Death and Display: Kuba funerary art from the Congo River Basin

Temporarily out of stock

During funerals of nobles in the Kuba kingdom (Democratic Republic of Congo), visitors used to theatrically offer so-called bongotols to the deceased and the mourning family. These highly appreciated valuables were either positioned under the corpse to support it or displayed on top of it.

In addition to their religious meaning they displayed the status and wealth of both givers and takers. Visitors would receive similar items in return. Afterwards the bongotols were stashed until, on occasion of a next burial, they would continue their cycles of gift and counter gift among the titled Kuba aristocracy.

Death and display brings ethnographic research and archival sources to bear on these intriguing heirlooms. Their rich iconography offers a kaleidoscope of traditional Kuba sociality, cosmology and ritual.

AUTHOR:
Raymond Corbey is an anthropologist at the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University, the Netherlands. His recent research focuses on the ritual art and the cosmologies of various peoples of New Guinea, Insular Southeast Asia and Central Africa.

170 colour, 40 b/w illustrations

ISBN: 9789464262124
Author: CORBEY, RAYMOND
Format: Paperback
Publication date: 01/07/2024
RRP: $170.00
Pages: 222
Dimension: 280mm X 210mm
Imprint: Sidestone Press