MOLDING OF A KUBA SCARIFIED TORSE, Kasai Region, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Plaster.
The motifs are made up of parallel or intersecting lines.
H. 56 cm with base
PROVENANCE: former private collection, Brussels.
According to the testimony of the former owner of the five busts presented here, they were made following live impressions made around 1910 by a Belgian anthropologist in the Kuba, Bushongo, Kassai and Kwango countries.
They were then presented to the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren.
Two publications by the Musée du Congo Belge (published by the Ministère des Colonies in Belgium) are devoted in part to studies of scarification among the Kuba peoples and their neighbors:
- E. Torday & T.A. Joyce, Notes ethnographiques sur les peuples communément appelés Bakuba ainsi que sur les peuplades apparentées - les Bushango, Musée du Congo belge, 1911.
- E. Torday & T.A. Joyce, Notes ethnographiques sur les populations habitant les bassins du Kassai et du Kwango oriental, Musée du Congo belge, September 1922.
The book, published in 1911, contains numerous illustrations and drawings of scarifications comparable to those seen on the torsos and backs presented here.
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