Warrior Ancestor Figure, 19th century
Hemba
This dignified figure of a Hemba warrior, with his upright posture and lofty, outward gaze, would have served as the focus for the veneration of its ancestors among one of the Hemba peoples of the central and eastern Congo. Each clan possessed such an ancestral effigy that was revered as the image of a founder, both actual and ideal. As a receptacle for the ancestor’s spirit, the figure is both conceptually and stylistically universalized; it is not concerned with the specific or momentary. Such figures were preserved in funerary houses or chiefs’ houses and expressed the continuing relationship between the living and the dead.
Reflecting the cult of the warrior assimilated from the Luba people, the Kimbell ancestor figure holds a large parade knife in his right hand and a lance in his left. As extensions of his arms, his weapons symbolize his courage and masculine physical prowess. These emblems of power, along with the carefully trimmed beard and the characteristic, cruciform headdress, probably allude to the office of war chief. Retaining overall the columnar stability of the living tree from which it was carved, the sculptor has structured the image from bold spherical and cylindrical forms, enlivened by the interplay of forceful diagonals and stabilizing horizontals.
Esta digna figura de un guerrero hemba, con su postura erguida y su mirada altiva, habría sido el foco de veneración de los ancestros de uno de los pueblos hemba del centro y el este del Congo. Cada clan tenía una efigie ancestral como esta, a la que veneraban como la imagen de un fundador, tanto real como ideal. La figura, receptáculo del espíritu del ancestro, se encuentra universalizada conceptual y estilísticamente; lo específico o momentáneo carece de importancia. Las figuras de este tipo se preservaban en cámaras funerarias o en las casas de los jefes, y eran la expresión de la constante relación entre los vivos y los muertos.
Reflejando el culto al guerrero asimilado del pueblo luba, la figura del ancestro del Kimbell tiene un gran cuchillo de desfile en la mano derecha y una lanza en la izquierda. Como extensiones de sus brazos, las armas simbolizan su coraje y destreza física viril. Estos emblemas de poder, junto con la barba bien recortada y el característico tocado cruciforme, probablemente aludan al cargo de jefe guerrero. Conservando la estabilidad vertical general propia del árbol a partir del cual se ha tallado, el escultor ha estructurado la imagen a partir de audaces formas esféricas y cilíndricas, animadas por el juego entre fuertes diagonales y horizontales que le otorgan estabilidad.
Frank D. Lambrecht, Congo and Brussels.
(Armando Scamperle, Rome and Paris).
(Jacques Kerchache [born 1942], Paris) to the mid-1970s);
purchased by (Ben Heller, Inc., New York) possibly from (Jacques Kerchache) by 1975;
purchased by Kimbell Art Foundation, Fort Worth, 1979.