Human world
Kongo, Mayumba, Gabon, late 19th century
Accession Number 14.9.96.9
According to our records, this nkisi was used to cure a particular illness. Its various visible parts include the horn of an antelope, tail quills of the forest porcupine, and the skin of a genet cat.
Minkisi] receive … powers by composition, conjuring and consecration. They are composed of earths, ashes, herbs, leaves and of relics of the dead … These are the properties of minkisi, to cause sickness in a man and also to remove it. To destroy, to kill, to benefit. … The way of every nkisi is this: when you have composed it, observe its rules lest it be annoyed and punish you. It knows no mercy.‘
Simon Kavuna, around 1915
‘We don’t insult the [Christian] reliquaries of the medieval period by labeling them fetishes. Indeed, we see them as part of a complex of ideal moral gestures. And so we are coming to view nkondi. We see them not as “exotic” (a bourgeois term for the culturally complex and strange). We see them as ringing with elements from a parallel language of moral vision.’
Robert Farris Thompson, Professor of African Art History, Yale University, 1987
You can learn more about nkondi minkisi in this special interactive feature based on the world cultures gallery.
‘Nkisi is the name of things we use to help a man when he is sick and from which we obtain health; the name refers to leaves and medicines combined together. … an nkisi is also something that hunts down illness and chases it away from the body. Many people therefore compose an nkisi … It is a hiding place for people’s souls, to keep and compose in order to preserve life.‘
Nsemi, Cahier 391
Kongo, Mayombe, Dem. Rep. Congo, about 1899
Accession Number 29.5.00.22
This remarkable nkisi is composed of hook, knife, mirrors, model arrows, spoons and boat-shaped implements all set in ‘medicine’ packs. There are also iron bells and cloth packages attached to it. People wore minkisi like this one on the arm to protect themselves from harm while travelling through the bush.