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Nkisi Mangaaka power figure in Manchester Museum. Minkisi and the afflictions associated with them are generally classified into two types; the "of the above" and the "of the below". The above minkisi are associated with the sky, rain, and thunderstorms. The below minkisi are associated with the earth and waters on land.
Because they are aggressive, many nkondi with human figures are carved with their hands raised, sometimes bearing weapons. The earliest representation of an nkisi in this pose can be seen in the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Kongo, designed around 1512 and illustrated between 1528 and 1541, where a broken "idol" is shown with this gesture at the base of the shield. [5]
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Male Power Figure (Nkisi), Kongo artist and nganga, late19th–mid-20th century, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Supernatural objects that were reduced to the derogatory term, fetishes, by the Portuguese were said to be inhabited by nature spirits or deified people who embodied the extraordinary power of the spiritual world. These objects or ...
Mangaaka Power Figure (Nkisi N’Kondi), Kongo artist and Nganga, Yombe group, Second half of the 19th centuryThe prehistory of Central Africa spans from the earliest human presence in the region until the emergence of the Iron Age in Central Africa.
Visser's name is linked primarily with Kongo "fetishes" (minkisi, or power figures; sing. nkisi) that are now in various American (the Art Institute of Chicago, the Detroit Institute of Arts) and German collections. Visser was not only a dedicated collector of ethnographica but also an avid photographer.
For example, nkisi bundles were found for healing or misfortune. Archeologists found objects believed by the enslaved African American population in Virginia and Maryland to have spiritual power, such as coins, crystals, roots, fingernail clippings, crab claws, beads, iron, bones, and other items assembled inside a bundle to conjure a specific ...
Nkisi had a square pouch of lion's skin filled with shells, stones, iron bells and other ingredients. It was portable; travelers and merchants carried such a pouch with them on their journeys. In the town of Kiko there was the nkisi called Lykikoo, which was a wooden statue in the shape of a man.