African Arts Gallery

Cylindrical container mboko intended for kaolin in relation to purity and the spiritual world. These containers were used by different Luba societies, and groups of prophets, more generally by the mediums of the Kilumbu, Bilumbu divination society, or by the healers of the society. Buhabo . It was a question, individually or collectively, of consulting the spirits of the ancestors through specialists. Matte patina, abrasions.

The Lubas (Baluba in Chiluba) are a people of Central Africa. Their cradle is Katanga, more precisely the region of the Lubu River, thus the name (Baluba "the Lubas"). They were born from a secession of the Songhoy ethnic group, under the leadership of Ilunga Kalala who killed the old king Kongolo who has since been revered in the form of a python. In the 16th century they created a state, organized as a decentralized chiefdom, which stretched from the Kasai River to Lake Tanganyika.
Litt. : "Luba" ed. 5Continents.