Vase with a neck showing a human head with large pierced ears. Sets of incised motifs decorate the sides. Black slip. Abrasions, broken handle. Ceramic work in West and Central Africa is carried out by women, the wives of blacksmiths in most cases. The Mangbetu women, who also produced basketry, excelled in this art. Established in the forest in northeastern Zaire, the Mangbetu kingdom expressed itself through architectural works that impressed European visitors in the 19th century. Their furniture, weapons, ornaments and statuary were imbued with a rare aesthetic quality. Mangbetu history was indeed based on the refinement of its court but also on cannibal customs. King Mangbetu "Munza" was nicknamed "the cannibal king". The ethnologist G.A. Schweinfurth in 1870 described the refinement, while testifying at the same time to the ritual murders and human sacrifices practiced by "the people of the elongated heads", to indicate this characteristic deformation of the cranial cavity obtained from a compression, from a very young age.
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