A Dance of Assassins: Performing Early Colonial Hegemony in the Congo (African Expressive Cultures)

A Dance of Assassins presents the competing histories of how Congolese Chief Lusinga and Belgian Lieutenant Storms engaged in a deadly clash while striving to establish hegemony along the southwestern shores of Lake Tanganyika in the 1880s. While Lusinga participated in the east African slave trade, Storms’ secret mandate was to meet Henry Stanley’s eastward march and trace "a white line across the Dark Continent" to legitimize King Leopold’s audacious claim to the Congo. Confrontation was inevitable, and Lusinga lost his head. His skull became the subject of a sinister evolutionary treatise, while his ancestral figure is now considered a treasure of the Royal Museum for Central Africa. Allen F. Roberts reveals the theatricality of early colonial encounter and how it continues to influence Congolese and Belgian understandings of history today.

Arts & Photography

Roberts, Allen F.

History & Criticism

Indiana University Press

A Dance of Assassins presents the competing histories of how Congolese Chief Lusinga and Belgian Lieutenant Storms engaged in a deadly clash while striving to establish hegemony along the southwestern shores of Lake Tanganyika in the 1880s. While Lusinga participated in the east African slave trade, Storms’ secret mandate was to meet Henry Stanley’s eastward march and trace "a white line across the Dark Continent" to legitimize King Leopold’s audacious claim to the Congo. Confrontation was inevitable, and Lusinga lost his head. His skull became the subject of a sinister evolutionary treatise, while his ancestral figure is now considered a treasure of the Royal Museum for Central Africa. Allen F. Roberts reveals the theatricality of early colonial encounter and how it continues to influence Congolese and Belgian understandings of history today.

T A B W A: The Rising of a New Moon : A Century of Tabwa Art

Maurer, Evan M.

Univ of Washington Pr

Surveys the history, culture, and contemporary life of the Luba people of Zaire

Luba (Heritage Library of African Peoples Central Africa)

Roberts, Mary Nooter

Teen & Young Adult

Rosen Pub. Group

Book by Roberts, Mary Nooter, Roberts, Allen F.

A Sense of Wonder: African Art from the Faletti Family Collection

Phoenix Art Museum

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Animals in African Art: From the Familiar to the Marvelous

Animal images are so common in African art, and their meanings and purposes assumed to be so obvious, that they are taken for granted. Indeed, Animals in African Art is the first major book wholly dedicated to the subject. Once the animals in African art are looked at more closely, important questions arise. Why is it that from the astounding diversity of life-forms in Africa, so very few animals are chosen as subjects of visual and performative arts? Why are the animals that do appear repeatedly in African art so often so downright peculiar - even preposterous? And why do zoomorphic masks, figures, and other objects almost always refer to human being and purpose? In other words, why and how are animals such a useful, if purposefully distorting mirror of humanity? What does it mean to "become" a hyena or an eland by donning a mask or entering a trance? Indeed, what does it mean to be "human" or "animal, " in the first place? Answers to such questions are by no means as readily forthcoming as one might assume. To understand why and how some animals are so "good to think" (as well as good to eat) requires wending one's way along the sinuous paths of African logics. Emphasis is placed on the plural of this last word, for African systems of thought differ from one ethnic group to another, and often within each culture, from one interpreter to another. Different sense is also attributed to a given animal symbol by the same people through the course of time. There is certainly no easy explanation of why animals like snakes and penguins appear over and over again in the art of many peoples across the African continent, while others like rhinos, zebras, and giraffes rarely if ever do. Animals in African Art is a celebration of African cultural diversity, then, as well as the brilliance with which ideas are given form through plastic and performative arts.

Museum for African Art (New York, N. Y.)

Thompson, Carol A.

Museum for African Art

Animal images are so common in African art, and their meanings and purposes assumed to be so obvious, that they are taken for granted. Indeed, Animals in African Art is the first major book wholly dedicated to the subject. Once the animals in African art are looked at more closely, important questions arise. Why is it that from the astounding diversity of life-forms in Africa, so very few animals are chosen as subjects of visual and performative arts? Why are the animals that do appear repeatedly in African art so often so downright peculiar - even preposterous? And why do zoomorphic masks, figures, and other objects almost always refer to human being and purpose? In other words, why and how are animals such a useful, if purposefully distorting mirror of humanity? What does it mean to "become" a hyena or an eland by donning a mask or entering a trance? Indeed, what does it mean to be "human" or "animal," in the first place?Answers to such questions are by no means as readily forthcoming as one might assume. To understand why and how some animals are so "good to think" (as well as good to eat) requires wending one's way along the sinuous paths of African logics. Emphasis is placed on the plural of this last word, for African systems of thought differ from one ethnic group to another, and often within each culture, from one interpreter to another. Different sense is also attributed to a given animal symbol by the same people through the course of time. There is certainly no easy explanation of why animals like snakes and penguins appear over and over again in the art of many peoples across the African continent, while others like rhinos, zebras, and giraffes rarely if ever do. Animals in African Art is a celebration of African cultural diversity, then, as well as the brilliance with which ideas are given form through plastic and performative arts.

Prestel Pub

Kifwebe: Un siècle de masques Songye et Luba

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Neyt, François

Davy, Woods

Brown, H. Kellim

Dumouchelle, Kevin D.

Antiques & Collectibles

CINQ CONTINENTS

Offers a fresh perspective on the Songye and Luba through the study of the Woods Davy Collection Kifwebe masks are ceremonial objects used by the Songye and Luba societies (Democratic Republic of Congo), where they are worn with costumes consisting of a long robe and a long beard made of plant fibres. As in other central African cultures, the same mask can be used in either magical and religious or festive ceremonies. In order to understand Kifwebe masks, it is essential to consider them within the cosmogony of the python rainbow, metalworking in the forge, and other plant and animal signs. Among the Songye, benevolent female masks reveal what is hidden and balance white and red energy associated with two subsequent initiations, the bukishi. Aggressive male masks were originally involved in social control and had a kind of policing role, carried out in accordance with the instructions of village elders. These two male and female forces acted in a balanced way to reinforce harmony within the village. Among the Luba, the masked figures are also benevolent and appear at the new moon, their role being to enhance fertility. Although the male and female masks fulfil functions that do not wholly overlap, they do have features in common: a frontal crest, round and excessively protruding eyes, flaring nostrils, a cube-shaped mouth and lips, stripes, and colors. Art historians and anthropologists have taken increasing interest in Kifwebe masks in recent years.

Kifwebe: A Century of Songye and Luba Masks

Dumouchelle, Kevin

5 Continents Editions Srl

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Books by Roberts, Allen F.