Tribal Art

In addition to its remarkable statuary, the African art of the Mangbetu presents a wide variety of everyday objects, instruments and adornments. This ancient statuette has an interesting patina composed of several layers including an ochre-red revealing under a greyish coat and light beige cracked. Forearms and sex are missing. The statues of mangbetu ancestors are easily identifiable thanks to the typical headdress they have. This headdress represents the ideal canon of beauty within the mangbetu aristocracy. From an early age, children's skulls were compressed with raffia cords that distorted their skulls, and a high, flared headdress further accentuated the importance. Long scars, which varied according to the circumstances, roamed the sculpture, evoking the tribal paintings and linear tattoos of the Asua pygmies with whom the tribe had relations. The ancients name beli these figures of ancestors stored out of sight and comparable to those belonging to their secret society nebeli .