Books in Visions of Africa series

The Mossi people of Burkina Faso have a rich and complex history that is mirrored by the several types and styles of figures and masks they create. They came into being around 1500 A.D. when a large group of horsemen from what is now northern Ghana rode north into the valley of the Volta River and conquered the local farmers. The descendants of the conquering horsemen became the ruling class and used political art in the form of royal figures to validate their authority. Meanwhile the descendants of the conquered farmers became the spiritual class and made masks to represent the spirits of nature. The stylistic diversity of this art mirrors the several geographically divergent peoples who were conquered in 1500 and eventually became the Mossi we know today.Unlike several other West African peoples, the Mossi have not converted to Islam in large numbers, and so they continue creating brilliant art much as their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. Until the 1980s there was much confusion about the accurate attribution of Mossi art to the people who created it. This book makes clear that the Mossi have continued to create brilliant art which they use to this day to express ideas about politics and religion.

This introduction to the visual art of one of the most renowned peoples of Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo deals exclusively with sculpture. After providing a brief history of the Chokwe, the different chapters examine the figurines used in the ritual of divination, the statuary connected with the humba possession cults, antique (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) classical statuary referred to as of the native land, court items, privileges of the warrior aristocracy, and wooden masks linked to the chieftianship and the initiation rites of circumcision. Particular attention is devoted to the precious effigies of Chibinda Ilunga, the civilising hero of the myths of the origins, almost all the exemplars of which were brought to Europe in the nineteenth century, as well as to chairs, whose symbolism and function are revelatory both of the religion and the hierarchical structure of the chieftianship.