Kuba Kingdom
The Kuba Kingdom, also rendered as the Kingdom of the Bakuba, Songora or Bushongo, was a pre-colonial kingdom in Central Africa. The Kuba Kingdom flourished between the 17th and 19th centuries in the region bordered by the Sankuru, Lulua, and Kasai rivers in the south-east of the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Kuba Kingdom was a conglomerate of several smaller Bushongo-speaking principalities as well as the Kete, Coofa, Mbeengi, and the Twa Pygmies. The original Kuba migrated during the 16th century from the north. Nineteen different ethnic groups are included in the kingdom, which still exists and is presided over by the King (nyim).
The kingdom began as a conglomeration of several chiefdoms of various ethnic groups with no real central authority. In approximately 1625, an individual from outside the area known as Shyaam a-Mbul a Ngoong usurped the position of one of the area rulers and united all the chiefdoms under his leadership.
As the kingdom matured, it benefited from advanced techniques adopted from neighboring peoples as well as New World crops introduced from the Americas, such as maize, tobacco, cassava and beans. Kuba became very wealthy, which resulted in great artistic works commissioned by the Kuba nobility. The Kuba kings retained the most fanciful works for court ceremony and were also buried with these artifacts.
The Kuba are known for their raffia embroidered textiles, fiber and beaded hats, carved palm wine cups and cosmetic boxes, but they are most famous for their monumental helmet masks, featuring exquisite geometric patterns, stunning fabrics, seeds, beads and shells.
The Kuba Kingdom reached its apex during the mid 19th century. Europeans first reached the area in 1884. Because of the kingdom's relative isolation, it was not as affected by the slave trade as were the Kongo and Ndongo kingdoms on the coast.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuba_Kingdom
Kuba art
Art associated with the Kuba is renowned for its broadly diverse array of media. A great deal of the art was created for the courts of chiefs and kings and was profusely decorated, incorporating cowrie shells and animal skins (especially leopard) as symbols of wealth, prestige and power. Masks are also important to the Kuba. They are used both in the rituals of the court and in the initiation of boys into adulthood, as well as at funerals. The Kuba are also known for the production of beautifully embroidered raffia textiles, made for adornment, woven currency, or as tributary goods for funerals and other seminal occasions. The wealth and power of the elaborate court system allowed the Kuba to develop a class of professional artisans who worked primarily for the courts but also produced objects of high quality for other individuals of high status.
Kuba divination
Kuba Divination is a form of divination used by the Kuba people of central Africa. Kuba divination is practiced by specialists called ngwoom. According to historian John Mack, divination is used to gain access to the knowledge which only the spirits, called ngesh, possess about the source of social and physical ills which may affect a community. It serves two main purposes: detection of thieves, and determining the cause of illness.
Kuba textiles
Kuba textiles are unique in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, for their elaboration and complexity of design and surface decoration. Most textiles are a variation on rectangular or square pieces of woven palm leaf fiber enhanced by geometric designs executed in linear embroidery and other stitches, which are cut to form pile surfaces resembling velvet. Women are responsible for transforming raffia cloth into various forms of textiles, including ceremonial skirts, ‘velvet’ tribute cloths, headdresses and basketry.
Kuba masquerade
The Bushong Kuba are responsible for some of the most beautiful and sophisticated masquerade or dance traditions in Africa. Origin stories for some Kuba masking traditions describe how the mask's creators first encountered a ngesh in the forest and, after a period of disorientation, returns home to carve a likeness of the ngesh. While ngesh are rarely represented by figurative sculpture, they are thought to be personified in masquerade figures, which are in turn empowered by these nature spirits.
Ndop (Kuba)
Ndop were figurative sculptures representing different kings (nyim) of the Kuba kingdom. Although the sculptural genre appears naturalistic, ndop are not actual one-to-one representations of particular subjects, but rather a culmination of visual notations that represented the ideal characteristics of the deceased king.
19th Century Drinking Horn
On display in the Art Institute of Chicago, in the African Art and Indian Art of the Americas, is a 19th-century drinking horn. Originally from the Kuba Kingdom, the drinking horn is made out of wood, iron, and copper alloy. Drinking horns were usually a gift to the friends and family of kings or given to a warrior.
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