rooted in the Kongo symbolism and have likely been used over a long period. The exploitation of cerussite and the production of pigments presumably preceded the fully developed copper metallurgy in the Niari-Congo mining area, and the experience with lead extraction may be of a more ancient date than the smelting of copper from ores. Native copper, now found in only minute quantities in the mining districts, was likely more abundant before the oxide and carbonate ores of the upper level of the deposits were exploited. Besides, technical and economic reasons for mixing lead with copper mineral are more considerable. In roasting the cylinders of leaded copper, the smelters were fully in control of the lead content of the ingots. The process enabled the smelters to produce both ingots of the relatively pure copper and ingots with a variable lead content. They were thereby able to supply the market with ingots of varying quality, weight, and technical properties. Leaded copper is more ductile than the relatively pure copper, and for this reason it was used in the Kongoland for casting objects.'68 Apparently, a variety of copper ingots also reached the coastal trade. Dutch merchants in the mid-seventeenth century distinguished several kinds of traded copper: copper which looks very yellow, as well as 'much better' copper, and 'bad' copper of a grey colour.169 Yellow copper is likely identical with the 'brilliant yellow' copper which came from the Boko Songo district in the late seventeenth century to Luanda, according to Cavazzi's report.'70 Or, it may have been the low-zinc brass which is analytically documented in a number of objects collected before and after 1891. The 'bad' and grey-looking copper was doubtless leaded copper. Its variant with the highest content of lead, produced by little or no roasting, also reached the markets. It was likely this richly leaded copper about which Dutch merchants complained in the mid-seventeenth century.171 Dapper calls it fake (vervalscht) copper. Apart from the leaded coppers, the coastal trade in the mid-seventeenth century was supplied with Kongo lead.172 The picture of copper smelting in Mindouli derived from late-nineteenthcentury reports is puzzling. If malachite was the basic extracted mineral, it must have been brought to Mindouli, as it was not available locally. The closest malachite deposit was the Lemba mine exploited from at least the seventeenth century onward. The Mindouli smelters extracted copper from mixed ores, either by adding chalcocite to malachite at the later stage of the process or by mixing malachite, azurite, and chalcocite. Rather than a flux, the 'clay' was a mixture of surface alternation of limestone (calcaire) with organic matter and a high

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content of oxide and carbonate of copper and of chalcocite. These 'terres noires' were found on the slopes of the Mindouli mountain. The chalcocite content is puzzling in the operation at the conclusion of which the metal was collected in a crucible. It was proved experimentally by Tylecote that the copper extraction from ores other than oxides and carbonates in a crucible is not feasible,'73 and yet chalcocite is a compound of sulphur and copper. The crucible reported in the smelting both in the west and east of the northern mining area also belonged to the inventory of the Lusunsi shrine. Shards of at least one crucible were scattered on the ground of the sanctuary. The emblematic instruments thereby acknowledged either copper or lead extraction or both, apart from iron working.174 Co-smelting various ores and mixing one metal with the extraction of another appear to be typical for the smelting practices of the northern Kongo resource area. The products were both the relatively pure copper and alloys based on copper. They provided a wider range of technical possibilities than did pure copper in working copper into objects, and they motivated richer processes of copperworking within the Kongo technological area. Europeans were aware of this Kongo specificity. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Dutch merchants who bought the Kongo copper in the coastal ports tended to interpret it as showing the low technical level of Kongo smelting.175 Their misjudgment is nevertheless useful, as it documents that the practices of co-smelting and mixing metals observed in the late nineteenth century were in use at least during the previous two or three centuries. While various ores and lead were added to the copper, there is no record that iron flux was added, confirming the results of the elemental analyses.176 At the same time, the smelters may have used a flux in the form of the shell of the large forest snail Achatina. Analyses testing the content of calcium would have to be undertaken to prove it. It is a flux used elsewhere in black Africa, such as in copper or iron smelting by the Mbeere smiths.177 In the northern Kongo mining area, as well as to the north of it in the Kamba and Kunyiland, shells of Achatina can be found in large numbers in the caves, burials, and elsewhere. The Achatina shell is associated with Kongo leadership, and the oral tradition emphatically identified it with the beginnings of the Kongo history and with the Kongo migratory patterns. Comparisons with Smelting Practices Elsewhere in Central Africa The tall furnace used for copper extraction in both the eastern and western regions is not exclusive to the northern mining area. The metallurgy south of the Congo/Zaire River also employed high furnaces, but they were used in iron

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smelting. While a visitor at the Zombo plateau observed in the i88os that iron was roasted in the pits, in the Ambriz region and farther inland iron smelting in high furnaces driven by four bellows was reported in the i86os and iSyos.178 Such a furnace had four openings for the tuyeres and four other entrances for slag tapping and the removal of bloom. Analogues to the use of the high furnace in copper smelting were observed in Shaba, where the structures were even larger than in the Niari-Congo resource area.179 From pieces taken from a termitary, the Bayeke built furnaces 70 to 75 centimetres high with a diameter of 40 centimetres. The furnace had a small bowl into which the liquid metal sank. During the operation the furnace was driven by three bellows with the tuyeres. To remove the metal the furnace was broken into pieces. Apart from the Yeke furnace built ad hoc for each operation, yet another and much larger furnace was used by the Basanga. Being permanent, not renewed upon the beginning of each operation, it was built of fired clay bricks and pieces from a termitary, and had a diameter of 100 centimetres and a height of 175 centimetres. Lumps of smelted metal were recovered through a hole left in the furnace for that purpose. The abundance of shells of the forest snail Achatina in the Niari-Congo mining area and in the country north of it indicates that this large part of the Kongoland was in the past covered by a forest.180 The totally denuded country of today is most likely a result of a long-standing consumption of wood, and it points to the lengthy history of metallurgic activities. Charcoal was a customary fuel in copper smelting. In 1978, in the extraction of lead from cerussite in which a high temperature was not necessary, the smelters used wood, explaining that it was the usual practice. Palm nuts, nkdndi, were another type of fuel employed in metallurgy, as I noted in 1978. In Mindouli, the blacksmith who used them described them as a customary fuel which has the advantage of creating a high temperature but not causing smoke. Connotation of Smelting Fire, mbdzu, is for the Bakongo a common synonym for desire and passion. Smelting and, more specifically, lead smelting was perceived by the smelters to connote male-female intercourse. During the smelting operation, women are not given access to the workplace nor its environs; they leave meals for the workers some distance away. Incantations, exclamations, and other behaviour of the participants during the operation I observed in 1978 made its symbolic meaning clear. It is important to note, however, that all the ritual and symbolic elements associated with these activities were present only in the customary smelting process which I was allowed to observe; none of them were displayed

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in the reconstruction of the process which the smelters conducted earlier upon my request. The preparatory work, in which the smelters set the fire and the master smelter sorted out and crushed the cerussite, was accompanied by incantations devoted to the mabiala who was said to have initiated the first lead smelting. While working, the smelters sang about him and his habits; he ate a lot of haricots, for instance. The work with the bellows by the junior master smelter was encouraged by songs and dances with erotic underpinnings. The release of liquid lead was welcomed by the workers with exclamations about female attractiveness and her part in the intercourse. The flow of the lead was perceived as a vaginal discharge. But astonishingly, the behaviour of all team members made it evident that the climactic point of the smelting process was not the discharge of liquefied metal from the ore, but rather the discharge of the slag from the furnace. It was greeted with a great jubilant cry, incantations, and celebration. The smelters all victoriously yelled 'kongo,' meaning 'slag.' In the symbolic construction of the operation, the discharge of slag stood for the male sperm. The euphoria lessened only when the lead was poured into a mould and the ingots were solidified. Now all the workers sang a lengthy song in praise of the ancestors, venerating age, discouraging youngsters from lack of modesty and disrespect, and urging them to learn from the past. The drama with its peripeties, climax, and catharsis lasted a little more than four hours, during which time all five workers were busy, had no dispute, and had their labour clearly divided and assigned. Upon the conclusion of the operation and following my queries the smelters were specific in explaining that their exclamation 'kongo,' 'slag,' was identical in meaning with the Kongo and Kongo dia ntotela. I am thus led to the conclusion that the Bakongo derive the name for their confederation from their denomination for 'slag.' The Kongo is the Slag state. The name of its people, the Bakongo, whose etymology has already been the subject of many speculations, thus expresses their submission to the authority of the state, the Kongo, and labels them, thereby, the 'Slag people.'181 Division of Labour in Smelting In the mining area of the Niari-Congo watershed, the operations which I witnessed and heard of or which earlier observers reported consisted of three parts: mining, preparation of charcoal, and smelting. Each part had a different head who directed the working process. The mfumu nsi, who most willingly cooperated with me as informant and just perceptibly (though not openly) took part in the decision to tolerate my presence during the smelting operation, was not

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directly involved in any of the metallurgic activities. Mining was led and the outcrop was divided by a mfumu kdnda. The preparation of fuel was the job of a specialized worker.182 Lead smelting was rarely practised in 1978 in the central district, whereas extraction of copper or lead or both had reportedly been practised a century before in a number of villages in the area. The early European visitors go so far as to claim to have found it in all villages. But they saw only a few. The operation which I witnessed was directed by a senior master smelter who was assisted by a junior master smelter. Their words and behaviour made it clear that they both were part of the kinship structure as freemen. A mfumu kdnda was involved in the reconstruction but did not lead the activities. A mfumu kdnda who was also mfumu gata in the Boko Songo district was remembered as an organizer of the local copper smelting. My queries about participants and the leadership of the smelting met with identical answers, as in the case of mining: kdnda undertakes the smelting, informants asserted, rejecting unanimously my suggestion that the work of the master smelter might have been performed by a blacksmith or by another ad hoc invited specialist who was not one of the kin. But the right of the kdnda to conduct copper or lead smelting was in this case exclusive, not being extended to others. No saying such as 'muntu ni muntu,' 'absolutely everybody,' accompanied the information. Copper and smelting were a privilege of some kin groups only. Other residents of that particular existential space were engaged in other professions, mainly weaving. The symbiosis of smelters and weavers was apparently typical for the western part of the Niari-Congo resource area. In 1978, there were no longer any practising weavers living there, but a century before that, the weavers producing fibre cloth were a common feature.183 They worked sitting in the centre of the village. The tradition in the Boko Songo district or in Kwakongo was explicit in stating that weaving was a profession practised only by the kin groups who had the right. Metallurgy and weaving were likely two exclusive professions. The praise name of Nambamba, for instance, indicates that they were weavers but did not look at fire.184 Unlike copper and lead mining, which was undertaken by all the residents of the nsi, the smelting of non-ferrous ores was conducted only by the kdnda vested with that right. Unlike mining, in which individuals of all social strata and of both sexes took part, smelting was the work of male professionals who were freemen and belonged to the entitled kdnda. They smelted non-ferrous ores for the other kin groups but required a payment. Copper and lead ores as part of the godly endowment were shared by those who participated in mining. By contrast, ingots as products of the past and present still belonged to the entitled kin group, enhanced its wealth, were controlled by its chief, and were traded through the markets to others.

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d) Copper Production and Copperworking: An Analysis of European and Kongo Sources185 Role of the Mines in Political Negotiations between the Kongo Kingdom and Europe In the early period of Kongo-Europe relations, Europeans had already created a legend about the mineral richness of the Kongoland. European sources repeatedly mentioned gold and silver and referred to the Kongo mines where supposedly both these precious metals were found in abundance. Having heard that Kongo had mines of gold, silver, and other metals, a source of the late sixteenth century, for instance,186 says that the Portuguese king sent two skilled metallurgists to inspect the mines and report on possible benefits from them. At about the same time, the Vatican informants reported that Kongo inhabitants valued highly gold and silver, making necklaces, rings, and other things from them. In the seventeenth century, a report stated that the Kongo king, who wished to be crowned by the Portuguese, promised them the Soyo kingdom and two mines of gold.187 Stories about the Kongo gold probably reached their peak in the tradition about the death of the Kongo king Antonio, killed in 1665 in the battle of Ambuila. A Portuguese testified, so goes the story, that he had beheaded the king, who wore a golden crown and whose utensils were all of gold.188 The myth of the Kongo gold persisted, despite the scepticism expressed by visitors who gained some insight during their stay in Central Africa189 and by disbelieving European monarchs who made efforts to test the veracity of the tales of abundant Kongo gold. The influential publication of 1506-21 on the world's mineral richness, by the Portuguese Duarte Pacheco, had already reported that there was no gold known in the country of Mani Kongo or elsewhere, but that in the Kongo there was very fine copper.190 Historical evidence attests that in 1536 a factor and the founders sent by the Portuguese king arrived to examine the Kongo copper mines.191 In the Kongo, however, European efforts met with no success, as apparently neither the experts nor other visiting or residing Europeans were taken to the mines. To conceal both the mineral resources and operations even more, mining activities were repeatedly suspended.192 Whether the Portuguese confessor of the Kongo king made it clear, as Lopez has it, or the shrewd Kongo politicians discovered it for themselves, which is more likely, the key role of the mines in international diplomacy soon became evident to the Kongo leaders. What was even more apparent at an early stage was the role of the Kongo mines in maintaining the political integrity of the Kongo state. Revealing the location of the mines was understood to be a critical

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threat to Kongo independence. Therefore, throughout the history of KongoEurope relations, the Kongo kings used Kongo metals and mines as a powerful yet at the same time very dangerous weapon. In the end, even four centuries of highly skilled Kongo manoeuvres could not prevent the colonial occupation, which was marked by European invasion of the mines. Military action thus proved to be far more effective than the dubious Portuguese treaties concluded in the i88os in Ngoyo and Kwakongo. After having crushed the resistance in the mining regions, the colonial powers were able more easily to seize and partition the crippled country. Kongo kings protected the mines by not disclosing their proper location or by deliberately confusing visitors. But in their international dealings they ably negotiated using Kongo mineral wealth, willingly showing and donating their samples. Kongo royalty sent copper rings as thanks for received or promised shipments from the kings of Portugal and Spain and to feed and encourage the European belief in the potential of the Kongo mines. They also offered shares in the profits from the exploitation of copper ores to the Portuguese and Spanish kings and to the papacy in order to gain European secular and religious services which would strengthen Mani Kongo's political position in the Kongoland and also expand his territorial power in Africa. Kongo copper played a major role in negotiations with European dignitaries not only during the reign of Afonso but also under Alvare I and II. Large quantities of copper were forwarded to Europe as part of these negotiations. In his letter of 1514 to Manuel, for instance, Afonso cites seven shipments sent by him to Portugal.193 In the international exchange rate of that time, the total of 5,900 rings was equal in value to 197 slaves. By a conservative reckoning based on the average weight of rings found in the twentieth century in the Kongoland, one can estimate that between 1508 and 1514 Afonso sent some twelve and a half tons of copper, part of which reached the Portuguese king, and part of which may have been stolen by his less-than-honest subjects. European self-confidence was evident in dealings with the Kongo. The increasing knowledge and technical expertise of post-medieval Europe was contrasted to the assumed technical innocence of previously unknown peoples around the world, as evidenced mainly in their production of metals. It was assumed, for instance, that new countries were able to rival the Kongo in their mineral wealth, but that none had resources as neglected as those of the Kongo. Or, claims were made that Kongo people who found copper on the surface did not know how to exploit their abundant resources or how to distinguish the various ores, with the result that they mixed them all in smelting.194 The assumed technical supremacy of Europe provided a convenient excuse for the Portuguese king, and later the governors of Angola, to claim the right to

198 Crown and Ritual control the Kongo mines. As early as 1512, King Manuel instructed his ambassador, Simon da Silva, who departed for the Kongo with a large shipment of gifts for King Afonso, to bring back copper and to explore the possibilities of acquiring more of the metal.195 By 1622, efforts to control the mines had prompted to a military invasion of the Kongo by the Portuguese from Angola. As a result of its success, the Luanda governor requested control of all the copper mines of the kingdom.196 This attempt, like the earlier ones, was not successful. The mines stayed on the agenda of the Kongo-Angola dealings and conflicts197 in the subsequent perturbed period when the Dutch occupied Luanda in 1641 and came to Sao Salvador trying to make a treaty with King Garcia II. The mines continued to play a critical role in negotiations with the Portuguese after they conquered the Dutch and resettled in Luanda in 1648. The Portuguese bargained with Garcia II, giving him a choice between the source of one currency, Olivancillaria nana, and another, copper. They offered him the continuing right to collect the marine mollusc Olivancillaria nana on the small island of Cabo situated at the entrance to the Luanda port.198 The shells of the Olivancillaria nana were used as the currency, nzimbu, of the Kongo confederation. In the past, Mani Kongo's monopoly over the collection of these shells supported his position at the peak of the Kongo kingdoms. The Kongo kings had earlier demonstrated by a number of actions, including the military conflict in 1570 with the Ngola, their southern neighbour, their determination to protect their rights in the fisheries of Olivancillaria. In 1649, as compensation for retaining these rights, Garcia II was given the option to cede to the Portuguese the copper mines, a source of copper rings, a valued currency which since the early sixteenth century had sustained Mani Kongo's important position in international and transcontinental politics. Garcia II chose to retain the mines. He saw, finally, some results of his predecessors' embassies to Europe when, after decades of requests, the Vatican finally sent a Capuchin mission to the Kongo in 1645. The presence of missionaries from Rome challenged the earlier Portuguese monopoly of the Catholic ministry in the Kongo and ended the dependence of Mani Kongo upon Luanda in religious matters. Only the copper mines were subject to concealment and temporary suspension of exploitation. The Kongo had a number of important resource areas of iron ores where mining and metalworking operations were carried on continuously. At the plateau of Zombo in Mbata, for instance, there were several deposits. Metalworking here was mentioned by seventeenth-century sources, and it remained active as late as the end of the nineteenth century, as were the ferrous ore resources in Bamba. In the seventeenth century it was reported that Sundi had old workings in Buenze, Gombe Kyaie, and Lukvilu. Another source

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of iron ore often noted in the seventeenth century was in Kiowa, where exploitation may have taken place even earlier.1" While all aspects of copper mining were kept secret, however, apparently European knowledge of the location of iron mines or visits to ironworking regions were not seen as threatening. Modern geology has found an uneven distribution of copper ore deposits in the system of limestone and sandstone covered by slate and schists which stretches through a large part of the Kongoland from the bend of the Niari River in the north-west to the middle of the Djoue in the east and to the northern bank of the Kwanza River in the south.200 Evidence of ancient workings known to date, however, is concentrated mainly in two rich cupriferous areas. North of the Congo/ Zaire River, in its watershed with the Niari, are cupriferous deposits associated with lead, silver, and also zinc-bearing ores. They span some 125 kilometres running north-west to south-east and cover about 3,000 square kilometres between the basins of the Loukouni and Loudima rivers. The southern area of mineralization, where ancient workings are documented, is much smaller. Situated south of the Kongo capital, it runs for a few kilometres from north-west to south-east, along the small Bembe River, a tributary of the Luqueia. Europeans' Efforts to Locate the Kongo Copper Mines: Examination of the Sources Reports and letters sent since the early seventeenth century by Portuguese settlers or visitors in Africa to the king in Lisbon praise the copper mines of Pemba, state that they are a source of 'infinite copper,' suggest exploring them, and propose starting a business on behalf of the Portuguese king.201 But these writings remain unspecific about the mines' locations. And the encouragement by Captain Garcia Mendes Castelo Branco to conquer Cabonda in order to gain access to the Pemba copper resources indicates the Captain's ignorance of the route to the mine. Clues to the sites of the northern mining area in the pre-nineteenth-century sources pose even more problems. Most of the information calls for critical interpretation of the historical sources. The kingdom of Sundi was known from the late sixteenth century for its deposits of copper and other metals.202 By inference from Dutch sources, which noted in the early seventeenth century that the copper mines were held by the kingdom of Anzikes and which by the i66os mentioned the copper mines in Sundi, modern historiography concluded that sometime in the middle of the seventeenth century the resource area in the Niari-Congo watershed had changed its master.203 Its original occupant, usually called Anzique by the sources, was interpreted to mean the Bateke and the Tio kingdom, the ethnic group and state neighbouring the northern Kongoland

2OO Crown and Ritual but external to it.204 These conclusions imply that the northern cupriferous area became part of the Kongo resources only sometime in the early to midseventeenth century, as a result of occupation by Sundi. Both oral and written sources, however, suggest that further consideration of the whole issue of the control of the northern mines would be appropriate. I argue that the Kongo tradition consistently views the Bateke as deriving authority from the same source as other peoples of the Kongoland and includes them in the idioms of Ngunu and Kongo dia ntotela. The Kongo interpretation of the term 'Anzique,' furthermore, appears wider than designating only the Bateke. 'Anzike,' Batsikama argued,205 originated from the sobriquet Anziku Nziku applied by the Bakongo to the inhabitants of territories on the periphery of the Kongo but within its borders. They comprise various populations such as Bateke, Bapunu, and Banzabi, among others. Etymologically, the sobriquet stems from the verb zikuzuka, 'to run,' alluding to those who leave their territory in the interior of the country to safeguard the territories at the fringes. This contention leads to the inference that the northern copper mines were, until the early seventeenth century, under the control of the population who protected and inhabited the border regions of the Kongo country. Sometime in the first half of the seventeenth century some of these territories came under the authority of Sundi. But it is likely that, during its expansion, Sundi did not plan to include the entire Niari-Congo mining area. Gavazzi, in the late seventeenth century, states that mining in the Sundi copper mines was temporarily suspended, whereas the copper mines north of the Congo/Zaire River, not far from the cataracts, kept supplying the market with copper.206 Geographical particulars point to the western part of the NiariCongo cupriferous area; the least distant from the cataract region are the mines in and around Boko Songo.207 Some years earlier than Cavazzi, Dapper, whose comment on the Sundi mines triggered the conclusion about the Anzique occupation of the mining area, lists copper suppliers other than Sundi. They, too, can be interpreted as being within the Niari-Congo mining area. He states that European traders knew that copper mining was going on in the region called Lemba, whence copper arrived at the coast to be traded with Europeans.208 As he situates this mine close to the border of the Kwakongo kingdom, it is not difficult to identify Lemba as a site within the Niari-Congo mining area. Coastal traders heard of two mines: one in the massif of Kisenga, between the Lemba and Loudima Rivers, at the most western tip of the area; the other source of trade copper known at the coast was the copper-ore deposits in Touta Lemba, in the valley of the eastern Louvisi River, in the east of the area. The large mine in Touta Lemba was still being mined in the late nineteenth century.209

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Dapper also mentions that Songo mines supplied copper for the trade in Luanda.210 One can rule out the possibility that Dapper was referring to some copper resources in Soyo.211 There is no evidence of the existence of copper mines in Soyo even in its large territorial extension, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, when Soyo gained iron-ore deposits in Kiowa. One is left with a query whether 'Songo' is a toponym or an error on the part of European traders who confused the name for metallic copper (nsongo) with the name of a mining place. However, whether the name is an error or a real toponym, Dapper's information points to the western part of the Niari-Congo resource. He characterizes some of the copper from Songo as 'grey' or poorquality copper. It will be argued later that such 'grey' copper was customarily produced in the Boko Songo region. Prior to the late nineteenth century, Songo was apparently not a toponym nor did it designate Boko Songo. Local tradition has it that the currently used name of this village at the top of the hill, where there is a large ancient mine, was coined only in the earlier colonial period by the French. They reportedly collated the designation of the copper, nsongo, and the word mbuku, which was frequently heard thereabouts. Mbuku is, however, explained as a name of the person who started metalworking in the area, a name that, by extension, was used to refer to subsequent metalworkers. From reports by the first Europeans, who penetrated this part of the mining region in the i88os, one infers that the first station of 1'Association intemationale du Congo, founded in the area in 1882—3, was Mboko. Only from 1884 onwards is the place called Boko Songo.212 Dapper's Songo, then, is likely a reference to the large mine in the village called now Boko Songo. Oral tradition and written sources thus allow one to conclude that, until the early seventeenth century, the copper deposits in the Niari-Congo resource area at the northern fringe of the Kongoland were actively exploited. In the first half of the seventeenth century, Sundi imposed its authority upon part of the mining area which, as a consequence, was incorporated into the confederation. The exploitation of ore in this area played a role in the strategy employed by Mani Kongo in his international politics. The rest of the Niari-Congo mining area remained unaffected by the Kongo king's intermittent suspension of mining activities and independently traded its copper with Europeans in the second half of the seventeenth century. Copper from Lemba supplied the northern coastal trade, which had its outlet in Loango, whereas Boko Songo shipped copper to Luanda in the south, where the trade was monopolized by the Portuguese. If the seventeenth-century Lemba was identical with the mines in the Kisenga massif, it was the western part of the mining area which stayed independent. If, however, Lemba was identical with the old mine Touta Lemba, then in the first half

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of the seventeenth century Sundi authority and the regulatory politics of the confederation affected only a small part of the area, comprising in essence the mines of Mindouli. Prior to its annexation of part of the Niari-Congo mining area, Sundi exploited various metals deposits, some of which may have produced copper. Within its original boundary north of Mbanza Sundi and in the regions where the Inkisi enters the Congo/Zaire River, one can situate the iron ore mines of Gombe Kyaie which were exploited in the seventeenth century. Caltanisetta's Gomba a Kiaia is presumably identical with Gombe Kyaie, and from his text one infers that the old ironworkings lay on the Congo/Zaire River. The other two ironmining locales in Sundi mentioned by Caltanisetta remain unidentified.213 Closer to Mbanza Sundi, in Nkusu, modern geological prospecting noted rich mineralization comprising several copper ores and, in the upper Inkisi basin, native copper as well as copper and lead ores. Downstream on the Congo/Zaire River, east of its southern tributary Pioka, in Toni and Muka, deposits of lead and copper ores were found.214 No traces of old workings in this region were reported, however. Some copper-ore mining and working spots were noted farther west, in the region of Mongo Bangu.215 On the northern bank of the Congo/ Zaire River, in the Luozi region, where Sundi likely began the northward extension of its authority, geological reports pointed to several spots where metal ores were found, including the cupreous ores deposits in Nkuva.216 But again, to date no evidence of their past exploitation has been documented. Only farther north, near the southern slopes of the Niari-Congo mining area, is old copperworking corroborated. Archaeology yielded evidence of copper smelting at Misenga with dates ranging from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.217 In the late nineteenth century, copper ingots were traded through and into the territories on the lower slopes from the more elevated mining villages.218 The incidence of copper-smelting activities testifies that, in addition to ingots, copper ore was brought from the mines down to the villages on the slopes, and their inhabitants not only shared the profit from trade but also participated directly in the copper production. With its resources and old metalworkings, Sundi sustained its reputation as a centre of metallurgy in the Kongo confederation. In copper production, however, it could not rival any of the cupreous resources in the Niari-Congo watershed. The direction of the Sundi expansion to the northern bank, therefore, aimed at this metalliferous area. The Bembe and Niari-Congo copper deposits were likely the two most important producers of copper in the Kongoland. Sources mention other cupreous resources, but their identification is not straightforward. Sources from the eighteenth century onwards, as well as oral tradition, speak of copper mines in

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Mayombe.219 Since the 19205, geological prospecting has found some deposits of copper and lead ores not in Mayombe itself but in its vicinity. In the bend of the Niari, east of Mayombe, malachite, chrysocoll, and cerussite were traced.220 Evidence of past exploitation was, however, not found. Etymology supports the information on Mayombe metalworking. The term Mayombe points to a place with mines and a furnace or smelting lodge.221 However, in the forested strip running through the Kongoland from south-east to north-west, parallel with the coast, now conventionally called Mayombe, no ancient workings are known to date. The puzzle, it seems to me, may be explained in part by the dynamics of ecology. In my interpretation, the name is used by the people who live near but not in Mayombe to refer to a mountainous, heavily forested country, which is difficult to enter and impossible to move in and which abounds in the unknown and enigmatic. It is a denomination for a particular type of environment rather than a topographic name. Today it may refer to a different region from the one it identified in the past. The mining area in the Niari-Congo watershed is now in part denuded of trees, in part only sparsely wooded. However, there is evidence - discussed earlier - showing that it was heavily forested in the past. The surface relief of the massif and the resources, hills, and mountains of Mayombe are continuous in the Tchiloango basin. Also, both the mining area and Mayombe were forested in the past. Thus the designation 'Mayombe' might originally have included the mining area. Early European cartography still reflects the wider application of Mayombe. In the legend on the first map of the Niari basin, prepared in 1886-8 in connection with the anticipated railroad, Leon Jacob discussed the region of Boko Songo as part of Mayombe, although at the same time, he noted the current difference in the natural setting.222 Nevertheless, the claim that there was a wider application of the term Mayombe in the past does not rule out the incidence of other copper deposits in this forested hilly part of the Kongoland. This remains a possibility until more comprehensive geological research and at least a first prospecting are undertaken. Lack of evidence also inhibits plausible consideration of the puzzling case of the mines in the Bamba kingdom. European sources of the sixteenth century locate silver mines in Bamba, and a century later they mention the existence of Bamba gold mines, though with the suspicion that they may, in fact, be copper mines.223 Even in the late nineteenth century, copper mines are recalled as having existed in Bamba,224 but early-twentieth-century geological studies did not identify them. The misunderstanding may have been compounded by the outsiders' confusion of the Bembe copper mines in Mpemba with the assumed mines in Bamba. Until the mid-nineteenth century, Europeans were unclear about the exact

2O4 Crown and Ritual location of the Kongo copper mines and the state of their mineral wealth. In 1855, the Portuguese military occupied the Bembe mines after several centuries of trying to seize these copper resources. It also inaugurated the last three decades of the Kongo king's feeble diplomacy which inevitably led to the loss of Kongo independence. The event immediately preceding the military occupation was the treaty of 1845 between the Kongo king, Henrike, and the governor of Angola.225 Portuguese authorities committed themselves to provide a priest in residence for Sao Salvador and to repair one of the Sao Salvador churches to enable the priest to function in the Kongo capital. As a reward, Henrike opened the Ambriz chiefdom to Portuguese occupation; the Ambriz leader had reportedly refused to pay the Kongo king the obligatory tribute. The Portuguese had focused attention on this region for several decades and, in 1791, they built a fortress in Kinkolo at the Loje River.226 Ambriz had a port on the ocean, and the main road to the Bembe mines passed through the chiefdom. Immediately after the Portuguese government approved the occupation of Ambriz in 1853, Francisco Franque was appointed its new king; his past guaranteed a smooth cooperation with the occupants. The appointment of a king who came from as far away as Cabinda was as insensitive as it proved to be premature. The customary leader of Ambriz did not accept the occupation and resisted. Yet his resistance was overcome and, after occupying Ambriz in 1855, the Portuguese set out to occupy the Bembe mines. In 1855, Bembe was important to the Portuguese for other reasons besides its copper, which was of less interest to them in the nineteenth century than it had been in the sixteenth. When England prevented further Portuguese expansion northwards along the Atlantic coast in 1853, the process of Portuguese occupation stopped at Kisembo, north of Ambriz. Portugal had to wait until 1888, after the Act of the Berlin Conference, to annex Ambrizette, the more northerly port in the mouth of the Ambriz River.227 With futher coastal expansion blocked, Portugal concentrated on occupying the interior. After Portugal occupied Bembe in November 1855, resource-exploitation rights were granted to Francisco Antonio Flores, a former Brazilian slave dealer who sought to develop the resources in Angola. In January 1858, the mining rights were transferred to the London-based Western Africa Malachite Mines Company, which engaged J.J. Monteiro to organize the mining and trading of Bembe malachite.228 European Access to the Niari-Congo Copper Mines European access to the northern resource area in the Niari-Congo watershed was gained only in the 188os. In contrast to the situation in Bembe, the Euro-

Copper 205 pean invasion of the Niari-Congo mines was not the result of centuries-long planning, nor was it finally accomplished by military occupation. The vastness and polymorphous modulation of the region made it impossible for any invading garrison to impose its control. Indeed, both European geologists' reports and the accounts of settlers and old miners give the impression that the Europeans were never in full control of the northern resources. The area was occupied in stages which corresponded to efforts to find a short route from the coast to the Malebo/Stanley Pool rather than efforts to take possession of the mines, the locations of which were unknown to the early invaders. Stanley proceeded from the coast to the interior along the Congo/Zaire River, overcoming hardships in the cataract region where the English expedition directed by Captain J.K. Tuckey had failed in 1816. Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, who had been exploring the Ogooue basin since 1875, approached the Pool in 1880 as part of the French Mission de 1'Ouest africain. For his return to the coast, he chose a route which ran through the interior several dozen kilometres north of the Congo/Zaire River.229 His intention was to avoid the cataract region and find a plateau which would provide an easier access to the coast. Instead, much to his surprise, Brazza found himself not only in a more difficult environment on the slopes of high mountains, but also facing unprecedented hostility from the inhabitants. His route took him unintentionally along the southern edge of the mining area. The population was unaware of the incipient invasion of the country by Europeans and forcefully obstructed his passage. On his second trip, in 1882, Brazza approached the northern mines at their western end. He set out from the Upper Ogooue basin and, exploring the upper Buenza River, reached the southern bank of the Niari.230 There, he met with hostility from the Kamba population close to Madingu. Marching south through Boko Songo, he chose to change his route, as he had previously, and quickly leave the hostile area. Both these conflicts were generally downplayed in the reports on early colonialism because such hostilities contrasted with the depiction of Brazza's progress as a series of peaceful encounters with a welcoming population. Nevertheless, the first ministers of the church who went to establish missions to the Pool in 1881 took Stanley's road along the Congo/Zaire, avoiding, by a considerable distance, the worrisome area. The Reverend Holman Bentley, after the failure of his fellow Baptist missionaries to proceed from Sao Salvador to the Pool on the south bank in 1880, travelled on the north bank in early 1881. From Noki he went to Matadi, where he crossed the river and continued through Vivi, Inga, and Isangila to Manyanga and on to the valley of the Djoue.231 Pere Augouard left the Landana Catholic mission on a ship which brought him to Boma. His caravan marched to Vivi and then followed the road

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taken by the Reverend Bentley. Augouard made the same trip again in 1883 and 1885. On one of his early passages, however, he must have taken the route along the northern slopes of the mining region, as he makes later reference to the hardships which he suffered there.232 Between 1881 and 1885, me mountains of the Niari-Congo watershed were repeatedly visited by agents of the Belgian-run Association internationale du Congo, who, however, did not follow either of the routes taken by Brazza, but crossed the eastern and western ends of the area in a northerly-southerly direction.233 From the Congo/Zaire River they set out to explore the Niari basin, 'buying' - as they wrote - territories for the association and founding administrative posts, thereby complying with Stanley's instructions. In 1881, agent Van de Velde proceeded from Loango through Mayombe to the Niari basin where he made treaties with the local leaders. At the same time, Captain Elliott's expedition undertook a twenty-three-day march from Isangila through Boko Songo and along the Loudima River to the Niari, fighting its way through the region of the copper mines. Proceeding in 1882 from Manyanga, Captain Hanssens marched to the upper Niari, where he founded the post of Philippeville. His crossings of the eastern end of the southern slopes of the mountains apparently were not peaceful either. With his assistant, Rochart, he burnt a large number of villages on the Foulakari River. After the agent Lieutenant Harou 'bought' for the association the copper mines in the region of Boko Songo on the western end of the area, two posts were founded: Mboko was situated in the region itself, and Stephanieville was located at the confluence of the Loudima and the Niari. During the years of expansion of the association, the agents - still under the conditions of armed resistance by the local inhabitants - made the first direct observations of copperworking and copper mining. In 1883 Elliott saw large copper armlets and anklets produced in a smithy in Boko Songo, and Destrain, accompanied by the local chiefs, visited a large mining operation there in 1884. Almost all the mining area and its activities, however, remained unknown. In the negotiations at the conference in Berlin, 1'Association internationale du Congo had to abandon its interests in the resource area and in the whole Niari basin. In February 1885, me territory became a French colony with a boundary delimited in the south by the newly created 1'Etat independant du Congo (the Congo Free State). The issue of building a road from the coast to the Pool, where there was a growing French station and later the colony's capital, Brazzaville, gained top priority, since the old road on the northern bank of the Congo/Zaire River was now, for the most part, in the territory of the Free State. Apart from the road, there was an important new issue on the agenda of the French colony: mineral resources in the Niari region. However, although

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the two issues were interrelated, the opening and the security of the road were felt to be more pressing. Its first section, from the coast along the lower Niari (called Kwilu) and running through Mayombe, was already in use in the early i88os. The other part, to Brazzaville, was new, and its critical segment ran along the northern foot of the massif of the resource area, through 'the yet unknown country,' which was difficult and whose population resisted any passage.234 The worrisome territory was between Madingu and Comba, the two places marking the western and eastern extent of the mines. Captain Pleigneur, who in 1886-7 explored the possibility of the navigation of the Niari and who in 1885 was already working on the delimitation of the new colony, was assigned to prospect the region of the new caravan road. Arriving at Boko Songo, Pleigneur undertook the first inquiry and recorded observations on the copper mining and smelting operations.235 Joseph Cholet, head of the new Niari—Kwilu station and in charge of opening and operating the new road, visited the Boko Songo region in October 1887. On their journey to Boko Songo from Manyanga at the end of 1887, he and the Belgian geologist Edouard Dupont commented on the size and state of the indigenous mining in the region, providing the first outsiders' view of the operations; Cholet also made observations about copper extraction.236 Dupont's diary reveals that travel on the southern slopes of the mining area was also full of hardships.237 Hostility or at best unwillingness to cooperate with the Europeans, obstructions placed on the road, armed men, and villages whose inhabitants had left to go into hiding were all part of a stubborn protest against the unwanted and unprecedented presence of outsiders in the region of mines and in the country encircling it. Oral traditions which I recorded in the region between Madingu and Comba reflect the perception of the new forced passage as a pivotal event in history. In Comba, formerly Kingoy,238 informants spoke of the mfumu nsi Mutunkabi, whose clairvoyant slave predicted the arrival of Europeans. Mutunkabi punished him by death. Immediately after the slave's death the first Europeans arrived, bringing with them the Baloango. The tradition west of Comba has it that the first Europeans who came there were Mantinu, 'the one who marched a lot,' and Kinkufi, 'the short one.' 'Mantinu' is presumably Brazza. From the 18908 the consequences of the new colonial rule became even more oppressive for the mining area and its fringes. A decree of 1899 organized the research and exploitation of mines in French continental Africa. In the same year the Comite de 1'Afrique fran9aise was established to accumulate private funds to support semi-official missions of a 'geographical nature and political impact.'239 As a result, several expeditions were organized. Maistre, whose mission in 1892 touched upon the eastern end of the mining area, reported on the mining and smelting activities in Mindouli. Impetus to explore the resources

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more systematically came from the Societe d'etudes, established in Paris in 1893 and made up of businessmen and representatives of industry and the mining sector.240 As a consequence of these developments, the young engineer Maurice Barrat undertook a geological survey of the resource area and summarized it in a comprehensive report dated 19 October i894.241 m 1900, an abstract was published summing up the results of the exploration of the mineral wealth of the Niari-Congo mining area.242 It shows that most of the metalliferous region was already penetrated. Besides giving the gist of studies and reports which were presumably submitted to the French authorities but were not published, the abstract also reports on a number of ancient and current workings. Its author, Le Chatelier, was a ministerial official who visited the region in 1892 (marching to Brazzaville through the area of hostilities but returning via the safer road of the Congo Free State)243 and brought samples of ores to Paris for examination. Despite the efforts of missions which observed mining and smelting operations and prospected the potential of the resources in the mining area, the inhabitants of the mining and adjacent regions were apparently not ready to relinquish their rights to the territories. Since the i88os, Europeans saw the main obstacle to their penetration to be the populations on the fringes of the mining area, that is, the Babwende on the southern side and the Basundi on the northern. Explorers ascribed their unceasing difficulties to the wild nature of these peoples. Finally, a military expedition of 1897 was supposed to punish the rebellious Basundi and to neutralize the assumed organizer of alleged robberies on the new caravan road.244 The conflict had already started escalating by 1892. Although its participants promoted the justness of the French military attack, the cause of the crisis seems to have been the unreasonably heavy taxes levied in the area by France and also the impulsive temper of the agent, Laval, who administered the post in Comba.245 Laval was killed. Vadou, the agent sent to the scene, burnt a village in retaliation. The resolution of the crisis was stalled until July 1896, when a well-armed expedition led by Captain Marchand landed in Loango. The goal of the expedition, approved in late 1895 in France, was to extend the French presence in Africa and its route was to be through the upper Ubangi to the Nile, and back through Somalia.246 Upon landing in Loango, Marchand received an order from Dolisie, administrator in charge of Brazzaville, to pacify the caravan road to Brazzaville. Marchand died after two months' sojourn in Africa. Another member of the expedition, Colonel Baratier, carried out the order. He commanded the seven-month military operation and arrived in Brazzaville in April i897.247 The climax of the military action was the eviction of the mfumu nsi from the region of Comba.248 According to the oral tradition, which I recorded

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in the region, and according to Baratier's description of the action, the chief mabiala Manganga, persecuted by the soldiers, found refuge in a cave in the mountains. Oral tradition added that the mabiala chose for himself and his entourage the large cave in Kimbungu. Baratier described in greater detail the way in which he traced the mabiala, who stayed with his nephew in a cave.249 At the entrance to the cave were displayed 'fetishes' of wood, presumably the leader's protective minkisi. Baratier's troops blew up the entrance with explosives and asphyxiated the mabiala with smoke from burning grass. The dead mabiala was believed by the colonial authorities to be a Sundi leader, and his death was supposed to punish and pacify the Basundi. According to the oral tradition, however, mabiala Manganga was a Hangala leader. His capital was in Kinsika, two huts of which are now left west of Comba. Oral tradition perceives the mabiala'?, death as a conclusion of the resistance to the invasion. Not only the Europeans but also the coastal people, the Baloango, who acted as carriers for caravans, were responsible for the intrusion into an area where previously there had been no caravan road and no intruders. Informants consistently saw them as synonymous with the first tailors. The parallel with a skill introduced in the early period of colonialism dates the Baloango's first appearance at the northern fringes of the mining area. The dramatic story of the opening of the road at the dawn of colonialism indicates that its route for the period prior to the late nineteenth century has to be reconsidered. The historiography presupposes that the seventeenth-century caravan route from the Loango coast to the Pool went south of the Niari.250 In light of the oral tradition, however, it appears most unlikely that coastal peoples passed through the southern part of the Niari basin prior to the nineteenth century. The southern bank of the Niari does not appear to have been a viable trade route, nor is a route along the mining area historically justifiable. Furthermore, developments of the last two decades of the nineteenth century revealed that the mines and villages in the mountains were surrounded by a zone whose inhabitants protected the resources and their output and made the mines inaccessible to outsiders. Farther in the north the protective zone extended partly into the plains of Diangala, whose inhabitants were also, apparently, opposed to allowing outsiders to trespass. The early twentieth century saw the first colonial exploitation of the NiariCongo metalliferous resources. In 1905, extensive mining began in Mindouli, overshadowing the former importance of other sites in the area.251 In the early years the output was transported to the southern bank of the Congo/Zaire to be transshipped via the Belgian railroad from Matadi to the coast. Construction was also begun on the first segment of the French railroad connecting Mindouli with Brazzaville. The exploitation activities in Mindouli peaked between 1928 and 1934, when a comprehensive geological study of the deposits was also

2io Crown and Ritual undertaken. By 1935 me reserve of the mined copper ore was exhausted, and Mindouli became dormant. The central part of the mining area around Mfuati was first visited only in 1936 when the French started the exploitation of lead and zinc there. The Boko Songo region was not exploited during the colonial period. Informants asserted in the late 19708 that regular operations in the region were terminated some thirty to forty years ago. The southern Bembe malachite mines, abandoned in 1873 by Monteiro and his London-based company, were then continuously exploited by the Portuguese.252 Colonial activities persisted, though their titles changed several times. Concessionaires or the state also commissioned several geological studies. The first of them, done by the engineer Freire de Andrade in 1905, sought to resolve the problem of the costly transportation of the ore to the coast. The proposed railroad, however, never reached the old Bembe mines. e) Exchange Markets in Kongoland Among their neighbours, the Bakongo were renowned for the organization of their markets. Occurring on each day of the Kongo four-day week - each day in a different place of a particular region - the markets were under the jurisdiction of those local chiefs with an entitlement as market organizers. In some parts of the Kongoland, the traditions of the markets persisted into the late 19708. The date when they began is unknown. The development of the market as an institution was uneven in the various regions of the Kongoland. In the Bembe country, for instance, the markets originated only in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century.253 The markets were specialized because of the diversity of the environment and resources within the Kongo region.254 The articles available in the markets reflected both the specialities of the region and the demand for the commodity. Trade in Minerals Of the minerals traded, iron was the most commonly traded. Iron ore occurred in most of the Kongoland, as in other parts of black Africa. The incidence of copper and lead ores, however, was limited to only a few regions. The relative rarity of copper resources, coupled with the demand for copper and its high value in the Kongoland, stimulated the copper trade and helped ensure its effective and safe management.

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It was argued earlier that in the documentable past, the two major Kongo copper resource areas used different manufacturing processes and traded the copper in different forms. The southern Bembe area traded copper ore, while in the northern Niari-Congo area the ores were smelted in situ and copper was sent to be traded in the form of ingots. It is possible that the Bembe exportation of copper ore was a result of historical pressures coming from the Kongo capital. Mbanza Kongo was close to the resource area, and the Kongo kings were ambitious enough to wish to benefit from it. They did not own the copper mines; indeed, nobody did. They were unable to control the outcrop where the mines were located, either, as it was collectively shared by the miners and managed by the kin group of Matuta. However, if the quantity of copper sent to the Portuguese king, according to Afonso's claim of 1514, was at least close to accurate and not too untypical,255 the Kongo kings must have had abundant access to copper ingots. It seems that they controlled or exercised a considerable influence over the operations for extracting copper from the Bembe malachite, a control which they gained either through trade or through some arrangement based on the device muntu ni muntu governing access to mining. Missionaries reported in the second half of the seventeenth century that, in Mbanza Kongo, metallurgists worked at the royal court.256 Some of them might have smelted copper ore. With the Portuguese occupation in the middle of the nineteenth century the situation changed entirely. The direction of the trade with the Bembe malachite was diverted to the coast, and the interior became dependent upon the supply of copper ingots from the Boko Songo district.257 Forms of Currency and Copper Ingots Although the Kongo kings may have accumulated considerable wealth in the form of copper, they did not introduce copper ingots as the currency for general use within the confederation of Kongo kingdoms. Instead, they introduced and - despite hardships with their fisheries - retained the nzimbu as the confederation currency. Nzimbu is a small olive-shaped shell of the marine mollusc olivancillaria nana.25* Oliva shells were fished or collected for the Kongo kings at the Luanda of Cabo Island. The monopoly on these royal fisheries was threatened several times, mainly due to the military and political encounters of Mani Kongo with the Ngola and later also with the Portuguese-controlled colony of Angola. The weakness of the fisheries was their physical distance and detachment from Mbanza Kongo. The Kongo kings' choice of nzimbu instead of copper ingots as the confederation currency could not have been because the oliva shell came exclusively from Cabo Island. If the Cabo shells had been

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unique, the confederation money would have been free of risk or threat of an unlimited monopoly by Mani Kongo, unlike any currency made by human hand. But the oliva shell from Cabo Island does not differ at all from the oliva shells found at other Luanda islands and is only slightly different from those fished southwards.239 The reason, then, for not choosing copper ingots must have been different; one of them was likely the resistance by the kinship system, where the employment of copper as currency had deep historical roots. The smelters of the Niari-Congo mining area produced copper ingots which had varying lead content and were in the form of cylindrical bars in several sizes. The production of the small, cigarette-sized units of metallic copper and their wide distribution within and outside the Kongoland is well documented in the late nineteenth century. It was then, too, that several collections of these ingots originated, such as the one assembled by Dr Chavanne, others by the Heligoland Expedition, and those by Mikic, an agent of L'Association Internationale du Congo.260 Most of the cylinders found in the late nineteenth century are about 6 centimetres long and have a diameter of about 0.8 to i centimetre. They were cast of leaded copper and were products of smelters of the Boko Songo district. In Diangala, these bars were used as currency. It was reported in 1887 that six hundred of them were the market value of a male slave.26' Another type of copper ingot made in the eastern part of the Niari-Congo resource area was in the form of rings (Appendix Ib). (In the central part of the mining area the informants reported rings called bisoko, made of copper. They were also plain and, unlike the mafeeki of leaded copper, they were closed.) A generic colloquial name for the ring-shaped ingot is milunga. A distinction is made according to the colour of the metal from which the ingot is made: milunga ntemu is a copper ring, and milunga ndimba a ring of white metal. The metallurgists called one type of the ring mafeeki. The latter name comes presumably fromfeeka, 'simple'; these open rings were plain. Like the cylindrical bars, the rings were cast of either leaded copper or copper, in an open mould. They were traded and were sometimes used in this unadorned form, or were adorned by simple chased linear designs. Nubile young women, the tchikumbi, wore them when appearing before their future husbands. Ingots of copper were not the only units of exchange produced in the Boko Songo district. Weavers living and working in the villages of the region were producers of cloth, the currency of the kinship. The craft of weaving was not evenly distributed and widely spread over the Kongoland. It was concentrated in a few regions and practised only by male professionals who were members of kin groups entitled to perpetuate this craft. Its incidence in the Boko Songo district in the late nineteenth century indicates the intervention of one of the kingdoms, most likely of Sundi, in the western part of the mining area.262 The cloth

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used in most of the area was of either Teke or Loango origin and was bought at the markets of Diangala. The introduction of local production of cloth to Boko Songo challenged the exclusive position of the copper currency controlled by the kinship. European visitors in the late nineteenth century saw cylindrical bars at markets in the Kongoland and also reported their incidence elsewhere in Central Africa. By contrast, the other type of metallic copper unit - the bars with tapered ends, mildmbula - was not recorded. One of the bars with tapered ends which I collected comes from a kin group southwest of Mindouli, the other from the country of the Bakamba (Appendix Ib, nos. 54, 55). I also found several specimens in the National Museum in Kinkala. Seven bars now in the Ethnographical Museum in Goteborg were excavated by Andersson in the Kambaland. In August 1978,1 saw the largest number of mildmbula - several hundred of them - at Nkankata, Congo, in the store of the late prophet Malanda. During my field inquiry in northern and central Kongoland, informants often referred to milambula, explaining that they were part of the kin groups' heirlooms, bongo kanda. There, the bars stay concealed from outsiders, I was informed, controlled by the mfumu kanda and kept together with other components of the kin group's monetary treasure, bongo nzimu, in a safe place which is carefully avoided by other kin. In the exodus of the Bakongo from the Sao Salvador region beginning in 1957, many of these heirlooms were likely lost. The leaders buried the treasures in the ground of their nsi upon their departure, planning to retrieve them upon their return. In 1975, only a small number of emigrants returned home, many, including the chiefs, having died in the sleeping-sickness epidemics or otherwise. As a result, some heirlooms presumably stayed buried and unclaimed while some were sought but not found. Invariably, the mildmbula bars I was able to examine repeat the fishlike shape and are oval in centre cross-section, flattened towards both ends and rectangular in sections at both ends. Each had the flattened portions slightly twisted, each portion in a different direction. They were, however, uneven in length, with those I examined ranging from 14.5 to 22 centimetres. The two collected bars differ in weight, weighing 20.3 and 21.7 grams, respectively. Despite these differences, the informants claimed that the value of all mildmbula bars was equal. Also, several of them suggested - with varying degrees of clarity - that the unevenness in length and the resulting unevenness in weight reflected the bodily differences of their makers. The idea seems to me viable, as it is compatible with the principles applied in the visual arts; the building unit of most anthropomorphic objects draws its origin from the distances between significant spots on the human body or is derived otherwise from human anatomy, as, for example, with the size of the Lusunsi crown. Also, the sizes of the cylin-

214 Crown and Ritual drical bars of leaded copper were derived from parts of the body.263 The weight standards of the milambula bars do not appear to have been mathematically calculated. They do not conform to the Muslim weight system at all.264 The accurate weight (21.7 grams) of the one undamaged bar of the two collected is also far from both an ounce (27 grams) and its standardized fraction (three-quarters). The milambula bars do not conform to the Portuguese peso or the Dutch troy ounce either.265 Made of relatively pure copper, the milambula bars were produced by annealed hammering. The method is very rare in the production of the African copper currency. As far as it was known and is noted, the bulk of the currency is cast. Although the field inquiry indicated convincingly that the milambula belong to the Niari-Congo resource area, direct evidence allowing us to pinpoint either their place of origin or their makers is unavailable. The latenineteenth-century record by Maistre states that small bars of copper were made with a hammer on an anvil in Mindouli.266 But the record is neither explicit nor accurate. In any case, the working method described indicates the work of a smith rather than a smelter. Extracted liquefied metal coming from the smelt can be shaped much more easily and quickly by casting. Smiths were presumably also involved in the production of other copper currency. Copper rings traded at the coast to Europeans were much larger and consequently much heavier than the plain armlets mafeeki and bisoko. At the Loango coast in the early seventeenth century, Europeans bought copper rings ranging in weight from almost three-quarters of a kilogram to almost seven kilograms.267 The oral tradition of the northern mining area does not speak of such large ingots, nor does material evidence suggest their production in the mining area. Other Metal Objects of Exchange As well as ingots of copper - either leaded or relatively pure - the smelters cast lead ingots. This production was still taking place in 1978. A standard ingot was a sphere cast in an open wet sand mould made by impressing either a whole fruit, nsakala, or only its half. The ingot is still called yela.26* Ingots are traded in three different shapes or sizes: a sphere, half a sphere, and a smaller segment of a sphere. The informants called them kikumi, kitamu, and meya. In 1978, kitamu had a value of fifty centimes. Customary Kongo standardized metal objects of exchange were also made of iron. Produced by blacksmiths, they had several shapes and sizes. There is no documented evidence that the lozenge-shaped ingots kept in the Lusunsi shrine were used in the Kongoland; the shrine is their only known incidence to date.

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Iron bars were in use.269 Until the twentieth century, however, ingots in the shape of a hoe were the most common.270 Marriage payments were made in hoes: in Soyo in the late seventeenth century, for instance, the groom had to fetch ten hoes.271 Like a groom in marriage, the pretender to the leadership had to pay a tribute in hoes upon his investiture. Mani Soyo was, at the turn of the eighteenth century, obliged to pay a tribute to Mani Kongo. In recognition of the derivation of his authority from the authority of the Kongo king, the Soyo candidate paid him one hundred hoes when his residence was built.272 Comparison ofNiari-Congo Ingots with Shaba Ingots When compared with examples from Central Africa, the Kongo copper ingots, as yet unnoted by researchers examining the currency of this part of Africa, constitute a distinct cluster of artifacts quite separate from the standardized copper units of exchange produced in the Copperbelt, the large copper-bearing area in the south-east.273 The Niari-Congo cigarette-shaped bars cast of leaded copper are the counterpart in their area of the Copperbelt's X-shaped and H-shaped ingots which were cast from relatively pure copper and produced in several sizes. The Kongo milambula bars with tapered ends and hammered out of relatively pure copper are unparalleled in Central Africa to date, in both their shape and method of manufacture. By the same token, the drawn wire made in the Copperbelt and used in exchange has no equivalent among the Kongo ingots. Only cast rings of a smaller size were produced both in the Niari-Congo mining region and in the Copperbelt. Large and heavy rings made in the Kongoland and circulated in the Kongo northern coastal trade with Europeans in the seventeenth century are analogous to the large X-shaped crosses from the Copperbelt which reached the coast of Angola in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century to be traded to Europeans. The lead currency produced by the smelters in the Niari-Congo watershed has no parallel in Central African currency so far as we know to date. The incidence of gold and silver money reportedly used in lateseventeenth-century Soyo274 remains unsupported by material evidence; it may be a reference to pieces of imported currency. By contrast, in the gold-rich part of the south-eastern metallurgic area, gold was exported for most of the first millennium A.D. but in what form or size is not known. Distribution of Ingots Ingots of copper and copper alloys produced in Central Africa were widely distributed over this entire part of the subcontinent. It seems that around each resource area a network of trading arrangements developed. Excavated, col-

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lected, or reported artifacts indicate that both the Niari-Congo mining district and the Copperbelt supplied their respective areas, and that between the areas there was not much overlap. Even in the late eighteenth and the nineteenth century, when the caravans from the Atlantic reached the copperworking regions of the south-east and trade brought copper ingots from the Copperbelt west to the Atlantic coast, the copper-supplying regions within Central Africa seem to have remained distinct. Known and recorded artifacts of the large territory in the north-west as far as Ba lolo [?] supplied by ingots from Boko Songo do not include Copperbelt material.275 And the artifacts of the large territory in the south-east, east, and south-west as far as the Chokweland involve copper crosses and H-shaped ingots as well as drawn wire but no objects suggesting contact with the Niari-Congo copperworks.276 The copper trade was apparently bound by the same logic as other historicalcultural phenomena and did not develop into a free commercial competition. The region where the spheres of Niari-Congo and Copperbelt copperworking met was Kasai. At the end of the nineteenth century, crosses from the Copperbelt and bars from Boko Songo were both available at the Kasai market.277 The Bakuba also imported drawn wire from the south-east. Its use in artifacts shows that art works will not help to resolve the issue of the supplier. Kuba artifacts, such as the handles of ceremonial knives, make evident that the Kuba artists adapted the imported drawn wire in a highly original way. The handles display a technique reminiscent of their finest accomplishments of embroidery. Kuba employment of drawn wire displays no trace of the technology used in its area of origin. Whatever the situation was in Kasai, the lack of overlap between the two resources and their trading network seems to be typical. Imported Metal from Europe From Europe, imported metal ingots and artifacts were distributed over all of Central Africa. Probably the greatest quantity were imported units of exchange of pressed brass. No important trading activity ever resulted from the Portuguese interest in getting copper from the Copperbelt overland to Angola. The caravans of pombeiros first noted the Lunda copper mines in the early nineteenth century, and the governors of Angola encouraged the arrival of Lunda caravans to the Angolan coast, expecting an influx of copper ingots.278 Although the caravans in the 18508 brought large crosses to Benguela from the Copperbelt, the Portuguese expectations of a lucrative trade were not realized. The U-shaped strips with round cross-section (Appendix Ib, no. 58; Appendix Illb) were also used as currency at the end of the nineteenth century in the Kongoland, as well as farther inland along the Congo/Zaire River.279 They are

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also found in the Copperbelt area. Their Kongo name is lengela. The other, more widespread name, mitako (singular: lutaku in Lingala), was used mainly in the late-nineteenth-century interior trade with Europeans.280 This term does not, however, denote specifically a unit made from a strip or wire; it was also used for brass bar currency.281 Metals were exempt from the prohibition on imported goods imposed upon some leaders. The king of Kwakongo, for instance, was not allowed to possess imported objects apart from those made of metal.282 Weapons, knives, and brass manillas were the most common import and were widely distributed as items of exchange. Among the imported metal objects, the Bakongo favoured European cannon. There is no evidence that they were used as exchange items; rather, they were kept as a hoard of metal. Cannon were brought from Dutch and other European ships, and the most powerful leaders had them in their residences. The eighteenth-century sources may exaggerate in attributing to the king of Ngoyo a collection of fifty cannon, but a reference to seven cannon exhibited at the square of the Ngoyo capital may hold some truth.283 Cannon were also kept in the Soyo capital where, at the end of the nineteenth century, they were situated at the entrance to the Catholic mission.284 Cannon were not only purchased by royalty but also were preserved in the capitals of such powerful chiefs as Lamba Nteye. Some of the cannon were mixed with gravegoods and survived in the old cemeteries until they were removed by collectors during the last few decades.285 Market Trade in Metal The exchange of copper ingots took place in the market. According to records of the nineteenth century, the principal copper market of the southern Kongoland was the town of Quiballa, situated approximately half-way between the Bembe mines and the coast. This market was attended by a caravan which brought Bembe malachite there for sale.286 The northern resource area supplied several markets. One of them was organized on one day of the week directly on the plain of Boko Songo. The first European visitors to the region in the i88os witnessed the market in full swing.28"7 In addition to food, one found tukula (the red powder for body cosmetics), copper and lead ingots, fibre cloth, mats, and baskets being traded there. It was not unusual to find metal at the market near the resource. At the Zombo plateau, for instance, iron strips were also available.288 The market at Boko Songo apparently attracted many clients. The Europeans on their travels around the region in the late nineteenth century met crowds returning from Boko Songo with merchandise. Some clients seem to have come from far away:

218 Crown and Ritual in the seventeenth century some came from as far as Luanda to buy copper at the Boko Songo market.289 Access to the Boko Songo market was limited to one day of the week and likely to the season when copper ingots were made, that is, to the period of drizzles and light rains. It was also in this season that the first European explorers saw the market operating. It is questionable whether the Boko Songo market was open to all clients without discrimination. The regions of the Kongoland were linked by a network of agreements which regulated trade contacts and the traffic on the roads. In Diangala, the markets situated along the northern trade route leading inland from the coast were attended by peoples from Loango. The Kunyi and Kamba informants asserted that the Baloango came to trade in Diangala long before the arrival of Europeans and that they bought copper and lead in exchange for salt, cloth, and European merchandise. In the mining area and its immediate neighbourhood, by contrast, peoples from the Loango area appeared only in the modern period, according to oral tradition. The Baloango were the first tailors,' the Dondo and Hangala informants said, to indicate that the inhabitants of the Loango kingdom reached the mining area only upon the arrival of the Europeans. The peoples of Mayombe did not come to Diangala to trade, informants agreed. They came only as far as the market at Loudima, according to the Kunyi tradition. It may not have been the only market at the fringe of the forest accessible to the Bayombe and others of the Mayombe forest. Several east-west roads crossed Mayombe and were still well maintained in the late i88os when Jacob explored them in his search for a convenient route for the future railroad.290 At their western ends were the markets which the Kunyi informants called kula Mayombe, markets outside the forest. However, copper may have been available at all of them. There were markets of various levels and they were specialized. Only some markets offered metal ingots; some specialized in other valuable merchandise. For instance, in the late nineteenth century, an important market for ivory was in Siaka.291 Markets to which lead ingots were delivered on four different days of the week were cited by the leader of the central part of the Niari-Congo mining area, mfumu nsi Matola (Jean) and the chiefs of the local kin groups: Bukonzo bwa Nsuku in the Kambaland, Nkoy Makela, south of the Congo/ Zaire River, Mukila in Kimbenza, and Mpika in Mulonga Mbanga.292 The delivery of copper ingots to a market does not seem to have required substantial manpower or elaborate organization. Two men were able to handle the load.293 Smiths Among the clients interested in copper ingots, the foremost were the smiths. No distinction seems to have existed between a Kongo blacksmith and a Kongo met-

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alsmith, at least in the period and in the regions documented by written sources. The blacksmith worked not only in iron but also in copper and copper alloys. However, the incidence in other regions of several names for the blacksmith is suggestive of some specialization in the past. Most commonly, the blacksmith is called ngangula. The denomination fuzi has also been recorded in the last hundred years in north-west Kongoland.294 It is, however, a more explicit version of this denomination, mufudi bisengu, which I noted in the north and which indicates some division of labour as it states the smith's engagement with iron.295 Blacksmiths were also residents of the northern mining area. In 1978,1 met only two blacksmiths, but the oral tradition was eloquent about their presence in the past. In Mindouli, the credit for the beginning of smithing is given to the Bateke, who were later evicted from the region. Mbemba (Gabriel), the only blacksmith working in Mindouli in 1978, was Hangala. According to his rendition of the tradition, the Bahangala have been practising smithing in this region for generations. The Bateke, who were the first to have the skill of smithing, taught them. No Teke smiths were now in the region, all of them having been ousted a long time ago, Mbemba informed me. In the central part of the mining area, informants made little reference to the Teke smithing, and in the west, they stated explicitly that the Bateke were not in their region. But in all districts of the resource area, the tradition unanimously and emphatically testified to the old smiths' outside provenance and their later eviction. Although a comprehensive critical evaluation of the information on the early history of smithing in the Niari-Congo metalliferous area requires further fieldwork, it is possible to draw some conclusions and advance some hypotheses. The most weighty corollary concerns the domination of the mining area. There is no support in the oral tradition for the opinion currently held by the authorities that the Bateke dominated the area in the past. There is no inside evidence to attest that prior to the mid-seventeenth century the mining in the area was in Teke hands, or that the area was part of the Teke kingdom. The early blacksmiths residing in the east of the area were apparently of Teke origin. Smiths of a different provenance worked in the west. One possible hypothesis is that they were members of the buwandji brotherhood who expanded over Loango and inland from the nucleus at the coast in Ngoyo. Throughout this area the smiths were outsiders, but their status was different from that of slaves. Only in Diangala does a Muteke connote slave. The power of the professional brotherhoods and their specialized skill provided the blacksmiths with a privileged position. But none of it changed their alien status. By virtue of his profession, the smith was linked with trade, and his lifestyle was peripatetic because of the physical distance between the source of the ore and the client for his metal objects. The smith often purchased the raw material

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for his work through trade. And it was also through trade that his products were distributed over a shorter or longer distance and were then transformed into tools with distinct functions in various social activities. Due to the blacksmiths' monopoly of tool making, other people were dependent on them and their special types of product, to the benefit of the smiths in trade transactions. The smiths of the Kongoland are reputed to have been wealthy. The blacksmith in the Kongoland was associated with an undivided space. The space divided by kin challenged the hegemonic impact of the brotherhood by imposing a control upon their movements from one existential space into another. To make it clear, the tradition emphatically refers to the otherness of the blacksmiths and describes them as subjects of eviction. The beginning of smithing in the Kongoland is, for instance, often attributed to men with a fair complexion. Despite the emphasis on the otherness of the blacksmith, however, he was still regarded as a descendant of the Great Kongo, and smithing was apparently a privilege of certain Kongo kin groups. The praise name ofNanga, for example, lauds them as people who twist iron bars and bite iron into pieces.296 How does one interpret the eviction of the early blacksmiths from the northern resource area? As a metaphor signalling their status vis-d-vis the kin groups or a real historical event? A tradition recorded in the vicinity of the mining regions has it that the first ironworkers were the Bavili,297 who produced iron weapons and other iron objects. The people of Sundi, the tradition goes on, expelled the Vili smiths, taking from them their iron products. The way this tradition qualifies the recurrent motif of eviction is suggestive of a historical event. The gradual Sundi expansion through the resource area may have brought an end to the residence of the brotherhoods of Teke smiths in the east and that of the coastal blacksmiths in the west. With the current knowledge of the oral tradition and in the absence of a comprehensive archaeological investigation of the area, it would be too risky to attempt a more accurate absolute dating.298 Also, other European explorers from the turn of the century repeat it. However, these early European records on the ethnic composition of the population in the mining regions have to be regarded very sceptically, since, for example, the French conducted a military expedition against what they believed was a Sundi leader when he was, in fact, a Muhangala. As to the west, internal evidence does not support the view that the Bavili still worked in the mining area at the beginning of the twentieth century.299 Oral tradition repeatedly gave credit to the early blacksmiths residing in the resource area for supplying the population with iron products, including some of the mining tools. At the same time, informants were explicit in excluding the smiths from participation in the copper production. The blacksmiths who lived and worked in the regions of copper resources may have taken part in the min-

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ing of non-ferrous ores, as all residents did. Indeed, it seems plausible that the device muntu ni muntu, which is central to mining policy, has its historical roots in the period when the local population coexisted with the blacksmiths residing in the area. There is no internal evidence, however, to confirm the view of some historians that the blacksmiths, whether coastal or Teke, whether settled in the area or only coming in for a season, were in control of the copper-mining operations.300 A control of resources by outsiders, whether permanent settlers in a region or only visitors to it, would contradict the very principles ruling the life of the Kongo society and its basic functions. The blacksmiths did not dominate the resource area, nor were they masters of the mining rights. Neither did they smelt the mined non-ferrous ores. The process of extracting copper and lead from the ores was undertaken by metallurgists who were members of the local kin groups, and the operation itself was the apotheosis of the kinship system and its authority. The incantations sung by the smelters during its critical segments prove it. It was the manufacture of copper artifacts with which the blacksmiths were involved. In the history of African metallurgy, blacksmiths often worked the metal which they did not themselves extract. The division of labour had various modalities. In Zanaga, north of the Kongoland, for instance, two different types of iron processing were noted. Either the Kota blacksmiths smelted and worked iron from the locally mined ore, or the smelting was done by the miners.301 In other cultures, such as the East African Mbeere, the mining or collecting of iron ore was not a professional occupation, but its smelting was part of the blacksmith's profession.302 The blacksmiths working the non-ferrous metals from the northern Kongo resources participated in trade rather than in the production of copper and lead. In the seventeenth century, European merchants on the north-western coast of the Kongoland observed that, in the fall, many smiths of various countries went inland to work copper and returned to the coast in May.303 Dapper, who made this observation, has it that in Sundi the smiths let their people exploit copper in the mines and then smelted it.3°4 The timing of the blacksmiths' travels to Sundi and back convincingly corroborates their occupation inland. They set out on the journey in the autumn, with the onset of the drizzles, and spent the whole rainy season in the interior. During this period, the exploitation of ore was not feasible in the area between Mindouli and Boko Songo because the open mining pits were flooded. It was, however, precisely the season when copper ingots were available and reached the markets. The blacksmiths coming from various countries were, therefore, able to settle down in the vicinity of the markets in temporary villages or camps and work copper into artifacts.305 In part, ingots produced in the Niari-Congo mining area were reshaped by the blacksmiths working in the vicinity of those markets closest to the

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resources. In part, ingots reached more distant markets. The bars or rings from Boko Songo, for instance, were seen or collected in the late nineteenth century at the coast in Loango and Ngoyo as well as at the markets east of Sao Salvador at the Zombo plateau.306 Finally, some of the copper and leaded-copper ingots were traded directly at the Boko Songo market. Researchers often presuppose that the Niari-Congo resource area supplied copper to the cultures of the middle and upper Ogooue, where the sheeted reliquaries were produced. It is likely but, regrettably, the proof, whether historical or technical, is yet to be established. It is not clear to what extent the Bembe mines covered the needs of the southern Kongoland. In the late nineteenth century, ingots from Boko Songo may have been the only ones in the market south of the Congo/Zaire River. The source of the copper traded to Europeans in the seventeenth century in Soyo and its port, Mpinda, is not clear.307 But historical evidence corroborates that copper came to Luanda from the Niari-Congo watershed.308 Trade in Leaded Copper Armlets In the seventeenth century and likely also later, European sources mention that armlets made of copper from Boko Songo were manufactured in Luanda309 and were traded by the Portuguese as far as Rio del Rey. Moreover, the seventeenthcentury sources say that copper was bought in Boko Songo by Luanda traders. The Luanda trade armlets were known as 'grey'; the grey colour and poor reputation of their copper undoubtedly resulted from their high lead content. Elemental analyses undertaken by various students of West African metallurgy proved that the incidence of lead is typical for copper rings traded along the West African coast in the past centuries and that its content was often as high as 25 per cent.310 By implication, this finding applies also to West African artifacts such as the Benin sculptures made of trade ingots. Compared with the lead content in copper from which art works in the Kongoland were manufactured (Appendix III), the proportion of lead in the copper worked in West Africa is significantly higher. This could be explained by a twofold supply of leaded copper from Boko Songo; that low-lead copper covered domestic needs, supplying the markets of the Kongoland, does not exclude the possibility that high-lead copper may have been sold to the merchants from Luanda for the rings used in the long-distance trade. Links with West Africa To ascertain whether the Boko Songo leaded copper can be traced in the material of the rings traded in West Africa and in the Benin sculpture, we carried out

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a comparative study of isotopic ratios.3" It did not, however, produce positive results; none of the studied examples points convincingly to the Niari-Congo resources. At the same time, their isotopic ratios do not correspond to any other known and studied resources either.312 It is, therefore, possible to assume that in the manufacture of rings for the long-distance trade, metals from several sources were mixed, modifying the isotopic ratio and concealing the traces of individual sources. Until further definitive information becomes available, we cannot exclude the possibility that the manufacture of rings in Luanda used copper and leaded copper of multiple provenance. From historical evidence, however, we do know that one of the sources was Boko Songo ingots. Materials which have a comparable isotope ratio span several centuries, indicating either that the source and the proportions did not change or that for several centuries the art works were made from a hoard of manillas accumulated during one short period of time. Information is as yet unavailable about the distribution of the milambula currency through trade. All the records on these copper sticks corroborate their close ties with the Kongo kinship. But their form reveals a number of analogues and correspondences which go far beyond the limited world of the Kongoland, to cover the whole field of ancient metallurgy. The fishlike shape and the twist at the bars' ends are strongly reminiscent of the form of large iron ingots found in the treasuries of the Assyrian kings and in the hoards of the La Tene period excavated in several places in Central Europe. The African context reveals further correspondences. The fishlike iron bars, some thirty-five centimetres long, which were used on the middle Benue River by the Batta and Mumuye in marital settlements, are very close in shape,313 except that the Benue bars are more twisted at the ends. The shape also recalls the iron-lozenge hammers in the Lusunsi shrine. Among the copper currency, the ingots found at Igbo Isaiah are closely analogous. They are larger than the milambula bars, like all other comparable ingots. The small size and low weight of both the milambula bars and the Boko Songo ingots indicate that they were not made to be distributed through the Atlantic trade. Trade copper at the coast and along the shores of West Africa involved heavier rings of various sizes and shapes. Rings of a special type circulated in the Atlantic trade were copper and brass open armlets with expanded ends, called manillas. The European trade brought many kinds and sizes of them, and distributed manillas of various origins, both European and African. As late as the early twentieth century, for instance, seven types of manilla of different values were used in the Niger Delta.314 Open rings with expanded ends were not, however, introduced as a currency into the African metal trade by the Europeans. The incidence of this type of ingot in the inventory of the Igbo Ukwu finds shows that they were used before European

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trade started to dominate the trade along African shores. Elemental analyses of a considerable number of manillas identified their material as an impure copper with a high lead content. The poor quality of their copper led to the suggestion that trade manillas had been used only as currency but not as a raw material for the casting of metal art works. Even those sculptures whose cuprous alloy displays a high lead content, such as the works of the Lower Niger culture, were made of much purer copper.315 Quite different from the trade manillas are the open armlets with expanded ends found at Igbo Isaiah. The quality of their copper is considerably better.316 Four of them are of a reasonably pure copper, and two of them are of leaded copper based on copper of high purity. The African pre-European trade apparently distributed the manilla-type currency made of high quality copper, in contrast to the manillas traded by the Europeans. Of comparable purity is the copper of an open armlet with expanded ends, made of leaded copper and collected prior to 1891 in Loango (Appendix Ib, no. 7). By its minor impurities, this copper compares well with the copper used for the repair of the Lusunsi basket. The relative purity of the copper in the Loango armlet suggests that the African long-distance trade with manilla-type currency continued even after Europeans became the principal traders of copper along the African coast. Thus, manillas of poor-quality copper and open armlets with expanded ends made of good-quality copper of African origin were distributed simultaneously. Established trade contacts between Central Africa and the West African coast apparently existed despite the large forested space dividing the two parts of the subcontinent. One of the five types of manilla used by the middle of the nineteenth century between the Niger Delta and Cross River was called 'Kongo zingolo.'317 Furthermore, this established trade connection did not follow a route through the forest; it avoided the forest and used the ocean. As late as the end of the nineteenth century, the Mpongwe perpetuated a long-distance trade along the Guinea coast, navigating special large canoes.318 Part of the coast of the north-western Kongoland had been feared by the Bakongo because of the kalema, eruption activity under the water. They did not, therefore, navigate along this part of the coast. The copper and leaded copper of the Niari-Congo resources could have been traded through the markets and then reworked by smiths into open armlets with expanded ends and into other forms of trade ingots. In these forms the copper could have travelled inland, eventually reaching the forested northern coast of the Ogooue basin.

6

Conclusions COLLEEN E. KRIGER

Zdenka Volavka did not live long enough to write a concluding chapter. One was planned, according to her preliminary outlines, but no early draft for that chapter was found among her papers. The task of writing the conclusions of someone else's research work is not an easy one, but it is especially necessary here because of the unusual organizational structure of this book, and its serious contributions to several different areas of Africanist scholarship. What I shall provide here are some final summary statements outlining and explaining the conceptualization, presentation, and major findings of Dr Volavka's research project as I have understood them. Crown and Ritual can be seen as a summation of her life's work and vocation, in that it elucidates and pays homage to the primacy of art objects in human societies and the complex webs of historical conditions from which art can arise. But as she herself pointed out again and again, one faces special research problems when that art is African. In many cases, one must not only identify and document the art objects and try to retrieve facets of their histories, but one must also do another job, that of laying out the historical groundwork, that is, piecing together histories of the societies and institutions within which that art was created and used. Hence the researcher must wear two hats, one of an art historian and one of a historian. In this particular Central African case, a religious shrine in the kingdom of Ngoyo, Volavka meticulously addresses the question: Just what are the art objects? Central to her argument is an appreciation of the Lusunsi shrine as both a dynamic and a material phenomenon, that is, as a part of the royal investiture ritual and as a constellation of objects through which the legitimation of political office was remembered and enacted. Of the material objects, some were selections from the natural world, others were man-made, and some of those were works of art. Not all of the objects, as far as is known, survived to the

226 Crown and Ritual present day. Volavka takes special care above all to render for us the Lusunsi shrine as an assemblage of various metaphysical and physical components which, in their entirety, once formed an important locus where religious and political leaders came together to mediate social continuity and change in this part of West Central Africa. A fundamental concern at the outset was to reassemble the shrine, by gathering the elements together and attempting to discern what might have been the coherence of their interrelationships. From that beginning, it would then be possible to probe the logic of the shrine's existence. Characteristically sceptical of received wisdom, Volavka suspended assumptions about what is 'art,' what is 'craft,' or what is a 'tool,' considering such assumptions obstacles rather than aids to the understanding of historical and artistic values, especially for areas outside Western traditions. The major argument here is that the shrine objects were royal insignia, and as such they bore deep and specifically historical significances. There can be no doubt that these were indeed royal insignia and that they served in investiture ceremonies of Ngoyo leaders over a long time of political development and change. This is amply demonstrated by the corroborating evidence Volavka marshals from material, written, and oral sources. By the time we reach her fourth section, 'Copper,' we have followed many interrelated discussions that together illuminate the cultural resonances, temporal dimensions, and religious implications of the shrine assemblage. The portable objects, in particular the copper dome or cap, clearly merit the rigorous technical analyses that the author initiated. What might appear at first to some readers as a simple question of the objects' provenance and methods of manufacture becomes something much greater — a history of metalworking in greater Kongo which, in turn, presents us with what Volavka considered to be the essence and source of the objects' significances. In aiming 'to reach and explore comprehensively all levels of the African work of art,' one must trace each of its multiple facets back into each of the multiple segments of the society whence it came. For while, as the author states, the Lusunsi insignia are not representational art objects but represent only themselves, they do evoke in form and invoke through ritual use the time, place, and vehicles of Ngoyo origins. Structurally, this book is unconventional, especially as a work of history, in that it follows neither an uninterrupted linear progression of the argument nor a chronological narrative form. It is made up of four major sections, each treating one aspect of the Lusunsi shrine. Given Volavka's lifelong commitment to the study of sculpture, it seems likely that she intended this book to be experienced as one experiences a three-dimensional work of art: by adopting several strategically selected viewpoints which, though taken in succession, are not understood as a progression but must be recalled all at once and comprehended

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simultaneously. She presents four frontal views of the shrine, each view and the section that describes it seemingly self-contained. Nevertheless, it is possible to follow various lines of logic in the argument from one section into any of the others. This particular kind of complexity in the book's structure, I believe, is meant to convey to the reader a sense of the temporal and spatial complexity of the Lusunsi shrine itself. In the first section, 'The Insignia,' Volavka focuses on describing, analysing, and interpreting the formal features of some of the shrine insignia - the set of objects now housed in the Musee de l'Homme. But first she reconnects them to their proper historical setting. Her discussion begins with the story of when, how, and by whom these objects were removed from the Lusunsi shrine itself, an event which resulted in a small but crucially important body of written descriptions and accounts. These documents she juxtaposes with an account of 'Ngoyo regalia,' published by Bastian, taking her first step towards establishing the pre-eminence of the Lusunsi shrine among the sites where royal investiture took place. She then identifies and analyses each object in the museum set, and goes on to establish their utilitarian and symbolic uses. In each case, the particularly resonant cultural meanings and regional historical associations of the object come to light. Out of these analyses, two clusters of objects emerge, one consisting of objects symbolizing aspects of leadership authority, the other consisting of various metalworking tools. By comparative analyses, Volavka shows that objects in the former cluster were linked with positions at various levels of government, a finding that contributes to her argument that the shrine assemblage included insignia of investiture for chiefship first, and only later for kingship. She also identifies 'male' and 'female' features of certain objects, suggesting that marriage served as a metaphor for the consummation of the political process in the leader's investiture ceremony.1 The metalworking tools in the other cluster of objects were also integral to the ceremony, but in a different way. Volavka interprets them as carriers of historical references, demonstrating the importance of metalworking to the creators of the shrine and referring to its priest as the investor of leaders. Already in this first section we begin to perceive why these specific objects coexisted, and why each one in particular was selected or created to be part of the shrine assemblage. She completes her analyses of the material components of the assemblage in the second section, 'The Shrine,' which centres on the non-transportable objects and the site of the shrine itself. The main aims of this section, however, are to situate the shrine more firmly in time and to elaborate further on its significance to the political process of legitimizing a newly selected leader. These two issues are clearly interrelated, but our lack of absolute dates makes their resolution problematic. Nevertheless, Volavka persists, constructing a relative chronology

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instead. Already previewed in her first section, where the contrasting caps of chiefdom and kingship were discussed, this relative chronology is developed here primarily around various components of the biala, or the entire investiture process. The religious significance of the Lusunsi shrine, as evidenced by the sacred formal and material properties of its major elements, indicates its inception during an era preceding the institution of kingship. Here Volavka eschews a simple scheme of political evolution in favour of a hypothesis that political centralization occurred prior to kingship in the form of a polity founded and ruled by blacksmiths. She argues that regardless of whether the shrine was already active then, the metalworking symbolism identifies it as a priestly smithy, and as such, a potent reference to that earlier time. Hence, the Lusunsi priest was not necessarily himself a blacksmith by profession, but was the maker of leaders through a final consecration ceremony of symbolic metalworking activities. Again, it is before and not after the onset of kingship in Ngoyo that we may locate the historical roots of the Lusunsi shrine, and they, in turn, justify the visual character of the Lusunsi assemblage and its association with metalworking. Her third section, The Sacred,' adds a further dimension to the cultural meanings and values of the objects, while also elucidating the religious and philosophical principles embodied by the shrine and its constituent elements. According to Volavka, these principles were drawn from and operated in social and metaphysical space, as expressed most cogently by the divine genealogy. She reconstructs the symbol of this divine genealogy, the number three, and takes the reader through its manifestations in art, myth, and social behaviour. The three figures of brother, sister, and maternal uncle are shown to be at the core of the Ngoyo code, which stressed the importance of the descent group in perpetuating society. In linking the Lusunsi shrine and its priest to the protection of the descent group, Volavka also links the religious ideas embodied by the shrine regalia to the more profane considerations of society at large. These art objects, Volavka argues, were reminders of associations with God, and, in the religious hierarchy of art objects, the Lusunsi insignia were at the highest level. Their divine attributes relate to society and politics, that is, to leadership authority, but not to any individual political leader. It was the blacksmith/priest of Lusunsi who was closer to the divine and therefore served as the investor of divine sanction. Volavka concludes this section by proposing that Mboma and Ngoyo were related religious centres that preceded the prominence of Mbanza Kongo/Sao Salvador, the capital of the Kongo kingdom. This last point lends additional support to her relative chronology, which places the founding of the Lusunsi shrine during an era prior to Ngoyo and Kongo kingship. Her fourth section, 'Copper,' might have been subtitled The Profane,' for in

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it Volavka focuses on the material properties of the insignia. She takes up and pursues at great length some of the questions raised in the first section about the differences in formal features among elements of the insignia. Starting with a thorough evaluation of the objects' physical condition, she infers that the place of their manufacture was not the same as the place of their use. More importantly, she establishes the unusual and impressive mode of manufacture of the copper objects - by smithing, that is, the hammering out of the copper into narrow strips, and then the working of the strips, by either weaving or coiling, into the various three-dimensional forms. She also initiated an array of laboratory analyses, probing into the metallurgical processes of copper and lead smelting, and pursuing questions about the sources of metals used in the manufacture of the insignia. Her results strongly suggest that at least some of them came from the local Mindouli-Boko Songo resource areas of the Niari basin, about 200 kilometres east of Mbanza Ngoyo. Supporting evidence from oral traditions and from tangible evidence of iron, copper, and lead exploitation in the resource areas leads her into questions about control over mining and where and when smelting was carried out. She discerns clear rules concerning access to the mineral resources, granted by the local kin group, thus challenging previously held assumptions that the Niari mines had been controlled entirely by Tio (Teke) and Kongo kings. Her discussion of metalworking specializations and processes, and the complex production and trade relations they spawned, demonstrates how unlikely such direct and effective political control over copper production would have been. This section thus refers back to her first and second sections, where the shrine's associations with metalworking were first mentioned. Here she presents in greater detail the historical roles of metal in Kongo culture and society, and suggests possible avenues for further comparative research on this and other African metalworking traditions. To some readers, this book might at times appear to fall victim to its own success in fulfilling the author's ambition to present a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to the Lusunsi shrine. Its multilayered and densely woven text places considerable demands on the reader, since discussions often address several issues at once. For example, in her survey of the evidence for leadership headgear in the greater Kongo region, the author finds two distinct lexical terms corresponding to two distinct cap forms. She presents an analysis of the caps themselves, examples of them still used recently, along with specimens from museum collections and depictions of caps on carved wooden figures, and then corroborates this visual evidence with oral data, establishing what were the specific leadership associations for each cap form - the close-fitting ngunda with chieftaincy, and the high-peaked ngola caps with kingship. She concludes her analysis of leadership headgear by suggesting what type of leader could be the

230 Crown and Ritual conceptual wearer of the large copper cap. At the same time, the cap issue is relevant to the problem of placing the objects and the shrine in a relative chronology, that is, for proposing whether the insignia were likely to have preceded the institution of Kongo kingship or not. Exploring all of these related issues is essential for discerning why the copper cap was so spectacularly made of such an unusual combination of materials and techniques, as well as why and how this particular object was central to the investiture process. The reader is expected to keep all of these issues straight. Similarly, aspects of several arguments come into play in a later subsection of the text devoted to identifying the iron lozenges that had been planted in the ground at the shrine. The discussion extends from a morphological analysis of them to a search for their prototypes. Volavka suggests that two types of analogous objects could be antecedents of the iron lozenges, and each type carries important historical implications. One type, ancient trade bars from West Asia and Europe, has external origins; the other type, lithic tools of the lower Zaire region, has internal, African origins. Either one takes us far back in time, alluding to possibly very long durations for at least some of the objects that made up the shrine assemblage. The numerous threads of argument in Crown and Ritual deliberately raise as many questions as they resolve, defying any simple summary. It is a work that is clearly intended to advance our knowledge of history in greater Kongo, to provoke the rethinking of long-held assumptions about that history, and to inspire further research by others. In support of those aims, I write my final comments about the contributions this book makes to several areas of scholarship, though in doing so I risk oversimplifying what was meant to be an intricately constructed and subtle integration of them. As a labour of historical reconstitution, this book is forthrightly critical of all the sources, primary and secondary, and it is this feature above all that sets it apart from most other studies of African art. It is as much an accounting of and for the evidence as it is an intricately constructed argument based on that evidence. An example is the elaborate discussion of references to the Lusunsi shrine and other shrines in written accounts. Embedded in this discussion are arguments that the shrine is not a recent phenomenon and that it was known to have played a central role in the investiture of Ngoyo leaders. Volavka confronts squarely the paucity of written references to it prior to the late nineteenth century, as well as the various and uneven references to it in the twentieth century. Much of her discussion centres on the motivations of historical actors for revealing or withholding information about the shrine, based on their roles in recurring political intrigues. During the early eighteenth century, these intrigues centred on the use of Christian missionaries and Christian images for political purposes in Soyo, as counterforces to the power of Lusunsi. Later examples

Conclusions

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involved members of the Puna and Franque families of Cabinda, who, as allies of the Portuguese, would have had much to gain in local support if they had succeeded in controlling the Lusunsi shrine and using it to further their own political ambitions. What appears to be a rather lengthy discussion of historical sources results in a convincing case attesting to the existence and prominence of the shrine around 1700, and the implication that its contents then were not substantially different from the ones described in the twentieth century. Also established is the central importance of the final consecration ceremony at Lusunsi to the legitimacy of the king. The insignia are undoubtedly old, but exactly how old is uncertain, since their absolute ages remain unknown. Although a sample was taken from the iron ring, its carbon content was too low for dating by carbon-14 analysis. The extensive technical analyses do suggest that objects in the copper ensemble, despite differences in structural conditions, were unlikely to have differed a great deal in age. It is established by elemental analyses that the copper used was relatively pure, thus ruling out imported brass-wire currency as a metal source for producing the insignia. The various data from these analyses raise numerous tantalizing questions concerning copper alloying in the Kongo region, which when juxtaposed with information from other regions of Africa, lead to further questions about the acquisition of technological knowledge and, by extension, the possible time depth of the objects' existence. The working of the copper strips is extraordinary. There are early comparative archaeological specimens, for example, from Igbo-Ukwu (ninth century) and Sanga (tenth century). But there is nothing directly comparable to the extravagant and demanding exploitation of hammered copper strip such as that found in the Lusunsi insignia. Hence the issue of dating is crucial, though it would not necessarily be fully resolved if we did have absolute dates. The reader must be reminded that absolute dates do not entirely clear up the problem of an object's age. Even with absolute dates, we still might question whether the copper insignia are unique or whether they are replications or modifications of prototype insignia from an earlier time. This book differs from many other studies of African art in that it seeks to reintegrate the entire set of objects into a rigorously intellectual context, not simply a cultural one. Here Volavka contributes to the literature on African art and philosophy by interpreting the Lusunsi shrine and its elements as the consciously made embodiment of specific philosophical principles. However, rather than offering to the reader a general description of a philosophical system of abstractions, she portrays the shrine as just one particular example of how religious adepts apparently refined, revised, and deployed certain selected ideas and symbols over time. Although the Lusunsi priests as individuals appear only

232

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indirectly and indistinctly, they come across as learned human beings, not as instruments of cultural forces. By portraying the shrine and its priests in this way, Volavka conveys a fierce dedication to recovering as much as possible the precise details of time and place in precolonial African intellectual history. Another of Crown and Ritual's significant contributions is to the historical literature on African religion. Much of that literature consists of studies investigating the recent past, especially the roles of religion and religious figures in voicing challenges to European colonial expansion and policies of colonial rule during the twentieth century. For studies of earlier times, scholars have understandably gravitated to 'people of the book,' especially Muslims or Christians, whose well-known calendrical systems and practice of literacy allow for at least some firm chronological frameworks to be built. Thus, the largest and most problematic lacuna that remains is the precolonial history of African religions other than forms of Islam or Christianity. Volavka focuses on a religious institution, the Lusunsi shrine, attempting to reassemble it and thereby trace the history of its founding, purposes, and meanings.2 She exposes and overcomes the paucity, unevenness, and biases of the written historical sources by amassing a broader evidential base of material, technical, visual, and oral data, thus enabling her to show persuasively how and why the shrine became such an abiding venue for ceremonies of investiture. Along the way, she offers an alternative reading of what has sometimes been called 'ancestor worship,' arguing that kin-group and lineage imagery referred above all to social continuity, not just to deceased individuals, and that social coherence and continuity were accorded a sacral regard. Unlike studies which describe African religious beliefs in isolation, this one carefully reconstructs ritual and practice at a shrine in order to reconnect religion with society at large. The role of the Lusunsi shrine in investing new leaders ties religion to politics, and leads Volavka to address several questions about the political history of the lower Zaire region. She analyses more fully than others have done the process by which candidates for Ngoyo kingship became elected and then how they were installed as legitimate holders of office. Her argument, that elections were in the hands of secular interests, while investiture was in the hands of priests, is persuasive and well supported. She goes on from there to reason that the increasingly long lapse of time between the death of a king and the beginning of his successor's reign, a trend noted as beginning in the late eighteenth century, occurred not because of problems in the electoral process per se, but was instead the product of increasing tensions between electors and the priests. In concluding this line of reasoning, she stresses that the weakening of kingship came out of this ongoing political struggle, and did not signal that there was, for

Conclusions

233

instance, a growing political vacuum. Her analysis of investiture yields a much more complex picture of the circumstances in which the transfer of power took place, and contributes to our more general understanding of precolonial African politics. While pursuing relentlessly the underlying logic of the insignia and shrine, Volavka generated an in-depth investigation of copperworking. It stands as an exemplary case study, focusing on a particular historical area over time, and penetrating many levels of meaning.3 The reader is exposed to the variable historical dimensions of copper production and trade in greater Kongo, as Volavka contrasts the different ways it was organized in the northern and southern resource areas. She traces the copper of the insignia to its source, connecting the blacksmith makers in Ngoyo with ingots of copper currency and finally with smelters and miners in the Mindouli-Boko Songo copper region. Her reconstructions of technological processes, labour organization, and exchange networks add a substantial chapter to the social and economic history of West Central Africa. Speculations based on very sketchy written references to copper and the copper trade in the histories of the Loango and Kongo kingdoms4 can now be replaced by more reliable accounts and arguments based on internal evidence, much of it gathered by Volavka herself. Oral testimonies, samples of mineral ores and precolonial currencies, and observations of smelting procedures in the Mindouli-Boko Songo copper area confirm and illuminate more fully and sharply the importance of copperworking, and provide the groundwork for carrying out further historical research. Volavka's 'holistic approach' takes the insignia and uses their features to provide the reader with various perspectives on the Kongo past. This approach presents a departure from art-historical and historical inquiries as they conventionally have been practised with regard to Africa. It not only shows us the history of art, it puts that art back into history. It broadens and deepens our knowledge of Kongo history by recognizing that visual art was often crucial, not tangential, to past events, thus restoring art to a central ideological position.5 To this end, it was essential to distinguish between regalia used personally by the king, buried with him or transferred from one to the next, and those other insignia that were not used personally or held by the king but which served the entire community through rituals legitimizing authority. The Lusunsi insignia were manifestations of spiritual ideas, ideas that were also well grounded in the material and social world. The king himself was not divine; it was the authority of kingship and the inception of civilized human society which were revered as divinely inspired.

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APPENDIX I

Catalogue and Comparative Analysis

a) Catalogue of the Insignia b) Analysed Materials - Insignia, Comparative Set, and Ingots/Currencies Abbreviations AGSE AMHE LRMF Dept Metal.

Archives G6nerales des Peres du St-Esprit, Chevilly Archives of the Musee de 1'Homme, Laboratoire d'Ethnologie, Paris Laboratoire de Recherche des Musees de France, Paris Department of Metallurgy and Materials Science, University of Toronto

a) Catalogue of the Insignia All objects are the holdings of the Musee de I'Homme, Laboratoire d'Ethnologie, Departement de 1'Afrique noire. Catalogue Number i Designation: Cap/crown Museum Number: 34.28.43.1 Material: Copper (details in Appendix III) Dimensions: diameter of bottom rim: average 36.5 cm diameter of top opening: average 12.3 cm height: 20.7 cm height of bars of lower and upper rims: 0.4 cm height of 39 circular bars creating foundation of the wall: 0.3 cm each width of strip wound around bars: average o.i cm

236

Appendix I

width of binder used for attaching bands and semi-circles: average 0.2 cm single thickness of sheet used for concave crests: o.i cm single thickness of sheet used for bands: maximum - 0.2 cm; minimum - o. i cm multiple thickness of bands (folded) between the cut-out motifs: average 0.75 cm multiple thickness of ends of bands: average 0.8 cm Weight: 11 kg Description: The cap/crown is dome-shaped. The dome is left open at the top. Fifteen curved extensions in the shape of semicircles as well as four concentric bands wound in copper strips, with repetitive cut-out motifs, are attached to the walls of the dome with the help of copper binders. The semicircles are tetragonal in cross-section. One band with cut-out motifs follows the bottom circumference of the dome while the other three bands are attached to its vault. The bands are composed of units of uneven length, one unit being constituted of two, three, four, or six cut-out motifs. The lowest circumferential band in its present torsal form is made up of five units (2 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 2 motifs). The cut-out motifs of this band are turned upwards. The lowest of the upper bands is made up of two units (6 + 6 motifs). The middle band of the three upper bands in its present torsal form is created by three units (3 + 4 + 4 motifs); its cut-out motifs are uneven in size and one differs slightly from all the others in shape. The top band is composed in two units (4 + 4 motifs). The cut-out motifs of all three upper bands are turned downwards. Pieces of loosened copper binders project outside the wall of the dome between the upper bands and the lower one. Manufacture: Copper strips of rectangular cross-section are wound around horizontal bars in copper which create an armature made up of forty-one parallel rings. All the foundation elements have oval cross-section (bars). The wall is made of interlocked coiling over two rings. The twist of the wound strips visible on the surface of the wall is caused by the technique of interlocking. The technique also affects the texture by creating a slight diagonal swing of the superimposed coils. In spite of the apparent looseness of texture necessitated by the mechanical properties of the metal strip, the coils are closely joined. Interlockings of three upper and three lower stitches cover i cm. It is the dome's aperture (Appendix III) which is the centre of the coiling and where the work was started. The trimming of both the lower and the upper rims of the dome is made uniform, in two layers of coil of which the one on the surface is a false braid with diagonally long and dense winding. To increase the dome's volume in the vault, double stitches were added at irregular distances. To fasten off a strip, a 3 to 4-cm length at its end is placed under the subsequent interlocked coils. The bands are made of two copper sheets partly forged together, partly left hollow to create the concave crest of the cut-out motifs. The edges of the bands show evidence of angular and sharp cutting. The hammered forged semicircles extending through the wall of the

Catalogue and Comparative Analysis 237 dome are externally attached by a copper binder. Tool marks are visible on most of the semicircles. Condition: The bottom rim is a slightly irregular circle due to mechanical [?] damage. The wall of the dome also shows a few traces of damage. One unit of the lower bottom band and one unit of the central upper band are missing. Several attachments of the band have suffered minor damage. Several cut-out motifs have suffered damage in their concave crests. Eight semicircles are missing. The surface is evenly covered with a layer of green patina. The spaces between the coils are filled with reddish-yellow hardened earth. Museum Records: Accession files: Fishing basket, ritual. Serves the cult of 'Lu sunzi,' genius of rain, fishes, etc. Coiled in iron wire in the technique of basketry. Tastevin donation, 1933. AMHE, Dossier Tastevin, no. 34.28: Tastevin's MS, I, nd, np (a basket was plaited in brass wire with a border in metal ivy, with a hole at the bottom; fishing basket of Lu Sunzi). Other Documentation: AGSE, 298 - VI: Constantin Tastevin, 'Le roi, faiseur de pluie,' MS, nd, np (two yellow copper baskets said to be gold; they belong to Lu Sunzi who used one basket to collect manioc and the second to fish in small streams within her jurisdiction). AGSE, 298 - VI: Constantin Tastevin, 'La royaute au bas-Congo,' MS, nd, pp. 6-7 (two brass wire baskets). Constantin Tastevin, 'Idees religieuses des indigenes de 1'enclave de Cabinda,' III Etudes Missionnaires 3, no. 4 (1935): 257 (two baskets tendo in brass wire finely woven and decorated with the leaves of ivy of the same metal; one has a hole at the bottom, and was used by Lu Sunzi for fishing in the rivers by covering the fish with it). Zdenka Volavka, 'Insignia of the Divine Authority,' African Arts 14, no. 3 (May 1981): 43-51, 90-2. Technical Investigation:

1976-77 - analysis of five samples by emission spectrometry, LRMF (J. Francaix) 1979-80 - analysis of six samples by neutron activation, Dept Metal. (U.M. Franklin) 1979-80- investigation of microstructure of four samples; enlargements: Dept Metal. (U.M. Franklin) 1980 - radiography, LRMF (F. Drilhon) References: Appendixes: Ib, II, III Illustration: 6 Catalogue Number 2 Designation: Neckpiece

238

Appendix I

Museum Number. 34.28.43.2 Material: Copper (details in Appendix III) Dimensions: diameter: average 45 cm height: average 8 cm width of bars creating armature: approx. 0.3 cm - 0.4 cm width of strip wound around bars: minimum o.i cm; (used on rims) maximum 0.2 cm width of binder used for attaching: average 0.2 cm Weight: approx. 4.5 kg Description: The neckpiece has the shape of a high plain ring. It is wound in copper strips. Thirteen semicircles are now attached to the lower rim with the help of copper binders. Around the neckpiece, extending from its sides, are pieces of copper binder of which some are partly loosened and which now do not affix anything. Manufacture: Copper strips of rectangular cross-section are wound around nine horizontal copper bars. Interlocked winding in the same density and texture is applied as on the wall of the crown. Two layers of stitches and false braid termination appear on both the upper and lower rims. Copper semicircles are hammered, showing a number of tool marks. Several show tool marks in the form of indented surfaces of about 0.2 cm by 0.2 cm. The semicircles extend between the first and second lower bars and are attached externally by a copper binder. Condition: The circle of the ring is slightly irregular, as a result of mechanical damage. About fifty-five semicircles can be estimated as missing. Several semicircles are heavily curved, and some are slightly twisted as a result of some pressure. The surfaces of the neckpiece and semicircles are evenly covered with a layer of green patination. The spaces in the coil are filled with a reddish-yellow hardened crust of earth. Museum Records: AMHE, Dossier Tastevin, no. 34.28: Tastevin's MS, nd, np (a circle plaited in bronze wire which represents a crown). Other Documentation: Constantin Tastevin, 'Ide'es religieuses des indigenes de 1'enclave de Cabinda,' III Etudes Missionnaires 3, no. 4 (1935): 257 (a large circle made in the same fashion as the basket, of c. 40 crn in diameter, with many hanging hooks; it represented a gigantic crown). Technical Investigation: 1976-7 - analysis of three samples by emission spectrometry, LRMF (J. Francaix) 1979-80 - analysis of two samples by neutron activation, Dept Metal. (U.M. Franklin)

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239

1979-80 - investigation of microstructure of one sample; enlargements: Dept Metal. (U.M. Franklin) 1980 - radiograph, LRMF (F. Drilhon) References'. Appendixes: Ib, II, III Illustration: 7 Catalogue Number 3 Designation: Lid Museum Number. 34.28.43.3 Material: Copper (details in Appendix III) Dimensions: diameter: average 39 cm diameter of inner aperture: average 3.4 cm height of the 50 concentric bars creating armature: 0.3 cm width of 50 circular bars creating armature: maximum 0.4 cm; minimum 0.25 cm width of wound strip: maximum 0.15 cm; minimum o. i cm Description: Circular flat disc which has a small round opening in the centre. The disc is wound with copper strips around a foundation made up of copper rings. There is no evidence of any kind left of the binders which could have affixed either some attributes or a wall to the disc. Manufacture: The armature of the disc is created by fifty concentric rings of bars of copper. The cross-sections of the bars range from oval to an almost circular shape. Copper strips, whose cross-section is rectangular, pass twice around two rods in the direction of the circular foundation. The strips interlock diagonally through two coil stitches below. The interlocking produces a slight spread of coupled stitches, as it is visible in the texture. The coiling starts around the rod of the central aperture and is terminated on the peripheral rod. With the increase of diameter, new pairs of strips are gradually added and the distance between the pairs expands. Thus, while on the peripheral rim two pairs of strips cover the space of i cm, in the middle between the circumference and the centre of the disc, three pairs of strips cover the space of i cm. On the peripheral bar, a wider (o. 15 cm) strip is used in the coil. Condition: The disc is mechanically damaged. The peripheral part is fragmentary. The winding is broken in a number of places over the entire lid along the circular bars. The whole surface is evenly covered with a layer of green patination. Within the spaces between the wound strips there is a hardened dark-yellow dust.

240

Appendix I

Museum Records: AMHE, Dossier Tastevin, no. 34.28: Tastevin's MS, I, nd, np (the bottom of a basket, with no hole; a basket with which Lu Sunzi collected manioc in the fields of the worshippers). Other Documentation: Constantin Tastevin, 'Idees religieuses des indigenes de 1'enclave de Cabinda,' III, Etudes Missionnaires 3, no. 4 (1935): 257 (one of the baskets tendo in finely plaited brass wire; the basket had a bottom and was used by Lu Sunzi to collect manioc in the fields). Technical Investigation: 1976-7 - analysis of two samples by emission spectrometry, LRMF (J. Fran9aix) 1979-80 - analysis of two samples by neutron activation, Dept Metal. (U.M. Franklin) 1979-80 - investigation of microstructure of four samples; enlargements: Dept Metal. (U.M. Franklin) 1980 - radiograph, LRMF (F. Drilhon) References: Appendixes: Ib, II, III Illustration: 8 Catalogue Number 4 Designation: Fragment of a band or belt Museum Number: 34.28.43.4 Material: Copper and iron (details on copper parts in Appendix III) Dimensions: length of fragment: maximum 25 cm height of fragment: maximum 10 cm diameter of arc cross-section iron bar at the rim: 0.9 cm height of oval iron bars: average 0.7 cm width of oval iron bars: average 0.9 cm width of strip: average 0.2 cm Description: The fragment is composed of two parts coiled in metal. The two parts are only loosely connected. On its narrow side, the fragment is terminated by a portion of the rim. The foundation elements of the rim as well as the parallel armature of the fragment are of iron. Both the rim and bars are straight, not indicating any curving of the object. The winding strip is of copper. Its cross-section is nearly square. Manufacture: The copper strip is wound densely around the oval iron bars. The bar, of circular cross-section, creates the foundation of the rim; the other rods are oval in cross-

Catalogue and Comparative Analysis

241

section. The strip is wound over two rods in interlocked coiling technique. False braid termination makes the coiled rim distinctly thicker than the wound fabric. Condition: The winding is loosened on all the three sides where the fragment is separated from the rest of the original object. The second piece of the fragment is almost detached, being connected to the larger piece by only a few loosened strips. The surface is evenly covered with a layer of green patination. The iron rods are mineralized. Traces of a hardened reddish-yellow earth can be found in some spaces between the coiling. Museum Records: None. Other Documentation: None. Technical Investigation: 1976-7 - analysis of one sample of copper strip by emission spectrometry, LRMF (J. Fransaix) 1979-80 - analysis of one sample by neutron activation, Dept Metal. (U.M. Franklin) 1979-80 - investigation of microstructure of two samples; enlargements: Dept Metal. (U.M. Franklin) References: Appendixes: Ib, II, III Illustration: 9 Catalogue Number 5 Designation: Fragment of a basket Museum Number. 34.28.43.5 Material: Copper and iron (details on copper parts in Appendix III) Dimensions: length of larger part of fragment: maximum 18.5 cm length of smaller part of fragment: maximum 15 cm diameter of thicker iron bar: maximum 1.5 cm; minimum 1.2 cm diameter of thinner iron bar: 0.9 cm By width, the vertical plaiting strips cluster into ten groups: 1) maximum 1.69 cm; minimum 1.67 cm 2) maximum 1.37 cm; minimum 1.35 cm 3) maximum 2.08 cm; minimum 1.8 cm 4) maximum 2.1 cm; minimum 1.59 cm 5) maximum i .93 cm; minimum i .7 cm 6) maximum 1.3 cm; minimum 1.25 cm 7) maximum 1.25 cm; minimum i.i cm 8) maximum 1.87 cm; minimum 1.5 cm 9) maximum 1.12 cm; minimum i.i cm 10) maximum 1.18 cm; minimum i.i cm

242

Appendix I

thickness of plaiting strips: average o. i cm width of binder used for attachment of two iron bars and plaiting strips: average 0.3 cm width of binder pulled irregularly through plaiting strips: average 0.2 cm Description: The fragment is composed of two barely attached parts. The rim of each has a foundation created by one inner and one outer iron bar. Both of them are evenly curved. The outer bar is thicker in its round cross-section. The ends of the wide vertical copper strips pass through the iron bars, attached by two parallel thin copper strips (binders), which interlace the wider strips in an over two, under two pattern. On each part of the fragment there remain nine fragments of the vertical plaiting strips of uneven width and length. These copper strips also create rings placed at regular intervals on vertical plaiting strips. A slightly narrower strip passes irregularly through both the plaiting part of the strips and the rim. Manufacture: The two pieces create a segment of an object with a circular rim. The latter is made up of two iron bars joined by copper strips. The attachment of vertical wider strips to the iron foundation of the rim was presumably made by the hammering of annealed strips around the iron bars. Thin copper strips, acting as the binding rather than the decorative element, pass over two, then under two bent strips to stabilize their position on the bars. The fragment indicates that the original object was plaited with wide copper strips. To extend the strip, the pieces, of some 7 to 10 cm in length, were hothammered together. The edges on the long sides of the strip do not indicate that the strips were cut from a large sheet. Rather, the fact that the edges are not straight and are of uneven thickness suggests that the strips were hammered out from copper rods. Impressions in the surface creating relief on the vertical strips show interlacing of horizontal strips. The interlacing was stabilized by regularly placed rings of thin copper strip wound over vertical plaiting strips. The slightly narrower copper binder passing and interlocking irregularly over-under both the vertical plaiting strips and the rim was introduced subsequently as a repair when the connection between interlacing and rim became loose and some horizontal strips were missing. Condition: The iron bars are mineralized. Several horizontal plaiting strips are missing. Fragments of eighteen remaining vertical plaiting strips are preserved. They are of uneven length and are heavily mechanically damaged. In places where two pieces of the plaiting strip were hammered together, cracks are discernible Both the repair and the original parts of the fragment are covered with an even layer of area patination and some areas of hardened crust of earth. Museum Records: None. Other Documentation: None.

Catalogue and Comparative Analysis 243 Technical Investigation: 1976-7 - analysis of three copper samples by emission spectrometry, LRMF (J. Francaix) 1977 - qualitative analysis of continuous arch spectrometry of iron armature samples, LRMF (J. Fransaix) 1979-80 - analysis of six samples by neutron activation, Dept Metal (U.M. Franklin) 1979-80 - investigation of microstructure of four samples, Dept Metal. (U.M. Franklin) References: Appendixes: Ib, II, III Illustration: 10 Catalogue Number 6 Designation: Fragment of a basket Museum Number: 34.28.43.16 Material: Copper and iron (details on copper parts in Appendix III) Dimensions: length of fragment: maximum 13.5 cm width of fragment: maximum 11.8 cm diameter of iron bar: i .6 cm By width, the vertical plaiting strips cluster into three groups: 1) maximum 1.4 cm; minimum 1.15 cm 2) maximum 1.7 cm; minimum 1.6 cm 3) maximum 2.3 cm; minimum 2 cm thickness of plaiting strips: approx. o. i cm width of thin strip used for attachment of plaiting strips on the rims and for rings: maximum 0.29 cm; minimum 0.14 cm width of thin strip passed irregularly through the vertical plaiting strips: approx. 0.2 cm Description: The fragment is similar to catalogue number 5. The rim, however, is made of one single iron bar which is curved. Six wide vertical copper plaiting strips with fragments of uneven lengths are attached to the iron bar. Two thin copper strips stabilize the position of the strips on the bar. Fragments of two horizontal plaiting strips in copper are preserved. Horizontal strips were interlaced through the vertical ones in slightly uneven crossing intervals ranging from about 0.5 cm to about i cm as indicated by the clear impressions left in the vertical strips. Thin copper strip passes irregularly through the vertical strips at uneven distances. Manufacture:

The fragment creates a segment of an object with a circular rim which differs from the

244

Appendix I

rim of the fragment (catalogue number) 5. It is made up of one iron bar to which are attached vertical plaiting strips. The attachment also differs from the one on the fragment (catalogue number) 5. The copper strips are bent around the whole iron bar. On the outer side of the rim passes a thin copper strip and on the inner side passes another one through or over all attached strips. Otherwise, the manufacture of this fragment corresponds with the fragment (catalogue number) 5. Condition: The iron bar is mineralized. Fragments of six vertical and two horizontal plaiting strips are preserved. Vertical plaiting strips show a number of cracks and signs of edge damage. The horizontal strips which had gradually loosened were reinforced in the subsequent repair. Among the copper items of the set, the patination of this fragment is unusually light and partly missing. Green traces of patination appear only in isolated spots on both the strips and the binder used for the repair. Museum Records: None. Other Documentation: None. Technical Investigation: 1976-7 - analysis of two copper samples by emission spectrometry, LRMF (J. Francaix) 1977 - qualitative analysis by continuous arch spectrography of the iron bar sample, LRMF (J. Francaix) 1979-80 - analysis of four samples by neutron activation, Dept Metal (U.M. Franklin) 1979-80 - investigation of microstructure of four samples, Dept Metal. (U.M. Franklin) References: Appendixes: Ib, II, III Illustration: 11 Catalogue Number 7 Designation: Knife blade Museum Number: 34.28.43.6 Material: Iron Dimensions: length: maximum 34.7 cm width: minimum 7.8 cm Description: The blade is pointed at one end and wider at the other, presumably originally having two sharp edges. It is roughly symmetrical in shape. Manufacture: The blade was presumably connected by a tang on its wider side to the handle.

Catalogue and Comparative Analysis 245 Condition: The blade is totally mineralized. Little pieces are chipped from the edges. Also, the wide extremity and possibly the tang which served to attach it to the handle are flaked off. Museum Records: None. Other Documentation: None. Technical Investigation: 1977 -qualitative analysis by continuous arch spectrography, LRMF (J. Fran$aix) References: Appendixes: II, III Illustration: 14 Catalogue Number 8 Designation: Knife blade Museum Number: 34.28.43.7 Material: Iron Dimensions: length: maximum 27.4 cm width: maximum 5.5 cm Description: The blade is asymmetrical in shape. One of the blade's edges is straight while the other was presumably curved. Only one edge, the curved one, was probably sharp for cutting. Manufacture: The blade was connected with the handle probably by a tang on its wider side. Condition: The blade is entirely mineralized. The curved or shaped edge is heavily chipped as is also the narrower extremity which seems to have been originally furnished with a point. No tang is preserved. Museum Records: None. Other Documentation: Constantin Tastevin, 'Idees religieuses des indigenes de 1'enclave de Cabinda,' HI, Etudes Missionnaires 3, no. 4 (1935) 1258 (in the shrine there was a knife whose blade created two right angles with the handle). [It is uncertain whether the reference is made to catalogue number 8.] Technical Investigation: 1977 - qualitative analysis by continuous arch spectrography, LRMF (J. Fran9aix) References: Appendixes: II, III Illustration: 13

246

Appendix I

Catalogue Number 9 Designation: Portion of blade Museum Number. 34.28.43.12 Material: Iron Dimensions: length: median 12.9 cm width: maximum 5.2 cm Description: The piece is the upper portion of a pointed two-edged blade of approximately symmetrical shape. Manufacture: The piece was forged in iron. Condition: The blade is heavily mineralized. There are few traces of chipping. Museum Records: None. Other Documentation: None. Technical Investigation: 1977 - qualitative analysis by continuous arch spectrography, LRMF (J. Fran^aix) References: Appendixes: II Illustration: 12 Catalogue Number 10 Designation: Hammer/anvil Museum Number: 34.28.43.8 Material: Iron Dimensions: length: 19.3 cm width: maximum 5.7 cm Description: The piece is an asymmetrical lozenge shape. One extremity is pointed, while the opposite one creates a slanting sharp edge. The surface is irregular and ragged so that the thickness of the piece varies. The section in the place of the maximum width and at the wedge-shaped end is almost rectangular, while the section at the end of the point is pentagonal. Manufacture: Not examined. The piece was forged in iron. Condition: The surface is corroded. Drilling has shown a soundly preserved metal core. The wedge-shaped end is chipped.

Catalogue and Comparative Analysis 247 Museum Records: AMHE: Dossier Tastevin, no. 34.28. Tastevin's MS, nd, np (around a tree in the Lu Sunzi shrine were stuck into the ground pieces of rudely cast iron; their tops were pointed and lozenge-shaped). [This part of the manuscript was struck out by Tastevin.] Other Documentation: Constantin Tastevin, 'Les idees religieuses des indigenes de 1'enclave de Cabinda,' III, Etudes Missionnaires 3, no. 4 (1935): 258 (half a dozen pieces of iron with serpentine tops, more or less lozenge-shaped, were stuck into the earth by their points that were three times longer than the lozenges; the pieces were rudely cast). AGSE, 298 - VI: Constantin Tastevin, 'Le roi, faiseur de pluie,' MS, nd, np (at the foot of the small tree in the Lu Sunzi shrine, there were at least a dozen iron pegs topped with lozenges and stuck into the ground). AGSE, 298 - VI: Constantin Tastevin, 'La royaute au bas-Congo,' MS, nd, pp. 67 (under the tree ki bota were pieces of iron with serpent-like shaped tops). Technical Investigation: 1977 - qualitative analysis by continuous arch spectrography, LRMF (J. Frangaix) References: Appendixes: II, III Illustration: 15 Catalogue Number n Designation: Hammer Museum Number: 34.28.43.9 Material: Iron Dimensions: length: 20 cm width: maximum 5.5 cm Description: The object is similar to catalogue number 10. It is an asymmetrical lozenge shape. One extremity is pointed while the opposite one has a wedge-shaped end. The surface on both sides of the piece is rugged so that the thickness of the object is uneven. The cross-section is almost rectangular while at the pointed end it is pentagonal. Manufacture: The object was forged in iron. Condition: Drilling through the heavily mineralized surface has shown a preserved ferrous core. The wedge-shaped end is chipped. Museum Records: None. Other Documentation: See catalogue number 10.

248

Appendix I

Technical Investigation: 1977 - qualitative analysis by continuous arch spectrography, LRMF (J. Fran9aix) References: Appendixes: II, III Illustration: 16 Catalogue Number 12 Designation: Pick Museum Number: 34.28.43.10 Material: Iron Dimensions: length: 24.8 cm Description: A pointed object with an irregular edge on the extremity opposite the point. It is of a slightly irregular symmetrical shape. Manufacture: The piece was hot-forged. The edge of the wider extremity indicates partial folding of a pointed edge. It might be a trace of a broken tang, or a trace of hafting. Condition: The piece is heavily mineralized. Museum Records: None. Other Documentation: Constantin Tastevin, 'Les idees religieuses des indigenes de 1'enclave de Cabinda,' III, Etudes Missionnaires 3, no. 4 (1935): 257-8 (a long bar in iron the thickness of the wrist). [It is uncertain whether reference is to this particular object.] Technical Investigation: 1977 - qualitative analysis of continuous arch spectrography, LRMF (J. Frangaix) References: Appendixes: II, III Illustration: 17 Catalogue Number 13 Designation: Fragment of double bells Museum Number: 34.28.43.14 Material: Iron Dimensions: length of fragment: maximum 13.6 cm width of fragment: minimum 13.5 cm Description: The fragment consists of the handle and upper portions of the two bells.

Catalogue and Comparative Analysis

249

Manufacture: The double bells were hot-forged and the bells were welded (?). Condition: Mineralization of the piece has caused the loss of most of the resonant parts of both bells. Museum Records: None. Other Documentation: Constantin Tastevin, 'Les id6es religieuses des indigenes de 1'enclave de Cabinda,' III, Etudes Missionnaires 3, no. 4 (1935): 257 (around the mbota tree in the shrine of Lu Sunzi there were instruments of the Sunzi cult; among others there were double bells connected with an arch in metal). Technical Investigation: 1977 - qualitative analysis by continuous arch spectrography, LRMF (J. Fran^aix) References: Appendixes: II, III Illustration: 18 Catalogue Number 14 Designation: Open ring Museum Number: 34.28.43.15 Material: Iron Dimensions: external diameter: maximum 5.6 cm internal diameter: maximum 4 cm; minimum 3.1 cm Description: The cross-section of the ring is rectangular, the thickness uneven. The ring is open. Manufacture: Not examined. The ring was presumably hot-forged. Condition: The ring is heavily mineralized. One of the points of the opening shows a metal core. Museum Records: None. Other Documentation: None. Technical investigation: !977 - qualitative analysis by continuous arch spectrography, LRMF (J. Fran9aix) References:

Appendixes: II, III Illustration: 19 Catalogue Numbers 15,16 Designation: Fragment of ingot (?) broken into two pieces

250

Appendix I

Museum Numbers: 34.28.43.11; 34.28.43.13 Material: Not analysed. Dimensions: length of larger fragment: maximum 11.3 cm width of larger fragment: maximum 5.2 cm length of smaller fragment: maximum 7. i cm width of smaller fragment: maximum 3.31 cm Description: Both pieces are of irregular shape. They doubtless created one piece, as their broken edges match each other. Manufacture: Not investigated. Condition: Both pieces are entirely mineralized. Museum Records: None. Other Documentation: None. Technical Investigation: Not undertaken. References: Illustration: 20

b) Analysed Materials - Insignia, Comparative Set, and Ingots/Currencies

Key

UofTandZV-orK- isotopic composition of the lead content analysed by Ron M. Farquhar, University of Toronto, Department of Physics. LRMF lab. no. - laboratory analysis number for objects in the collection of the Musee de 1'Homme, Paris. Analysis by spectrometry undertaken by Jacques Frangaix, Laboratoire de Recherche des Musees de France. Berlin Ul - accession numbers for objects in the collection of the Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. Analysis by atomic absorption undertaken by Josef Riederer, Rathgen-Forschungslabor. Goteborg - objects in the collection of the Goteborgs Etnografiska Museum, Goteborg, and analysed by Nils-Gosta Vannerberg and Sven-Erik Isacsson, Chalmers Tekniska Hogskola, Och Goteborgs Universitet.

Catalogue and Comparative Analysis

251

The initials or numbers for those objects or fragments which have been analysed are followed by the object name, museum accession number, fragment name, and origin (either people or place) where applicable. Several of the samples from the Musee de 1'Homme were analysed by both J. Francaix and R.M. Farquhar. Analyses conducted in Berlin use only the accession numbers. INSIGNIA Copper A) U of T, ZV-7 / LRMF lab. no. 4462 - investiture basket - 34.28.43.5 B) U of T, K-4 / LRMF lab. no. 4458 - crown - 34.28.43. i C) U of T, ZV-2 / LRMF lab. no. 4458 - crown - 34.28.43. i - attachment strip of the lost paraphernalia D) U of T, ZV-3 / LRMF lab. no. 4458 - crown - 34.28.43. i - extension in the form of a leopard claw E) U of T, ZV-4 / LRMF lab. no. 4458 - crown - 34.28.43. i - winding strip from the wall F) U of T, ZV-5 / LRMF lab. no. 4459 - neckpiece - 34.28.43.2 - strip for attachment G) U of T, ZV-9 / LRMF lab. no. 4460 - lid - 34.28.43.3 - bar H) LRMF lab. no. 4460 - lid - 34.28.43.3 - winding strip I) U of T, ZV-8, ZV-12 / LRMF lab. no. 4461 - belt - 34.28.43.4 - winding strip J) U of T, ZV-7 / LRMF lab. no. 4462 - basket - 34.28.43.5 - sheet K) U of T, ZV-i i / LRMF lab. no. 4557 - basket (2) - 34.28.43.16 - strip for attachment COMPARATIVE SET Copper 1 LRMF lab. no. 4539 - chief's neckpiece - 64.6.3 - Boko 2 armlet, closed ring - Berlin 111x41091 3 U of T, K-5 - repair of investiture basket Leaded Copper Artifacts 4 U of T / LRMF lab. no. 4526 - plain armlet - 91.34.8/2 - Loango 5 U of T / LRMF lab. no. 4527 - plain armlet - 91.34.9/2 - Loango 6 U of T/LRMF lab. no. 4528-plain armlet-91.34.10-Loango 7 U of T / LRMF lab. no. 4529 - open armlet - 91.34.11 - Loango 8 U of T / LRMF lab. no. 4555 - plain armlet - 38.166.29 - Teke 9 plain armlet - Berlin III.c.3335 - Teke 10 armlet of the Lemba cult - Berlin III.c.347 - Loango 11 armlet of the Lemba cult - Berlin 111x423 - Loango Low Zinc Brasses (zinc content from 3.3 to 7.7 per cent) 12 LRMF lab. no. 4525 - bracelet - 91.34.5 - Loango

252

Appendix I

13 LRMF lab. no. 4544 - bracelet - 32.89.126 - Kongo or Kunyi or Teke 14 LRMF lab. no. 4546 - bracelet - 64.91.43 - northern adjacent group 15 LRMF lab. no. 4533 - bracelet - 32.89.112 - Kunyi Medium-Zinc Brasses 16 U of T, no. 1453 - hinged anklet - collected in Kwakongo, N of the Lower Zaire River; date of collection: 1975; source: a woman's property; date of manufacture: beginning of the twentieth century = terminus ante quern; material: low-zinc brass (visual identification), some Pb expected (see no. 58 below); manufacture: cast, annealed, surface engraving. Author's collection. 17 U of T, no. 1454 - large open armlet - collected in Ngoyo, western part of the Kongoland; date of collection: 1973; source: a woman's property; date of manufacture: beginning of twentieth century = terminus ante quern', material: brass (visual identification), Pb expected (see no. 58 below); manufacture: presumably cast and then shaped by forging over a matrix. Author's collection. 18. U of T, no. 1455 - small open armlet, yellow patination - collected in Bakongo, N of the Lower Zaire River; date of collection: 1975; source: an old man's property; date of manufacture: beginning of twentieth century = terminus ante quern; material: brass (visual identification), Pb expected (?) (see no. 58 below); manufacture: presumably cast and then shaped by forging. Author's collection. High-Zinc Brasses (zinc content from 20.1 to 34.89 per cent) 19 LRMF lab. no. 4520 - large neckpiece - 93.56.194 - Bangala 20 LRMF lab. no. 4523 - rivet in an iron neckpiece - 91.34.3.1 - Kongo 21 LRMF lab. no. 4524 - rivet in an iron neckpiece - 91.34.3.2 - Kongo 22 LRMF lab. no. 4530-bracelet-91.34.13-Loango 23 LRMF lab. no. 4531 -bracelet-91.34.14-Loango 24 LRMF lab. no. 4532 - bracelet - 91.34.15 - Loango 25 LRMF lab. no. 4534 - anklet - 61.120.48 - northern Kongo 26 LRMF lab. no. 4535-anklet-61.120.49-northern Kongo 27 LRMF lab. no. 4536- bracelet-61.120.50- northern Kongo 28 LRMF lab. no. 4537 - bracelet - 61.120.51 - northern Kongo 29 LRMF lab. no. 4538 - bracelet - 96.28.111 - Kongo 30 LRMF lab. no. 4540 - bracelet - 64.6.7 - Kongo 31 LRMF lab. no. 4541 - bracelet - 64.6.9 - Kongo or Teke 32 LRMF lab. no. 4542 - bracelet - 64.6.14 - Teke 33 LRMF lab. no. 4543 - anklet - 51.96.56 - Kongo M'beti 34 LRMF lab. no. 4545 - bracelet - 64.91.42 - northern area 35 LRMF lab. no. 4547 - bracelet - 64.91.53- northern area 36 LRMF lab. no. 4548 - neckpiece - 90.18. i - Teke 37 LRMF lab. no. 4549 - spiral bracelet - 93.52.49 - Teke 38 LRMF lab. no. 4550 - bracelet - 96.28.20 - Teke

Catalogue and Comparative Analysis

253

39 LRMF lab. no. 4551 - bracelet - 96.28.78 - Teke 40 LRMF lab. no. 4552 - bracelet - 96.28.79 - Teke 41 LRMF lab. no. 4553 - spiral neckpiece - 96.28.137 - Teke 42 LRMF lab. no. 4554 - spiral bracelet- 32.89.110 - Teke 43 LRMF lab. no. 4556 - neckpiece - 62.59.62 - Teke 44 pipe, bowl in metal - Berlin III.c.385 45 ring in brass - Berlin III.c.31505 - Angola 46 ring in brass - Berlin III.c.6524 - Kunyi 47 ring in brass - Berlin HI.c.4i 3 - Loango 48 ring in brass - Berlin III.c.4i8a - Loango 49 ring in brass - Berlin III.c.42oa,b - Loango 50 necklace - Berlin III.c. 12373 - Bangala Objects in Lead with Leaded-Copper Elements 51 lead pipe - Berlin III.c.7533 - Loango drummer in white metal [alloy of copper with lead, tin, antimony] 52 lead pipe, decoration in white metal - Berlin 111.0.3840 [alloy of copper with lead, tin, antimony] 53 necklace in metal on the female figure - Berlin III.c. 13621 [?] CURRENCY,INGOTS 54 U of T, ZV-6 - currency bar with tapered ends, copper; wt 20.3 g; name: mildmbula; analysed; collected SE of Mindouli. Author's collection. 55 U of T, K-2 - bar with tapered ends, mildmbula; wt 21.7 g; collected in the country of the Bakamba. Author's collection. 56 bar with tapered ends; Goteborg no. 39.6.1; analysed - very pure copper - small piece of copper used as currency, Basundi. 57 U of T, no. 1449 - segment of a lead ingot - collected in region of Mfuati, central part of the mining area; date of collection: 1978; source: from the smelter's store; date when made: in or prior to 1978. Author's collection. 58 U of T, K-i - U-shaped piece of currency, vernacular term lengela; collected in the region of Kinkala, about 80 km E of the mining area; date of collection: 1978; source: kin group heirloom; date of manufacture: beginning of the twentieth century = terminus ante quern; material: brass, analysed by neutron activation (University of Toronto), 13.6 per cent Zn (other analytical data unavailable); some Pb expected per analogiam with other brasses analysed in Paris; manufacture: microstructure done (University of Toronto), the data unavailable. Author's collection. 59 fragment of a cylindrical bar The following objects were noted in the author's papers, along with correspondence

254

Appendix I

indicating that they had been analysed by Professor Vannerberg. Efforts to retrieve the results were not successful. 60 ? Gb'teborg - no. 39.6.2 - small piece of copper large an item for the spectrometer 61 ? Goteborg - no. 39.6.3 - small piece of copper 62 ? Goteborg - no. 39.6.4 - small piece of copper 63 ? Goteborg - no. 39.6.5 - small piece of copper 64 ? Goteborg - no. 39.6.6 - small piece of copper 65 ? Goteborg - no. 39.6.7 - small piece of copper

used as currency, Basundi - too used as currency, Basundi used as currency, Basundi used as currency, Basundi used as currency, Basundi used as currency, Basundi

ORES AND METALS Kongoland, mining area in the Niari-Congo watershed 66 U of T, no. 1426 - galena - collected in Mindouli, eastern part of the mining area; date of collection: 1978; source: an old miner's collection of minerals; date when exploited: unknown. Author's collection. 67 U of T, no. 1448 - cerussite - collected 8 km SE Mfuati, central part of the mining area; date of collection: 1978; source: from the ore assembled for smelting in August 1978; date when exploited: most likely in 1978. Author's collection. 68 U of T, no. 1450 - smelter slag - collected 8 km SE Mfuati, central part of the mining area; date of collection: 1978; source: during a smelting operation; date of the smelt: 14 August 1978. Author's collection. 69 U of T, ZV-1 - Minerals collected in the neighbourhood of the large, ancient mine in Boko Songo - western part of the mining area; historical evidence shows that customary co-smelting of the locally produced metallic lead with the locally exploited malachite was conducted in Boko Songo. Author's collection. 70 U of T, no. 198 - galena, Hapilo.

APPENDIX II

Documentation of the Identified Inventory of the Lusunsi Shrine

A

B

C

D

E

OBJECT

F

I

I

I

I I I

I I

1 1

2

I

cap/crown neckpiece double bells band/belt lid with basket knife ring ingot pick lozenge hammer

I

I

pi

12

I

2

pi pi

Pl

frgs X X

Pl

kitchen dish

X

2

I Pl

I Pi

3 frgs i 2 frgs i 2

crucible bottle hoe

Pl

I Pi

1 frg 1 & 2 frgs

X X X X X X X

2

I

2

1 frg

seat iron cylindrical rod iron serpentine-topped rod anchor knife with right-angled blade bell mpambu shell

2

6 2

G

pi

situated around mbota situated around libanze location not given pi = plural, i.e., several pieces frg, frgs = fragment, fragments numbers = number of pieces X = the objects that remained in the shrine

A = Domingo dos Nsangu B = Tastevin, 'La royaute au bas-Congo' C = Tastevin, 'Le roi, faiseur de pluie' D = Tastevin, 'Idees religieuses' E = Tastevin, 'Culte des genies' F = deposited in the Musee de I'Homme G = remained in the shrine

256

Appendix II

References Nsangu, Domingo dos. 'Letter to Abbe Mambuco.' AGSE, Dossier Tastevin, VI No. 298. Tastevin, Constantin. 'Culte des genies. BaKisi ba n'si.' MS, AMHE, Dossier Tastevin, 34.28, np. - 'Id6es religieuses des indigenes de 1'enclave de Cabinda.' I, II, III, Etudes missionnaires 3, nos 2-4 (1935): 105-11, 191-7, 257-73. - 'Le roi, faiseur de pluie.' MS, AGSE, Dossier Tastevin, VI - No. 298, np. - 'La royaute au bas-Congo.' MS, AGSE, Dossier Tastevin, VI - No. 298, np.

APPENDIX III

Scientific Analyses

a) Technical Studies - Ursula Franklin and Zdenka Volavka b) Provenance of Copper-rich Metallic Artifacts from the Congo, Based on Chemical and Lead-Isotope Concentrations - R.M. Farquhar, University of Toronto c) Analyse spectrographique de cinquante six objets provenant du Congo appartenant au Musee de 1'Homme (43 objets en cuivre et laiton; 13 objets en fer) - Jacques Frangaix, Palais du Louvre, Laboratoire de Recherche des Musees de France. Translated by Catherine Browne d) Report - Josef Riederer, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, RathgenForschungslabor

a) Technical Studies - Ursula Franklin and Zdenka Volavka General Considerations Before we deal with details of our technical investigation, it may be appropriate to state explicitly the philosophy and methodology underlying these studies. The systematic 'reading' of the materials record of the past in a manner comparable to that of the critical collection, translation, and interpretation of the written and oral records of history is a relatively recent development still in its infancy. The routine availability of novel scientific techniques for the characterization of materials - techniques that may be non-destructive or requiring only a very small sample allows a much broader use of technical studies of unique objects. Such studies can be of great value since they elicit information normally not available in written historical records. Appropriate technical studies can retrieve information on the methods of manufacture of the object under study, on the nature and limitations of the artisans' skills, and on the materials and resources available, including tools and implements. At times, tech-

258

Appendix III

nical studies can indicate likely sources of raw material, or particular sources can be excluded on the basis of such technical evidence. Absolute dating of metal objects - in contrast to the dating of their context - is at present not possible, with the exception of the dating of certain iron objects when the carbon-14 content of their carbon or graphite phase can serve as a basis for absolute chronology. The final usefulness of technical studies still depends largely on the understanding of the nature of the technical information obtained - an understanding that must be developed between the scientists conducting such studies and the scholars using the results. The rationale for conducting technical studies of ancient artifacts has essentially two components. Obviously, in the first place any information on the design and construction of an artifact and on the nature, processing, and specific treatments of its materials is a welcome addition to the characterization and description of the artifacts. Technical studies may help to put the object into a larger context with respect to indigenous materials, culture, trade, and transcultural influences. Almost as important, however, is the contribution that thorough technical studies of provenanced objects can make to the developing general knowledge of ancient materials and processes. Because of the relative novelty of comprehensive technical studies, there is a great lack of tangible background material against which specific studies can be evaluated. Thus, even in cases where the study of individual objects may not be expected to provide novel insights, technical studies need to be compiled for the sake of future investigations. It is particularly important that objects be studied by a variety of scientific techniques, preferably applied to the same samples. In terms of the interpretation of the technical studies, it is well to keep in mind some basic facts. First and foremost, it must be realized that any information such as chemical composition, microstructure, or isotope ratio, as it is published in the literature, refers to the sample tested, which is usually a very small part of the whole object. In many cases, it is neither trivial nor easy to extrapolate from the sample to the object. For instance, one cannot always assume that the chemical composition of a small sample is identical with the composition of the whole object, particularly if the object is cast. For this reason, the sampling location on cast objects should be carefully recorded in all reports. Thus, while the analytical techniques may be very precise, the heterogeneity of ancient objects usually introduces greater uncertainty into the data on chemical composition than the techniques imply. Two further considerations should be kept in mind when interpreting in general terms the results of technical studies of ancient artifacts. In the first place, it may be tempting to cast technical evidence into a developmental mould, that is, to look at ancient skill and techniques in the light of events that occurred well after the artifacts under study were made. Such retrospective 'viewing' tends to

Scientific Analyses 259 regard, for instance, experimentations with different technical options as much more purposeful and significant than they may have been in their own time. Linkages are easily suggested but very difficult to demonstrate conclusively. Furthermore, ancient technical processes are much too often described as forerunners of processes we know today. It is important to keep in mind that not all ancient processes have survived, nor have they all been transformed into recognizable modifications. Placing technical findings into the larger context of materials processing constitutes one of the best safeguards against misinterpretation. For instance, should the metalworking require high temperatures, the skill of temperature management may well have an impact on pottery making, glazing, or glass forming. Thus, a keen awareness of both the context within which the object existed and the context of the scientific tests is needed so that the results of technical studies are neither undervalued nor overextended. Methodology In general terms, technical studies proceed from the general to the specific and from non-destructive techniques to the more or less destructive ones. In the study of samples from the insignia, the general methodology outlined below was followed to the extent to which such activities were permitted by the Musee de l'Homme. 1 Direct Observation and Radiography Frequently, the overall construction of an artifact as well as its state of preservation can be revealed best by radiographs using X-rays, gamma rays, or thermalneutrons. Together with a thorough optical inspection under low magnification, carefully executed radiographs constitute the most useful basis for all further technical studies. 2 Density I Specific Gravity Measurements of density (or specific gravity) are non-destructive determinations that can be useful in the cases of non-corroded artifacts, particularly but not exclusively those of metals, alloys, or slags. The information on density or specific gravity, while not important by and for itself, allows a cross-check on information gathered by other techniques such as chemical composition, porosity, deterioration of the material, and so on. Consequently, whenever possible such information should be gathered routinely. 3 Chemical Analysis

Elemental chemical analysis is historically the oldest and still the most common form of

260

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study of ancient artifacts. Chemical composition can be determined by a variety of methods ranging from the traditional wet chemistry to optical spectroscopy both in the emission and absorption mode, neutron activation analysis, X-ray fluorescence, and similar techniques. Concentrations of major elements allow distinctions between different artifact groups and between different alloys. They can also point to standardized commercial compositions or may show the origin of a particular material as being coinage of a certain realm. Frequently, in addition to major elements, or even instead of them, minor or trace elements in concentrations down to parts per million are determined. Such trace elements can be used in provenance studies and may suggest identities or differences in the raw materials used in particular artifact groups; furthermore, it may be possible to pinpoint the source of such raw materials. The ready availability of automated analytical procedures of high sensitivity and accuracy has provided a considerable impetus to the conduct of provenance studies. The determination of chemical alterations on the surface of artifacts can provide information on decorative technique and deliberate surface manipulation as well as on effects of the environment, or use of the object itself, or both. When comparing the results obtained by different analytical techniques, it must be kept in mind that certain techniques, such as X-ray fluorescence, provide information on a small layer of the surface of the sample only, while others, such as spectroscopic techniques and neutron activation, provide information from the total volume of an often very small sample. The fact that X-ray fluorescence can be used as a non-destructive technique on the whole object - for instance, a coin - has great advantages. However, the selectiveness of the resulting information must be kept in mind. Beyond the information that elemental analysis can yield regarding specific objects, analytical data still provide the most essential background information for comparison between materials. Because we feel very strongly that such background information should be accumulated by all scholars who are in a position to do so, we have carried out elemental analyses on all available artifacts. The choice as to which of the techniques for elemental analysis should be employed in a particular inquiry will depend in part on the reason for conducting such tests, that is, whether major, minor, or trace elements are of prime diagnostic interest. However, in many cases the ready availability of one particular technique, and the investigator's familiarity with it, may in fact determine the method of analysis used. 4 Phase Analysis - Optical and Structural Studies The techniques for chemical analysis listed in the previous paragraph yield compositional data as to elements present in the object. Such data, however, do not specify into

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261

which phases or compounds these elements combine. To determine this, a phase analysis has to be conducted separately by means of optical microscopy or X-ray diffraction or both. In the case of metallic objects, by far the most important source of information one which can reveal the method of manufacturing of the objects and often the objects' history - comes from microscopic studies of the metal's structure. A metal's microstructure revealed by investigations of carefully prepared metallographic sections can indicate whether an object was cold-worked, hot-forged, or cast, and whether it was annealed after working or worked after annealing. Microstructures can provide good indications of the purity of the raw materials, of the temperature management in the fabrication of the object, and of specific surface treatments or environmental interactions. In the case of casting, optical studies may indicate the condition of the metal solidification and with it the regime of casting itself. Such studies are therefore central to any technical evaluation of ancient metal objects, and in the current investigation we have placed our major emphasis on them. One of the most powerful tools of modern materials science, the electron microscope, in either its scanning or its transmission mode, frequently combines the determination of phases with an in situ determination of elemental composition. This provides an unsurpassed opportunity for the careful characterization of materials. X-ray diffraction is one of the routine tools used to establish and identify the presence of a particular crystalline phase. It is used most frequently for the identification of phases in ceramics or of inclusions in metal. Its potential to detect texture and preferred orientation provides a useful tool to identify specific metalworking techniques such as wire drawing. 5 Hardness Measurements While the determination of the hardness of ancient materials either on a macro or on a micro scale is rarely as diagnostic as a phase analysis, it can provide helpful supplementary information. Care has to be exercised as to the assessment of environmental deterioration on objects from which one obtains hardness measurements; some effects may be very noticeable, such as penetrating corrosion, but they can also be quite subtle, such as dissolved gases; thus, many post-burial alterations can significantly affect the hardness of the objects. Nevertheless, a carefully executed sequence of hardness measurements can critically supplement the information gained from chemical and phase analysis. Microhardness measurements may also be used to identify the inclusions and precipitates. Other specialized techniques such as mass spectrometry to determine isotope ratios and techniques for dating are not discussed here since they were not used in the current study.

262

Appendix III

6 Replication Experiments On the basis of technical analyses it is often possible to establish a model of the process used to fabricate an object or to speculate about the particular preparation or processing of raw materials. It is highly desirable to test these speculations by conducting replication experiments. While technical studies can never establish how, in fact, an object was made in antiquity, one can suggest how it could have been made. There is a great deal more credibility to such suggestions when microstructures, compositions, and other materials characteristics can be obtained from replication experiments carried out as closely as possible to the presumed conditions of antiquity. The importance of including replication experiments in technical studies cannot be overemphasized. Experimental Results and Interpretation Radiography and Visual Inspection X-ray radiographs were obtained from the crown and the neckpiece at the laboratory of the National Museums of France. Although we were unfortunately only able to examine the prints of these radiographs, rather than the film itself, they confirm and reinforce many of the observations obtained on visual examination. As specified in the catalogue, the design and execution of the crown can best be described as basketry executed in metal. The radiographs show the design in which individual circular bars are joined through the winding of strips of approximately i mm width. The crown has an average of three windings per centimetre in a fairly loose coiling. The windings are executed from individual lengths of strips in a manner in which the beginning of one strip is pushed back into the last windings of the previous one. Radiographs show as well the manner in which the increasing diameter of the wall of the crown is obtained as the number of windings is increased. This procedure also indicates that the piece is constructed from the inside out, ending at the bottom rim (made of iron) which is secured by a double winding. Bands with the motif units are attached to the walls of the crown by separate wire-type binders. The visual inspection showed indications of 'wires' used for repair. It is quite clear from the radiographs that in no place are joining or soldering techniques used; the bars of the crown are individually cut and not joined; in some cases gaps are evident in the radiograph, indicating the point of addition of the next bar in the course of the fashioning of the crown. The visual inspection and the radiograph show a remarkable lack of corrosion. Neither the eye nor X-rays detected evidence of a local environmental attack. The surfaces of the fragments examined in the laboratory are of uniform reddish-brown colour. Local corrosive attacks, indicated by pockets of green

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263

patina, are absent. This indicates that the objects must have been stored in a very dry environment. The metal fragments studied were either loose pieces that could be easily removed from the objects or ends of strips and bars deliberately sampled for research purposes. In all cases there appeared to be no discernible difference between the samples removed from the body of the objects and those that had broken off. In the microscopic examinations we took care to examine sections away from cut or fractured surfaces. The visual and low-magnification inspection of the strips and bars showed sharp edges and corners and slight hammering marks on the surfaces of the bars and strips. On the other hand, we did not find on any sample surface markings that would indicate the drawing operation, that is, signs of pulling through a die plate such as a primitive wire-drawing operation would entail. We looked very hard for such evidence, both on samples as received as well as on their surfaces to which a macroetch was applied in order to accentuate surface markings. A subsequent study by X-ray diffraction also failed to reveal any evidence of texture or preferred orientation which could indicate a wire-drawing operation. The Measurement of Density The density of a number of fragments from different objects of the insignia was determined by the standard methods. There is no significant difference between the densities of the sample material from different objects. The average density of all fragments ranges between 8.4 and 8.6. This value proved later to be completely consistent with the chemical and metallographic evidence. (The density of pure solid copper is 8.9.) Chemical Analysis All fragments from the set were sampled for elemental chemical analysis. It was hoped that on the basis of the elemental analysis the following questions could be addressed: (a) Was the same type of material used for all objects in the set? (b) Was the same material used in the different components of each object such as bars, strips, binders? (c) Were there characteristic minor or trace elements that could provide indications about the origin of the process applied to the raw materials utilized? In the case of copper-based raw materials, one looks in particular for indications as to whether one is dealing with a more or less pure metal or an intentional alloy. The presence or absence of arsenic is of interest, as is the level of silver, which may direct the investigator to possible sources of native copper. In addition to sampling the objects from the insignia, copper currency sets were included in the analysis (see Appendix Ib). An initial non-destructive screening with X-ray fluorescence showed the absence of

264

Appendix III

TABLE Ilia Average Composition of Object Number of samples

Zn (%)

Su (%)

Pb (%)

As (%)

Fe (%)

Ag (%)

Toronto Paris Berlin

6 5

bd

bd

_ bd

0.02

0.1 0.1

0.1-0.2 0.1-0.3

Toronto Paris Berlin

2 3

0.03

0.1

0.15

Toronto Paris Berlin

2 2

bd bd

bd bd

bd

0.5 bd

0.2 0.8

Toronto Paris Berlin

1 1

bd bd

bd bd

0.03

0.05

0.4 0.4

Toronto basket fragment 1 Paris Berlin

4 1

0.3 0.02

0.2 0.5

basket Toronto fragment 2 Paris

4 2

bd bd

0.05 0.02

0.4 bd

0.05

0.1

0.15

Object

Laboratory

crown

neckpiece

lid

belt

0.05

not analysed

bd bd

0.05 0.05

bd

bd

0.4

not analysed

_ bd

0.02

not analysed

_ bd

bd

bd

not analysed

0.02

bd not analysed

bd bd

currency stick (2) rolled bar wire loop

13.6

bd bd

bd bd

0.5

0.1

0.8

0.01

bd

bd

bd = below detection limit

brasses or bronzes in the set. Thereafter, sampling for a more detailed analysis by neutron activation was carried out. Two types of sample preparation were used first, in order to establish the degree of homogeneity of the sample. Samples between 20 and 50 mg were removed from the objects after initial cleaning of the external surfaces. Some of these samples were analysed directly in the University of Toronto's low-flux SLOWPOKE reactor. Duplicate samples were dissolved in nitric acid and then converted into oxides and analysed as such. There was no discernible difference between identical samples differently prepared. The samples were initially analysed for copper, silver, gold, arsenic, antimony, and zinc. When the similarity of the composition became apparent, repeat analyses were carried out to determine iron, cobalt, nickel, and chromium, in order not to overlook any

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265

possible diagnostically significant trace elements. Elements such as iron could also indicate the addition of fluxes in smelting operations. In total, approximately 30 samples were analysed, many of them repeatedly. In addition to that, samples from the collection had been analysed earlier by two other institutions: (i) Berlin (Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, RathgenForschungslabor), and (2) Paris (Laboratoire de Recherche des Musees de France). Their analyses, carried out by atomic absorption and optical emission, respectively, yielded results that are completely consistent with the compositions obtained by neutron activation analysis. The results are compiled in Table Ilia. Most apparent is the overall similarity of the materials. All samples analysed are essentially coppers with low levels of impurity. It is significant that the zinc content is not more than o. i per cent while silver ranges from approximately 0.8 per cent to below 0.2 per cent. The levels of gold, arsenic and antimony are low, well below o. i per cent. The levels of iron found in all analyses are also quite low, that is. below o. i per cent. In summary then, the elemental chemical analyses consistently indicate that all objects of the set were fashioned from basically the same material, an unalloyed copper of reasonable purity. The low levels of silver speak against native copper. The analyses reported in Table Ilia indicate the occasional presence of lead, likely a constituent of the original ore. Lead detection by neutron activation analysis is not particularly sensitive; however, the presence of any significant amount of lead would be detected in the microstructures. The low levels of iron that were found in all analyses are significant, since they relate to the processing of the ore. If smelting processes involved fluxes, the iron composition in the raw metal would likely be significantly higher. The present levels of iron indicate processing of ore at a low temperature and without additional fluxes. Phase Analysis: Metallography A major portion of the technical studies was devoted to the microscopic examination of metallographic sections. Their microstructures record most vividly the technological history of the objects under study. Twenty samples from all the objects of the insignia - crown, neckpiece, belt, lid, and basket - were investigated, as well as samples from two currency pieces. Altogether, 30 metallographic sections were examined at various magnifications and in etched and unetched conditions. In spite of this broadly based sampling and careful evaluation, it was not possible to detect differences in microstructure between the various objects of the insignia or between the different structural components of each object. Though the microstructures of the different samples show slight differences, these are small compared to the similar-

266

Appendix III

ities, thus constituting minor variations on the same theme. Such variations can be attributed to the heterogeneity of the material itself. All samples were prepared in the same manner and photographed at the same magnification. The radiograph of a section from a strip of the crown reveals the dark elongated stringers which are copper oxides and which indicate the direction of forging of the material. The copper matrix has been heavily deformed and shows the beginning of recrystallization. One is so forcefully reminded of the similarity between this structure and that of wrought iron that it seems appropriate to call it 'wrought copper.' The structures in all other samples from the insignia are very similar to that of the strip of the crown. The density of non-metallic impurities may vary, and the degree to which recrystallization was achieved varies from place to place within a sample; but these variations were relatively small. The structure of one of the bars from the lid exhibits a structure characteristic of the purest and most recrystallized sections in our samples. On occasion, we found evidence of heavy local deformation, for example, from one of the strips of the basket. The breaking up of the stringers of the non-metallic inclusions and the change in their orientation which is evident in many micrographs indicate that the material was repeatedly worked at an elevated temperature. The very small grain size and the absence of grain growth indicates that the temperatures used for working and annealing were relatively low. On none of the micrographs did we find evidence of cast structures that might initially have been present in the material. Thus, one has to conclude that bars and strips, of different dimensions, made by heavily forging copper at moderate temperatures, constitute the material from which all samples examined were fashioned. This conclusion is completely consistent with the uniformity of the chemical composition established by the elemental chemical analysis reported in the preceding section. In addition to the samples from the insignia we examined the microstructure of two pieces of African copper currency. While the wire loop from Niari shows the structure of an annealed, low-zinc brass (possible initially cast), the structure of the 'stick' currency is strikingly similar to the microstructures discussed above. Summary To sum up: the technical studies show that all objects of the insignia were made in a very similar manner. The common raw material is an unalloyed copper. This raw copper was repeatedly annealed and forged into the basic elements such as bars and strips using a technique reminiscent of the treatment of wrought iron. The elements are remarkably even in thickness and cross section. They are not joined by soldering or braising but are bound and plied together in the manner of basketry.

Scientific Analyses

267

The objects contain structural elements of copper and iron. These are handled together without distinction in function or design. Regarding the wrought copper, the microstructures give the impression of a technique 'in hand.' There is nothing experimental, uneven, or hesitant in the metallurgy. Materials and Labour Requirements The objects constitute a major investment in labour and materials. The calculations and experiments described in the following paragraphs are intended to provide an estimate of what the making of the crown entailed. Length of Strip and Rod One can approximate the crown (exact dimensions in Appendix la, no. i) by a wall and a cover, assuming the wall to be a straight cylinder 20 cm high, composed of 32 bars of 36.5 cm diameter, and the cover a ring of 7 bars with an outer diameter of 36.5 cm and an inner diameter of 12.3 cm. There are on average three windings per cm of bar and derived from the height and wall thickness of the crown - one winding uses approximately 2.25 cm of copper strip. Based on this schematic model approximately 300 m of copper strip are required to wind the bars together in the manner illustrated. This is a conservative estimate, since it does not take into account the amount of material needed for overlap. The material needed for the bars (obtained by summing up the bar lengths) is approximately 40 m. Thus, the copper requirements are 300 to 350 m of copper strip and 40 to 45 m of copper bars. Detailed calculations of length and weight Crown 20.7 cm high 39 bars, 3 windings/cm; 2.25 cm/winding top opening 12.3 cm bottom diameter 36.5 cm ASSUMPTIONS

cylinder: 32 bars at 36.5 cm 99.5%; traces of As, Pb, Fe, Ag, sulphides

*Based on analyses made in the Laboratoire de Recherche des Musees de France, and in the Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) Laboratory of the University of Toronto.

strata from which the geological ore-forming processes concentrated the metal into mineral-rich zones. Lead ore deposits thus can often be differentiated on the basis of their lead-isotopic compositions. If sufficient isotopic data on ore deposits are available, matching of mineral and artifact isotopic ratios can be used to infer the provenance of the ore sources from which the lead in the artifacts was derived. Since the chemical properties of the isotopes of given high atomic weight element are essentially identical, the isotopic links between sources and artifacts are unaffected by metallurgical concentration processes. While this gives the isotopic method an enormous advantage over chemical analysis, it should be recognized that isotopic lead compositions in ore deposits do not uniquely label specific deposits. In addition, the mixing of lead ore from two or more sources having distinctly different isotopic compositions will produce an intermediate set of isotopic ratios which can be misinterpreted. One must be cautious in interpreting lead-isotopic data, and always keep these limitations in mind. Analytical Data and Methodology Table III b.2 lists the samples for which we have chemical and lead-isotopic data, together with the results. The chemical compositions of the five leaded-copper samples (class B, 4529, 4528, 4527,4526, and 4555) were determined by optical emission spectrometry. We are grateful to Jacques Frangaix of the Laboratoire de Recherche des Musees de France for making these analyses. The elemental concentrations in the pure coppers (class C) were determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) atomic absorption spectrometry in the ICP Laboratory of the University of Toronto. Lead-isotope ratio measurements were made using a conventional magnetic-analyser solid-source mass spectrometer in the Geophysics Laboratory of the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto. The uncertainties of the ICP data are based on the reproducibility of

TABLE IHb.2 Sample Description and Analytical Data Sample number Description Kl 1453

1454 1455 4526 4527 4528 4529 4555 K2 K4 K5 ZV2 ZV3 ZV4 ZV5 ZV6 ZV7

currency piece fragment of hinged anklet, Kwakongo large open anklet, W. Kongoland small open armlet, Bakongo armlet, Loango armlet, Loango armlet, Loango armlet, Loango armlet, Teke currency piece investiture crown, ace. no. 34.28.43. 1 investiture basket. repair investiture crown, attachment strip investiture crown, leopard claw investiture crown, winding strip investiture neckpiece, ace. no. 34.28.43.2, attachment strip currency piece investiture basket, ace. no. 34.28.43.5

Class

Pb

Cu-Zn Cu-Zn

-

As

Cu-Zn

Ag

-

-

Fe

S

-PW-Pb

-Pb/**Pb

-PW-Pb

-

.8591 ± .0004 .8517 + .0004

2.1025 ± .0025 2.0920 + .0025

18.221 + .016 18.366 ±.015

.8517 ± .0004

2.0918 ± .0025

18.365 ± .016

.8534 + .0004

2.0944 + .0025

18.315 ±.016

-

Cu-Zn Cu-Pb Cu-Pb Cu-Pb Cu-Pb Cu-Pb Cu Cu Cu

2.0% 2.1% 3.7% 4.3% 1.9% 160 95 225

3.6 x 3.3 x 5.7 x 3.4 x 4.8 x 150 225

103 103 103 103 103

3.47 x 103

1.2 x 103 2.1 x 103 920 970 950 120 130