Complexity, astonishment and power: the visual vocabulary of Kongo Minkisi

Abstract

Nkisi is a Kikongo word that has no near equivalent in English. 'Fetish' is a usual but inadequate translation; nkisi and its cognates in many Bantu languages can refer to a spirit, an amulet, a medical treatment, a mask and certain specially qualified human beings. 'Fetish', moreover, brings with it a load of prior assumptions about fetishism, derived from the speculations of nineteenth-century anthropology, that may not apply to nikisi but instead tend to obscure our understanding of the phenomenon. Like similar forms of African religious practice, minkisi (the plural form) have adapted very well to changing social conditions, whereas some better-known forms such as ancestor cults and central shrines may have declined. Minkisi, however, are difficult to study because they are multitudinous, secret and expensive. Knowledge of them must be acquired piecemeal, often in the form of an extended initiation, yet only in considerable numbers do they reveal the principles of their composition and use. The practical difficulties of research into fetishism are largely overcome in the unique case of the BaKongo of western Zaire, thanks to the work of K.E. Laman in the first two decades of this century. He collected both a large number of minkisi and an even larger number of indigenous texts describing their origins, composition, uses and ritual context. His Congolese research associates, the authors of the texts, were teachers and leading members of the Swedish Missionary Church, which was at the time in the forefront of the European occupation of what had recently become Belgian Congo. Laman and his collaborators were deliberately attempting to create an authentic record for posterity of every aspect of Kongo culture, which they knew to be in the process of rapid and destructive change. With respect to minkisi the record that has come down to us, whether in the form of objects or of words, has been somewhat mutilated. An object haphazardly selected as representative of a given nkisi and subsequently labelled 'fetish' in a museum collection may be only a small part of a complex material apparatus. Even that part is likely to have suffered in the process of collection, losing its colour and some or all of its attachments. The present essay is based on a study of some 40 such objects in the Laman Collection of the Swedish Ethnographic Museum, Stockholm, chosen because