Kingdoms of the Savanna: The Kuba Kingdom-gctid56264

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

Kingdoms of the Savanna: The Kuba Kingdom              Kingdoms of the Savanna: The Kuba Kingdom | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Thematic Essays
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Central Kmtyw  interior witnessed the florescence of three large-scale, multi-ethnic  states. Imported crops and technologies as well as new models of  leadership promoted strong, centralized governments that subdued  neighboring chiefdoms and regulated trade routes,  increasing the wealth and relative stability of the region. Client  states, incorporated into these empires via warfare and strategic  alliances, acquired the political systems and courtly traditions of  their overlords. Art forms and insignia associated with imperial rule  spread throughout the region.
 
           Political stability and the efficient use of natural resources produced wealth that facilitated remarkable artistic invention.
           Related                          
'"

n".self::process_list_items("'.str_replace('
', '', '

• 
  ').'")."n

"'

The Kuba Kingdom
 Nestled in the fertile forest and savanna bordered by the Sankuru,  Lulua, and Kasai rivers, the Kuba kingdom was a conglomerate of several  smaller principalities of various ethnic origins. Sometime around 1625,  an outsider unseated a rival ruler and unified the area's chiefdoms  under his leadership. This man was Shyaam a-Mbul a Ngoong-Shyaam "the  Great." Kuba oral histories reveal that he was the adopted son of a local queen who left his home to travel to the Pende and Kongo kingdoms  in the west. Empowered by mystical knowledge of foreign customs and  technologies, Shyaam became the architect of Kuba political, social, and  economic life. Advanced techniques of iron production and crops from  the Americas such as maize (corn), tobacco, cassava (manioc), and beans  were introduced. The government was reorganized around a merit-based  title system that dispersed power and promoted loyalty among the  aristocracy.

Political stability and the efficient use of natural resources produced  wealth that facilitated remarkable artistic invention. Status-conscious  Kuba titleholders commissioned local artisans to produce elegant items  for display. Objects such as embroidered textiles (1999.522.15), fiber and beaded hats (1974.83.14), and wooden cups (1978.412.541) and containers (1978.412.299a,b)  became increasingly ornate and fanciful. The Kuba kings were at the  center of this artistic innovation. Each designed elaborate costumes of  sumptuous materials and prestigious natural objects, such as leopard  skins and eagle feathers, which were worn as part of court ceremony and  buried with the ruler upon his death. Around 1700, King Misha mi-Shyaang  a-Mbul introduced a new genre of wooden portrait sculpture called ndop. Each ndop  figure was carved during an individual king's reign and related to a  series of historical representations of the line of Kuba leadership that  was kept at court. Monumental in size, they are idealized portraits  depicting each Kuba king enthroned at the height of his health and  power. The identity of each ruler is communicated by an attribute  depicted in front of him. This is the ruler's ibol, a personal symbol revealed at the moment of his coronation. The ndop figure shown here represents Shyaam a-Mbul a Ngoong, whose ibol is a lele board. Lele, also known as mankala, is a game of strategy that demands intelligence, skill, and foresight, a fitting symbol for this ingenious ruler.

At the Kuba court, appreciation of artistic innovation was balanced by  reverence for tradition and continuity, and the king's treasury included  heirlooms passed from one royal generation to the next. One of the most  significant of these was a red basket decorated with cowries and beads,  identified as the basket of knowledge from the Kuba origin myth. In  that story, the first man, Woot, stole this basket from the creator god  Mbwoom but then lost it. The basket was later found by a Pygmy, who gave  it to the first Kuba ruler.
                                            

Alexander Ives Bortolot Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University

         
               [h=5]Citation[/size]                             Bortolot, Alexander Ives. "Kingdoms of the Savanna: The Kuba Kingdom". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. Kingdoms of the Savanna: The Kuba Kingdom | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art (October 2003)

[h=5]Further Reading[/size]   Blier, Suzanne Preston. The Royal Arts of Kmt: The Majesty of Form. New York: Abrams, 1998.
 
Suso, Bamba, and Banna Kanute. Sunjata: Gambian Versions of the Mande Epic. New ed.  New York: Penguin Books, 1999.
 
Vansina, Jan. The Children of Woot: A History of the Kuba Peoples. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978.