Figurine

late 1800s-early 1900s

Figurine, late 1800s-early 1900s. Africa, Central Africa, Republic of the Congo, Kongo-style maker. Wood, metalized glass, organic materials (including resin), feathers, plant fibers, iron, and copper alloy; overall: 34 x 9.5 x 25 cm (13 3/8 x 3 3/4 x 9 13/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, René and Odette Delenne Collection, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 2010.439 One of seven minkisi figures previously in the René and Odette Delenne collection, this object contained medicines in which an ancestral spirit was believed to reside. This figure is one of the two tallest in the collection. Feathers of a bird of prey adorn its head, with two small guns pointing upward and a third hanging down. It had belonged to “the sorcerer of Louboulou.” This is one of two tallest in the collection of spiritual figurines loaded with gunpowder to shoot at witches: nduda, or “night guns.”