Coming to Terms with Heritage - Ricerca sull'intelligenza artificiale specializzata al MIT

Coming to Terms with Heritage
Kuba Ndop and the Art School of Nsheng

Elisabeth L. Cameron

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In 1989, I was in Zaïre (now the Democratic Republic of

the Congo) doing pre-dissertation fieldwork and trying
to find the perfect research topic. The Kuba kingdom
was an irresistible draw and I spent several months in
the area exploring various topics. I was especially privi-
leged to stay at Nsheng,1 the capital of the Kuba king-
dom, as the guest of the king’s mother. One evening a young man
approached me and gave me an ndop, a carved figure represent-
ing the seventeenth century king Shyaam aMbul aNgoong (Fig.
1). He introduced himself as Musunda-Kananga from the Sala
Mpasu area and heritage and explained that he had aspirations
of becoming a contemporary artist. He had applied to go to the
Institut des Beaux Arts in Kinshasa but had decided to come to
its sister school, the Institut des Beaux Arts in Nsheng, originally
founded by Josephite priests forty years previously in an effort
to preserve Kuba artistic heritage, because it was closer to home
and cheaper. When Musunda-Kananga arrived, he was dis-
mayed to discover that, while officially a government-sponsored
art school, in reality he would be taught how to carve Kuba-style
figures and cups. The Kuba ndop carved by a Sala Mpasu artist
through a Flemish Catholic instructional heritage in a Zaïrian
secular government fine art school seemed to epitomize the ten-
sions of loss and renewal common to discussions of heritage.

An ndop is an officially commissioned wood portrait figure of
a specific Kuba king—originally only one ndop was produced for
each king. Scholars differ on the exact number of surviving ndop,
but perhaps eleven original figures are housed in European and
American museums.2 All the known ndop are very similar in
form: measuring between 10 E 30 inches tall, they represent the
king seated with crossed legs on a cube-shaped pedestal, hold-
ing a ceremonial knife in his left hand, and ibol or the king’s indi-
vidualized and identifying symbol attached to the pedestal at his

feet. Per esempio, Shyaam aMbul aNgoong banned gambling and
introduced the lyeel game (Vansina 1978:60). He is also credited
for bringing a time of peace that gave people leisure time to play
games. Therefore, he chose the lyeel game as his symbol. The ndop
was used during the king’s lifetime as his surrogate when he was
absent from the capital. At his death, the incoming king slept with
the ndop of the previous king to absorb his ngesh or bush spirit.3
The ndop then became a memorial figure that was kept by the
king’s surviving wives and occasionally displayed. When the Afri-
can American missionary William Sheppard arrived at the court
In 1892, he described the scene:

On an elevation were statues of four former kings. These statues
were carved from ebony. They were highly prized and regarded as
sacred. One of them represented King Xamba Bulngungu [Shyaam
aMbul aNgoong]. On his lap was something like a checker board.
King Xamba’s dearest amusement was in playing this native game.
Another had a blacksmith’s anvil before him, for he loved the art of
blacksmithing (1917:112).

Ndop were also given as gifts to visiting dignitaries or purchased
by visitors like the ethnographer Emil Torday (Fig. 2). The ndop
figure became well known in Europe after four collected by Tor-
day were put on display at the British Museum.

The meaning of ndop, both to the royal Kuba themselves and to
those outside the royal family, whether Congolese or European,
changed throughout the twentieth century. Torday recorded that
the ndop was originally commissioned by Shyaam aMbul aNgoong
“so that his successors would be able to remember him and his
laws” (Torday and Joyce 1911:27). Jan Vansina, a historian, records
the spiritual uses of the figure during the lifetime and immedi-
ately following the death of the king (Vansina 1964:100–101, 108,
113; 1978). Vansina states that “the king’s personality resides in it

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as much as in his body” (1964:101). Joseph Cornet, on the other
hand, suggests that the figures were made postmortem, except
that of Mbope Mabiintshi maKyeen, the king who died in 1969,
who had his made before his death because he was convinced
Quello, in the modern world, no one would commission his after his
death (Cornet 1982:58).

This debate among scholars about what the ndop is to the
Kuba may or may not reflect the reality of Kuba perceptions and
beliefs; it does reveal the changing character of the ndop out-
side the Kuba area. The contemporary painter Cheri Cherin, for
esempio, in a painting titled Mystique Congolaise, exposes and
critiques the occult and evil forces that many assign to the Congo
(Fig. 3).4 A series of dangerous vignettes include a leopard man
masquerading as a priest, witches flying over a cemetery, a “tra-
ditional medicine” practitioner offering to cure AIDS, sorcery,
and domination. In the corner, Mami Wata chats on a phone
E, in the center of the painting, there is a carefully articu-
lated ndop. A snaggle-toothed figure wearing 666, the Christian
symbol of the Antichrist, holding a sharp spear and flexing his
long sharp claws, arches over all the different objects and scenes.
In this work, the ndop is revealed as an evil, possibly demonic
object, a very different interpretation of the work than when it is
presented in a museum as a fine work of art.

Whether it be the ndop produced in a fine art school repre-
senting Kuba pride and heritage, the ndop displayed in major

1 Contemporary ndop representing Shyaam
aMbul aNgoong carved by Musunda-Kananga, a Sala
Mpasu carver. Democratic Republic of the Congo;
1989. Legna; 35 cm. Collection of the author.
Photo: © PoPPy De GaRMo (PoPPyDeGaRMo.CoM)

2 one of the ndop purchased by emil torday dis-
played by Misha Pelyeeng a-Ntshey. (hilton-Simpson
1911:F. 204).
Photo: CouRteSy of the RoSS aRChive of afRiCaN

iMaGeS

European museums as the epitome of African sculpture, or ndop
used as a symbol of paganism, tribalism, and backwardness, IL
changes in meaning, as suggested by Rambelli and Reinders, are
a form of iconoclasm (2007:27). The effect of forcing new mean-
ing on artworks as seen in Emil Torday’s expedition, in which
a large quantity of Kuba art was removed and re-presented in
the British Museum, forced European artists, art historians,
and museum professionals to forge a new understanding of the
objects and the Kuba themselves. It is also seen in the arrival of
Flemish priests imbued with European ideas of preserving her-
itage into the Kuba capitol, which forced the Kuba themselves
to move to new production and profoundly changed the mean-
ing of the ndop, making it export art. Finalmente, it is seen in post-
colonial reinterpretations of historical beliefs and practices seen
in contemporary paintings that reflect the tensions between
“ancient” beliefs and practices and the modern world.

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3 Cheri Cherin (Kinshasa, B. 1955)
Mystique Congolaise (1999)
Painting, 62 cm x 96 cm
Collection of Werner horvath, austria.
Photo: CouRteSy of WeRNeR hoRvath

Reception of Kuba aRt in the West
The Kuba peoples are a confederation of different ethnic
groups, each with their own language, histories, and traditions,
who are bound together because they all pay tribute to a single
king (Vansina 1978:140–42). The kingdom itself is located on the
edge of the equatorial rain forest between the Sankaru and Lulua
Rivers. Taking advantage of the resources from the savanna and
forest and being on two key navigable rivers, the Kuba developed
into an important entity that controlled a rich trade network.

This inland kingdom was remote to late nineteenth century
Europeans and Americans and its inaccessibility to all but the
most intrepid Western explorers drew the attention of colonizers
and art lovers. The court qualified as ancient—king lists care-
fully kept through oral traditions date the foundation of the cur-
rent Matoon dynasty to Shyaam aMbul aNgoong, who ruled in
the mid-seventeenth century (Vansina 1978:245). Elegant forms,
figurative sculptures, and complex dense patterning on works
made for royal Kuba patrons were visually accessible and attrac-

30 | african arts Autumn 2012 vol. 45, NO. 3

tive to Europeans, who were, in turn, impressed by the refined
court art and regalia produced by specialists.5 Collections of this
art and tales of the civilized, ancient kingdom in the “heart of
darkness” soon reached Europe and America, bringing the Kuba
peoples and their arts to the attention of the broader world.

First drawn to the elaborate court, missionaries, travelers, eth-
nographers, and colonial officials learned of the intricate political
and legal systems that, on superficial levels, resembled European
courts and protocols. As eloquently stated by Pagan Kennedy,
“the Belgians had been trying to gain entrance to this African
Shangri-la, this hidden utopia rumored to be rich in ivory, gold,
and rubber” (2002:70).

Ludwig Wolf, In 1885, described the Kuba as a “superior civ-
ilization,” and declared it to be descended from the Pharaonic
Egyptians (Vansina 2010:43). Europeans and Americans espe-
cially were impressed by the refined court art and regalia pro-
duced by specialists and thought they supported the idea of
Egyptian roots. T.A. Joyce comments in a 1910 article on an ndop
given to Torday by the king (Fig. 4): “The art of portraiture in the
round, as far as Africa is concerned, has usually been supposed
to be confined to Ancient Egypt. Among the large material
brought back from the Kasai district by Mr. E. Torday—mate-
rial which makes it necessary for ethnographers to reconsider
their former opinions on the subject of native African art—are
four portrait-figures in wood …" (Joyce 1910:1). Jean-Paul LaFitte
responds to this description: “The statue of Shamba Bolongongo,

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(clockwise from top left)
4 Photograph of ndop collected by emil torday
that was published in numerous publications around
1910. (Joyce 1910, between pp. 1–2).
Photo: CouRteSy of the RoSS aRChive of afRiCaN

iMaGeS

5
“Kwete Peshanga aKena, Current Chief, In
ceremonial costume.” [Kwete Peshanga kena, Chef
Actuel, en costume de cérémonie.] Painting by Nor-
man h. hardy.
toRDay aND JoyCe 1911:Pl. ii

“Shamba Bolongongo, 93rd Chief, contempo-

6
rary statue of this chief (around 1600)" [Shamba
Bolongongo, 93E Chef; Statue Contemporaine de ce
Chef (1600 Env.).] Painting by Norman h. hardy.
toRDay aND JoyCe 1911:Pl. 1

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vol. 45, NO. 3 Autumn 2012 african arts | 31

(this page, top–bottom)
7 art school temporarily housed in old saw mill.
Photo: CouRteSy of the iNStitut DeS Beaux aRtS,

NSheNG

institut des Beaux-arts, Nsheng.

8
Photo: eliSaBeth l. CaMeRoN, 1989

(opposite)
9 Detail of designs painted on art school building.
Photo: eliSaBeth l. CaMeRoN, 1989

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which was brought back from a recent voyage by M. E. Torday
and which is now at the British Museum, proves that at least at a
certain era the Congolese artists weren’t inferior to their north-
ern colleagues” (1910:306).6 This Egyptian connection gave Kuba
art and culture legitimacy in the eyes of the Belgian colonial
authorities (Vansina 2010:43) and identified it, like the Egyptian
pyramids and sculptures, as a heritage that had to be protected.7
Kuba art was first displayed in Europe at the 1897 Brussels
International Exposition in the Colonial Palace, which had been
built especially for the Exposition on the king’s private estate
in Tervuren (now the Royal Museum of Central Africa or the
Afrika Museum). While most of the display space in the Pal-
ace was dedicated to ethnography, flora, fauna, eccetera., the Salon
d’Honneur at the entryway to the Palace and the Salon des
Grandes Cultures at the exit of the building were dedicated to
art, and the Kuba were well represented. In describing the arts of
the Kasai, Th. Masui calls the Kuba “masters of the art of wood-
carving” (1897:6) and in addition to the Kuba textiles, several
Kuba carvings are included in the limited number of works dis-
played as “art” (Vansina 2010:182).

The museum at Tervuren continued to promote the Kuba as
an advanced civilization with extraordinary artwork (within its
geographical and racial limits) through publishing monographs
of the explorations of Emil Torday, a Hungarian who was head of
a scientific expedition and traveled throughout the savannas of
Congo Free State (now the DRC). He spent three months (Octo-
ber through December 1908) in Nsheng, the capital of the Kuba
kingdom, during which time he amassed ethnographic infor-
mazione, oral histories, and a large collection of Kuba art. One
of the artistic prizes he collected is the ndop of Shyaam aMbul
aNgoong discussed above. According to Melville Hilton-Simp-
figlio, the photographer who traveled with the expedition, Tor-
day diplomatically asked the king about obtaining the figure and,
when he found out that the king was amenable, he managed to
convince the royal court to sell them (Hilton-Simpson 1911:209)
(Fig. 2). With great delight and anticipation, Torday shipped the
objects, along with others he had obtained in the surrounding
areas, to T.A. Joyce at the British Museum (Mack 1990:16). Some
pieces were immediately put on display and The Times reported
that the exhibition highlighted art of “one of the most remark-
able tribes of Africa” (ibid., P. 17).

Torday’s volume that followed in 1911, Notes Ethnographiques
sur les peuples communément appelés Bakuba, ainsi que sur les
peuplades apparentées. Les Bushongo, coauthored with Joyce,
was published by the Belgian Minister of Colonies and was well
received in the arts community in Brussels, making, as Vansina
described it, “quite a stir” (2010:182). Franz Boas, in his review
for American Anthropologist, stated that “the most important
portion of this part of the book is the chapter on art with its
wealth of illustration and of information …” (1911:480). Torday
took with him on his expedition Norman Hardy, a well-known
painter who specialized in ethnographic work, and W.H. Hilton-
Simpson, who was a photographer among other qualifications.
Torday himself also used a camera but without much success
(Mack 1990:31). Hardy sketched while traveling and then created
paintings based on his own sketches and Torday and Hilton-
Simpson’s photographs (ibid., P. 57). These opulent and detailed
paintings were included as plates in Torday’s book (Fig. 5). One
of the paintings was of the ndop that Torday collected and is now
in the British Museum (Fig. 6).

Kuba art appeared in the 1923 Brooklyn Museum exhibition
titled “Primitive Negro Art Chiefly From the Congo,” where
the curator, Stewart Culin, intended that “the entire collection,
whatever may have been its original uses, is shown under the
classification of art; as representing a creative impulse, and not
for the purpose of illustrating the customs of African peoples”
(Culin 1923:1). Culin had traveled throughout Europe collecting
the pieces for this exhibition and was offered several collections
of “Bushoong” art, a term which had come to mean any well-
carved piece from the Congo. In conjunction with the exhibition,
the New York department store Bonwit Teller and Co. sviluppato
a line of cotton dresses based on Kuba geometric designs that
they displayed in the store windows on Fifth Avenue (“Cotton
Frocks” 1923). Although these pseudo-Kuba fashions were short-
lived, Kuba art became stock for exhibitions of African art and
for designers who freely borrowed Kuba designs.

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the euRopean heRitage MoveMent and

the cReation of the aRt school
In the Kuba kingdom itself during the first half of the twenti-
eth century, colonial and missionary powers were making them-
selves felt. The horrific rubber atrocities8 encroached on the
kingdom and, In 1908, the American Presbyterian Church Mis-
sion (APCM) began to publicize its terrible effects on the Kuba
peoples.9 The Presbyterians, Perciò, were not in good favor
with the Belgians and the state-sponsored Catholic Church was
given control over the core Kuba area.

Although the Presbyterians arrived first, in time the Kuba king
formally converted to Catholicism. The Mweka Diocese was
opened by missionaries of Scheut who were given the special
assignment of fighting the influence of the Protestants at Luebo,
the main location of the APCM (Mbiyangandu 2004:19, 20). IL
Catholics had problems beginning work in the Kuba area. IL
first Catholic mission was opened at Mushenge in 1906 Ma, due
to a skirmish in which one of the priests was killed, closed in
1908. It was reestablished in 1914 but closed again in 1926. IL
Order of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart arrived in the Kuba area
In 1936 (Herbers 1959:53) under the guidance of Father Martin
Miserez. Catholic nuns stationed at Nsheng, the Kuba capital,
followed the Presbyterian lead of tapping Kuba arts as a revenue

source and between 1938 E 1951 raised money for their own
school for women by exporting “Kasai velvet.” They paid a group
of Bushoong women a set amount to deliver a specific num-
ber of textiles per week (Vansina 2010:275). Antonin d’Haenens
traveled in 1950 from Louvain, Belgium, to the Belgian Congo
to take up his post at Nsheng, where he would work alongside
Cyprien Herbers, who arrived later, to preserve Kuba heritage
and stimulate artistic production.

Both priests had lived through World War II and its aftermath
and the many discussions of destruction and heritage that raged
throughout all of Europe. During that war, there had been con-
tradictions in policy and execution of policy regarding the fate
of the cultural heritage of Europe. On August 20, 1943, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt established the American Commission
for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monu-
ments in War Areas (called the Roberts Commission) and gave
them the task of identifying, protecting, and returning “histor-
ical works of art and artifacts” in Europe. They advised in the
formation of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA)
Section of the War Department, the military group responsible
for carrying out the Roberts Commission’s mandate, and helped
select officers for the MFAA (Records of the American Com-
mission 2007:1–3). The British Committee on the Preservation

34 | african arts Autumn 2012 vol. 45, NO. 3

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(opposite, left–right)
10 thirty-six carved posts on the exte-
rior of the art school building.
Photo: eliSaBeth l. CaMeRoN, 1989

11 Detail of carved post, showing
openwork and sculpted head.
Photo: eliSaBeth l. CaMeRoN, 1989

(this page)
12 Catholic Church in Nsheng. Collec-
tion of the author.
Photo: CouRteSy of fatheR JaaK GeySelS

and Restitution of Works of Art, Archives and Other Material
in Enemy Hands (Macmillan Committee), with a similar mis-
sion, was established in 1944 (Lambourne 2001:122). Through
the work of these two organizations, officers were given special
training in how to identify and protect protected sites. Soon after
these organizations began their work, Tuttavia, Allied satura-
tion bombings destroyed the cultural centers of cities like War-
saw, Cologne, and Dresden, demolishing churches, archives, E
museums previously identified as protected. It has been sug-
gested that many cathedrals, ranging from St. Paul’s Cathedral
in London and the Cologne Cathedral in Germany, were spared
not because of their protected status but rather because their
large structures dominated the sky and therefore acted as loca-
tion markers for either German or allied bomber pilots.

International outcry over the destruction of European artis-
tic heritage intensified after the war ended in 1945, resulting
in pressure to protect cultural monuments from future acts of
war. The Roberts Commission continued to work through 1946,
documenting the destruction through descriptions, maps, E
photographs; identifying monuments that needed continued
protection; and reporting on what had been done to restore
stolen cultural property (Records of the American Commis-
sion 2007:1). In 1954, the Convention for the Protection of Cul-
tural Properties in the Event of Armed Conflict (also known
as the Hague Convention) was signed by 123 States. L'Aia
Convention focused on immovable property (monuments like
cathedrals) and movable property (mainly museums or archival
collections) (Ruggles and Silverman 2009:4).

histoRy of the aRt school
It was in this postwar atmosphere of actively working to pro-
tect the cultural and artistic heritage of Europe that, In 1950,
Antonin d’Haenens arrived in the Kuba capital, prepared to find

this vaguely Egyptian vibrant artistic heritage being practiced;
instead he found three elderly carvers working under the shade of
the trees. Most of the earlier works of Kuba art had disappeared,
having been taken to satisfy the insatiable appetite of European
museums and collectors (Binkley and Darish 2009:51). Father
Antonin sought to fill this void by starting a carving workshop in
the nearby colonial center of Mweka, where the ten students who
enrolled were Luba and Bena Lulua and not Kuba at all.10

Within six months, the school was transferred to an old saw-
mill in Nsheng where the king could keep a watchful eye on the
new institution and new school buildings were constructed (Fig.
7). One provision of the new building complex was the assign-
ment of a Josephite missionary qualified as an artist (Herbers
1959:54). Cyprien Herbers, with academy training at the Acad-
emy of Louvain and the Institute Saint Luc de Gand, arrived in
1955 (Mbiyangandu 2004:162).

The Fonds du Bien Etre Indigènes, a colonial fund used pri-
marily for public buildings that would increase quality of life in
rural areas (“Documenta” 1949:107), helped fund the new art
school buildings, which opened in 1957 with thirty-six (presum-
ably Kuba) students (Herbers 1959:53–54). The priests designed
and built European-style buildings to house their school, Ma
wanted to make visual connections to Kuba architecture, Dove
designs are integrated into the exterior house walls (Fig. 8).
Because Kuba architecture is basically mat work, the designs
tend to be very regular and repeated and in muted tones.

The priests adapted the designs to the new plastered surfaces
by using ruler and protractor to draw similar regular designs
that were, in contrast to the originals, brightly colored (Fig. 9).
These rigidly geometric designs were appropriate for a royal
venue, since such regular patterns were reserved for the Bush-
oong (Washburn 1990:25). In addition, thirty-six carved col-
umns were placed on the verandas, a prerogative given only to

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(this page)
13 Page from Elements d’Art Bakuba (herbers
1959).
Photo: ColleCtioN of the authoR

(opposite, left–right)
14 Sculptures on the grounds of the art school by
father Cyprien.
Photo: eliSaBeth l. CaMeRoN, 1989

15 Photograph displayed by father Cyprien in his
office of a bust he sculpted in ivory.
Photo: JoNathaN M. CaMeRoN, 1979

throughout the campus (Fig. 14) and used local materials, come
as ivory, to carve figures such as the bust in Figure 15, che è
now in the collection of the Vatican.

The art students, during their tenure at the school, constructed
notebooks of geometric designs carefully drawn on graph paper
with the design name written next to it. The design was rigidly
drawn, resembling architectural and royal designs. Students also
sculpted copies of various ndop and other personal and utilitar-
ian art forms, like boxes and drinking vessels.

The same rigidity of design was expected in the wood sculp-
tures as seen in the building itself. Inoltre, the edges of the
engraved designs were sharp (Fig. 16). This was a departure
from older carved forms, where the design could flow and the
edges smoothed and rounded with time and use (Fig. 17). Carv-
ers schooled in the old apprentice system would not trace their
pattern onto the wood. They could begin in one place and carve
the pattern as if it were being revealed as a whole. If the piece
was round, when they returned to the beginning the patterns
would match. Students in the art school, on the other hand, had
to carefully pencil their pattern onto the wood, making sure
everything lined up on the other side before making the first
cut. Vansina suggests that the sculptures of the art school were
at best “inspired by Kuba art but were actually something else
altogether” (2010:275). Mbiyangandu notes that the art produced
in the school was made “increasingly perfect and inspired by
Bakuba art” (2004:161), implying that the art coming out of the
school was placed in a different category than “ancient” Kuba art.
If something else, what are the works produced in the school?
When the school was founded, the priests clearly saw their work
as a way to preserve Kuba heritage. Each carved piece, whether a
seemingly utilitarian box made to hold cosmetics or embroidery
razors or an ndop, might be made with new types of tools and in
a different environment, but was based on a Kuba form rooted in
history. The form itself, Anche se, changes with the introduction of
new tools, training, and markets. Ndop, Per esempio, were once
made only for the king himself, and the artist who produced the
king’s ndop was executed during that king’s funeral (Vansina
1964:113). Now many ndop were made and sold on the open mar-
ket, the most popular being that of the culture hero and founder
of the current dynasty, Shyaam aMbul aNgoong (Fig. 18).

Once the art school works arrived outside the Kuba area, how-
ever, the differentiation was often lost. The school, Per esempio,
participated in the Exposition Universelle de Bruxelles in 1958,

royal buildings and those sponsored by the king (Figs. 10–11). UN
church was also constructed where the king, who had become
Catholic, worshipped. The decorations followed the same prin-
ciples as those of the art school (Fig. 12).

The students were exposed to “ancient” Kuba art through a
collection made by Father Cyprien and housed in the school
museum and the main teacher, interestingly not seen in any of
the school’s photo albums, was Jules Lyeen, the court carver and
a royal himself (Vansina 2010:294). I would assume that this was
a strategic appointment as both a master carver and the king’s
source of inside information.

The Flemish artists/priests researched Kuba art and wrote a
textbook titled Elements d’Art Bakuba (Herbers 1959), with text
in French and Tshiluba, neither of which are spoken by the
Kuba. In the textbook, Father Cyprien cites published sources
and had access to Lyeen, a royal carver, yet he describes the ndop
as nkengu, a Tshiluba or Tshikete term—used by outsiders and
not the royals themselves—for the king (Fig. 13).

The priests also taught Kuba men how to make Kuba art using
European tools (cover). The students learned how to sculpt in
wood and ivory but took lessons in French, anatomy, arithmetic,
and religion as well. Their art history lessons examined the arts
of Europe, Asia, and Africa (Mbiyangandu 2004:161, Herbers
1959:54). Father Cyprien also placed his own cement sculptures

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displaying works by Antonin D’Haenens and several Kuba stu-
dents (Mbiyangandu 2004:164, Herbers n.d.:57) in the pavilion
dedicated to Catholic Missions in the Congo. Critics have noted
that many of the artworks on display in the Congo section were
by European artists (Stanard 2005:283), such as the works by
Father Antonin. This makes it all the more significant that art-
works by Kuba artists, even though they were products of the
art school, were among the few works by Congolese artists dis-
played during the Exposition. I feel sure that the many visitors
who viewed the priest’s works did not see the works as “some-
thing else altogether” but as Kuba art by Kuba artists.

A similar situation had occurred earlier with the “Kasai velvet”
exported by the nuns stationed at Mushenge. The textiles were
expected to look like those found in mats and architecture, result-
ing in enlarged and flattened patterns (Vansina 2010:275). Textiles
done for internal use and not controlled by the Sisters have been
compared to jazz improvisation, with a lively rhythm appearing in
the textile through many variations of the design and color (Louie
2011). Geometric analysis of Kuba patterns suggests

Kuba women create patterns of mathematical complexity and beauty
by deviating from static structures with their own personal logic
of improvisation…. Analogous to the African-American idiom of
improvisational jazz, improvisation in Kuba cloth makes their design
motifs unique in Western textiles (Bhakar et al. 2004:310).

This design rhythm disappeared in export textiles with the
resulting disappearance of the individuality of the artist.

The Belgian Congo gained its independence in 1960 and the art
school continued apace. The following decade of revolution and
rebellion did not seriously affect the school, which continued to
train Kuba men to carve. Mobutu Sese Seko, Tuttavia, established
a policy of authenticité that changed how the school functioned.
In his Manifesto of N’Sele in 1967 he proclaimed:

Authenticité has made us discover our personality by reaching into
the depths of our past for the rich cultural heritage left to us by our
ancestors. We have no intention of blindly returning to all ancestral
customs; rather we would like to choose those that adapt themselves
well to modern life, those that encourage progress, and those that cre-
ate a way of life and thought that are essentially ours (Meredith 2005).

At first authenticité meant giving up Christian or European names
and abandoning the suit, tie, and brassiere. Authenticité, by 1973,
became a means for Mobutu to take over foreign-controlled insti-
tutions for his own gain in the “Zairianization of the economy”
(Adelman 1975:111). He abolished all churches (forcing them to
register as Communities), declared himself to be Messiah (Rob-
erts 1994:137), and banned Christmas. By 1975, he had nationalized
church-run schools, including the Josephite Art School, Quale
was folded into the nationwide Institut des Beaux Arts. Father

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16 art school box with sharp design and edges.
Photo: ColleCtioN of the authoR

17 Box
Kuba peoples, Democratic Republic of Congo, early-
mid 20th century
Legna, camwood powder, plant fiber; 7 cm x 32.4
cm x 15.2 cm
Bequest of eliot elisofon. 73-7-427.
Photo: fRaNKo KhouRy, NatioNal MuSeuM of afRiCaN

aRt SMithSoNiaN iNStitutioN

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Cyprien, the only Josephite priest still actively teaching, left the
school and a director appointed by the government took over.

I arrived more than a decade later to find that not much had
changed. Father Cyprien had retired and moved to Belgium. IL
director of the school was from Kinshasa and had been trained
in the Institut des Beaux Arts. He had accepted the headship
of the school at Mushenge because he had high blood pressure
and thought that rural life would be less stressful. The school,
Anche se, had become informally reaffiliated with the Josephites
and the original curriculum was still being followed. Students,
even those from outside the Kuba area, were being trained in
Western art history and Kuba carving. No other “contemporary”
arts, such as sculpture or painting, were being taught. Our friend
with whom this story began, Musunda-Kananga, even though he

was from a completely different ethnic background, was being
carefully taught to sculpt Kuba ndop for sale to an active national
and international trade.

The economic, artistic, and historical pressures that had been
put into play almost a half century ago still control the art school
today. A recent Josephite newsletter boasted of the vigor and
success of the school. But what is it that the school actually pro-
duces? Is it “something else altogether,” as Vansina suggests? Or
is it the new form of Kuba sculpture formed in the colonial cru-
cible and forged in the postcolonial dictatorship? For Museunda-
Kananga, it has become his future: a Sala Mpasu man, fiercely
independent, carving Kuba sculptures to pay for his existence
and ambitions as a contemporary artist.

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18 Student carving ndop in art school workshop.
Photo: eliSaBeth l. CaMeRoN, 1989

Revival oR stagnation?

tangible and intangible heRitage
Kuba artwork has long been a staple of export art and sou-
venirs for tourists throughout Africa. It could be found in bulk
alongside the roads and railroads and in craft markets in major
Congolese cities, other African cities, and in Europe and the US.
Carvings from the art school fed this trade and became sources
of income for the artists and their families. When the art school
began to actively produce a large quantity of artwork in the early
1960S, the king and the priests created a cooperative in which the
artist received 90% of the selling price of the artwork.11 The king
also passed laws setting minimum values and forbidding artists
to undercut those prices (Vansina 2010:294). But by focusing on
salable artwork and therefore moving into the realm of tourist
art, the works do become un-tied from previous Kuba practice.
Patricia Darish documented women overseeing mass creation
of Kuba tourist textiles, but also making intricate pieces with
vibrant patterns for their own (Darish 1989).

Father Cyprien, In 1959, declared that Kuba art had become
“stagnate”—that is, an art that was only looking to the past and
never to the future—and almost died because of the rigidity of the
designs that result from “the lack of developed spiritual life and
also the lack of a better degree of prosperity” (1959:43). Yet it is the

school itself that has produced much of the rigidity about which
Cyprien himself complains. He celebrated the “new more lively
compositions that now adorn the boxes, bowls, and some pan-
els, as we find them on the doors and the pulpit in the Musheng
church” (Herbers 1959:43) (Fig. 19). (It is interesting to note that
many of the designs he identifies as innovative are his own.) Lui
also praises the Sisters for introducing the bright new dyes for the
textiles. His hope for the future of Kuba art was that “the teaching
of design brings to life the rigid lines of ornamentation” because
the artist is driven by a “more noble sentiment” (1959:44).

Were Fathers Cyprien and Antonin iconoclasts? Bruno Latour,
in Iconoclash, describes one type of “vandal” as follows: “they
had absolutely no idea that they were destroying anything. On
the contrary, they were cherishing images and protecting them
from destruction, and yet they are accused later of having pro-
faned and destroyed them! They are, so to speak, iconoclasts in
retrospect” (2002:25). Cyprien loved Kuba art. He spent much of
his life studying it and collected many examples of older carv-
ing, which are now in the Josephite Museum at Geraadsbergen,
Belgium. He only left the school in 1975 when Mobutu’s regime
nationalized all the mission schools and the art school became
an Institut des Beaux Arts with an academy-trained Zairian
teacher from Kinshasa as the new director. Even so, and much
to the frustration of students coming from a distance to become
contemporary artists, the curriculum has not changed and will
not as long as the market still exists for the art school’s product.
Cyprien promoted the multiple creation of ndop by including
it in the textbook that he wrote for the school students, by draw-
ing the ndop on the blackboard of the school workshops, e da
moving the ndop produced by the students onto the art market.
Instead of the ndop being singular figures representing specific
kings and Kuba heritage, they now became fairly common stat-
ues that remind the viewer of the ancient history of the area.12
Ndop also remind of an “exotic” and dangerous past in which the

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19 the pulpit of the Catholic Church at Nsheng.
Photo: ColleCtioN of the authoR

kings slept with the figures to absorb the previous king’s ngesh
or bush spirit. They become a sign of non-Christian beliefs—or
perhaps Christian beliefs of demons—blocking the country’s
move to modernity. The changes in production and meaning of
the ndop throughout the twentieth century produce both loss

and gain, something that Lowenthal suggest is inherent to pres-
ervation of heritage: “We also need to realize that destruction
along with creation and preservation is inherent to heritage …
We are all iconoclasts at one time or another, and not only when
we make war” (1999:8).

Elisabeth L. Cameron is the Patricia and Rowland Rebele Chair in the
History of Art and Visual Culture, University of California at Santa Cruz.
She is author of Isn’t S/He a Doll: Play and Ritual in African Sculpture
(1996) and Art of the Lega (2001). ecameron@ucsc.edu.

Notes

Funding for this research project was provided by the
Christensen Fund through the Fowler Museum at UCLA,
the Arts Reseach Institute, Arts Division, and the Senate
Committee on Research Faculty Research Grants, both at
the University of California, Santa Cruz. My thanks go
especially to the Presbyterian missionaries who facilitated
my travel, my gracious Kuba hosts in Bulape and Mush-
enge, especially the late mother of the nyim, and to Father
Jack Geysels.

1 A variety of spellings for Nsheng appear in
print and are derived from the different European and
American missionaries and the different Kuba areas in
which they worked. The two most common spellings
are Mushenge, the Kete pronunciation spelled with an
American English orthography, and Nsheng, the Bush-
oong pronunciation spelled with a Flemish orthogra-
phy. Mushenge is found on most maps but Nsheng is
most common in academic literature.

See Cornet 1982 for a list and discussion of the
identification and authenticity of ndop in museum col-
lections.

3 The king was considered to be a nature spirit of
ngesh and expected certain rituals and worship not due
ordinary mortals. The king’s wives are the main priest-
esses in the cult of the ngesh king, daily singing to him,
dancing, and performing libations. The transforma-
tion of the king into nature spirit takes place during
the installation when the new king is secluded with the
ndop of the previous king so that the bush spirit can
“incubate” within him (Vansina 1972:50).

sion of the early reception of Kuba art in Europe and
the United States, please see Binkley and Darish 1998.
6 Translation provided by the Ross Archive of

African Images.

Europe has had a love/hate relationship with

Egypt probably since the days of the Greeks and
Romans. In the nineteenth century, European repre-
sentations of Egypt were both chaotic and idealized.
See Mitchell 1991 for Europe’s understanding and rep-
resentations of Egypt and Said 1978 for discussions of
Orientalism.

8 The rubber atrocities and the international out-

4 My thanks to Peter Probst who drew my atten-

cry is well documented in Hochschild 1999.

tion to this painting.

John Mack argues that most African sculpture
known in Europe during the first decades of the twen-
tieth century was “angular [E] resistant to interpre-
tation” in contrast to the softer and more naturalistic
sculpture of the Kuba (1990:17). For an excellent discus-

9 William Sheppard and William Morrison were

investigated and Sheppard was sued for libel by the
Belgian government. Sheppard won (Benedetto 1997).
10 Other Catholic priests in Africa started art
schools. Vedere, Per esempio, the work of Kevin Carroll in
Lagos, Nigeria. In contrast to Carroll, who wanted to

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create a Yoruba Christian art form, the Josephite mis-
sion at their Art School was to preserve and teach the
Kuba art form itself.

11 This was the figure reported to me by the head

of the school in 1989.

12 The mass reproduction of an object has been
the center of a lively academic debate. Perhaps the best
known is Benjamin’s argument that the original work of
art has an aura that is lost with multiple copies and the
further the viewer is away from the original (Benjamin
1969). In a recent rebuttal, Latour and Lowe argue that
multiple versions and copies creatively embellish the
aura rather than diminish it (2011).

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