Muzidi / Niombo Head – Bwende – DR Congo

This childlike puppet-like head forms a reduction of the famous niombo, a funerary anthropomorphic “package`, sometimes giant size, representing deceased among the Bwende. The niombo was buried at funerals during ancestor cults. It is made of a wickerwork frame, swaddled with textile, and was kept in the house of the chiefs. The sculputures of the Bwende were strongly inspired by those of the neighboring Bembe.

The Niombo speaks to the dead : ” ‘I am a mediator, an intermediary. I move from one world to the other ”
(Farris Thompson in Dapper, 2002, p. 70).
A rare “miniature” of the dummy containing the bones of the deceased, this ancient effigy Niombo honored an individual deemed exceptional by the community, likely to become a great mediator between the two worlds.
Provenance: former private German collection.