About the Artwork
Known as nkisi nkonde, or the great nkisi, this sculpture served as a “container” for powerful medicines and a spiritual force. It performed specific functions, including settling disputes, ratifying agreements and contracts, healing illnesses, and harming enemies. Such objects are widely found among the Kongo and related peoples.
Creating the nkisi began with commissioning a human or animal sculpture of wood with a cavity either in the head, the navel, or both. A diviner or ritual specialist prepared medicines composed of elements from bodies of water, selected herbs, and various animal parts, which he inserted into the sculpture’s cavity. Grave dirt endowed the piece with ancestral authority. A large cowrie shell covers this sculpture’s hole. Following its ritual blessing, the owners received secret verbal incantations enabling them to activate and direct the spiritual force to perform its intended functions. With each ritual, a nail was driven into the figure; the number of nails bristling from this example reveals its historical significance. Because of its enormous size, this nkisi probably protected a whole community rather than just a family.
The most celebrated sculpture in the museum’s African collection, this figure has lost some original components. Although it appears naked now, it probably wore a raffia skirt, which enhanced its aura.
Nail Figure
between 1875 and 1900
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African
Kongo
Wood with screws, nails, blades, cowrie shell and other materials
Overall: 45 1/2 inches × 18 1/2 inches × 15 inches (115.6 × 47 × 38.1 cm)
Sculpture
African Art
Founders Society Purchase, Eleanor Clay Ford Fund for African Art
76.79
Copyright Not Evaluated
Markings
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Provenance
Formerly in the Collection of:Museum fur Volkerkunde, Leipzig.
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Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Suggest FeedbackPublished References
Detroit Collects African Art. Exh. cat., DIA. Detroit, 1977, no. 136 (ill.).
Bulletin of the DIA 56, no. 1 (April 1977): p. 13.
Bulletin of the DIA 56, no. 4 (1978): p. 206.
“Family Art Game.” Detroit Free Press, May 20, 1979, p. 2 (ill.) [DIA Advertising Supplement].
Armstrong, R. P. The Powers of Presence. Philadelphia, 1981, (fig. 2).
100 Masterworks from the Detroit Institute of Arts. New York, 1985, pp. 68-69 (ill.).
Perspectives: Angles on African Art. Exh. cat., Center for African Art. New York, 1987.
African Masterworks In The Detroit Institute of Arts. Washington and London, 1995, cat. no. 58.
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Kongo, African, Nail Figure, between 1875 and 1900, Wood with screws, nails, blades, cowrie shell and other materials. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Eleanor Clay Ford Fund for African Art, 76.79.
- English
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My name is Nii Quarcoopome and I'm curator of African Art and head of Department for Africa, Oceania, and Indigenous Americas. And we are standing in the African Gallery of the Detroit Institute of Arts. To most people who encounter this object, it's a figure that looks like just any other sculpture in the museum. However, for the Kongo people who produced this work in the 19th century, such a piece is not just a sculpture. A piece like this is called n’kisi nkondi; nkondi means “to hunt.”
A piece like this was used for three purposes: one, for oath swearing; second, to kill illnesses, both physical and spiritual; and then third, for protection over the community. It is also a container of medicines, and the ingredients that go into assembling these essential medicines include elements from the plant world, from the animal world. There is clay from the depths of the rivers, which are associated with spirits, and then there is also dirt from the graveyard, which is also associated with the souls of ancestors.
All these elements are put together very, very carefully because the ingredients actually make up a spiritual force, and that spiritual force in the piece is said to be indestructible. It is also considered to be a living presence, and that actually makes the piece very, very powerful and dangerous.
As I said, people come before a sculpture like this to swear an oath after they agree that the dispute is over, we are now friends. Then there is a nail that they will drive into the piece. The nailing by the two individuals is actually an act of divination because it is actually committing them to the oath that they've sworn in front of the object. And if either of them goes against the promise, that person is going to be attacked by the spirit within the sculpture. This is the most important object in the African Gallery. This actually epitomizes that African approach to artmaking. The Detroit Institute of Arts has got one of the most amazing n’kisi objects in the whole world. Thank you.
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