231151 - African Ubangi Mani Yanda - Azande statue - Congo

African Ubangi Mani Yanda - Azande statue - CongoSize: 38 cm.
Typical figure from the Ubangi area ZANDE - AZANDE
Beautiful sculpture. The Zande live in the north of Congo, in the Ubangi, on the banks of the Uele River.The Zande (Azande) people populate a vast area stretching across the north of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and South central Africa. They developed a kingdom based on a royal clan, the Vungara, and absorbed foreign populations through their well-organized army that conquered new territories, making them a heterogeneous group. The nobles of the Zande court turned to Mangbetu craftsmen for many prestige items, while Zande artists themselves made the small roughly finished human and animal figures (Yanda) uséd by an ancestral, religious secret society called Mani. These highly abstract protective figures are called Yanda figures.Through magical meands, Mani Yanda are intended to protect their owners from illness, infertility, witchcraft, and harm as well as securing luck in hunting, health, wealth, and prosperity. These highly abstracted figures are today not common as most were thought to be made during the first third of the 20th Century.Bibliography - Bibliography - Ubangi, dir. Jan-Lodewijk Grootaers, Fonds mercator, 2007 - Figures Yanda des Zande, 24 sculptures from the collection Jay T Last, Jan-Lodewijk Grootaers Tribal Art Magazine n°96 Eté 2020 - 100 Zairean peoples and their sculpture. The handbook for collectors, scholars and students, Marc Leo Felix, Bruxelles: Zaire Basin Art History Research Foundation, 1987, pages 202-203 - The Tribal Arts of Africa, Jean-Baptiste Bacquart, Thames and Hudson, 1998, pages 141 - 142