fetish figures: Yaka, Kongo and Songye

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Lot: 556

fetish figures: Yaka, Kongo and Songye

Set consisting of the following fetishes: a Yaka fetish (1), a Kongo fetish (2) and a Songye fetish (3). Democratic Republic of Congo. With bases.

Measurements: 29 cm (1), 27.5 cm (2) and 22.5 cm (3) in height (without bases).

The fetish is the maximum exponent of the magical-religious concept in which, mostly, African art is based. The fetish statuettes are recognized for being the support or container for "medicine" attached to the figure, which overflows its outline, emanating a certain sensation of power. Consecrated by a ritual specialist (doctor or sorcerer), the fetish becomes an object of worship endowed with a "magical charge" to which it owes its effectiveness.

These fetishes are the container that contains different elements from the three kingdoms: mineral, vegetable and animal, which symbolize the forces of nature concentrated in an object. When we contemplate the exceptional strength of the Kongo fetish with six attached reliquaries, the hidden and mysterious magical charges in the horn and belly of the ancient Songye fetish and the perfection of the packaging that encases a "miniature universe" of the Yaka fetish, we discover a wild beauty and uneducated, the vital force of a simple and profound faith based on natural remedies that have made magic the beginning of science.

The sensations that flood us when contemplating a fetish make Gobineau''s words good: "The source of that the arts have sprouted is alien to the civilizing instincts. It is hidden in the blood of the blacks... The black possesses in the highest degree the sensual faculty, without which art does not exist".

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Object

Three fetishes: Yaka, Kongo and Songye

Country

Congo

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