African Arts Gallery

This type of female African figure, among the Luba, was often linked to fecundity and fertility rituals. The posture would further indicate that the secrets of royalty, bizila, belong to the women at the Luba court through their role as political and spiritual intermediaries. The female figurative subjects would represent for the Lubas the wife of the diviner, hence its importance in the process of bilumbu divination. According to some Lubas, however, although a woman, she would represent the first Luba diviner, and would also be an allegory of royalty linked to the powerful Mbudye society associated with royal power. ("Luba" Roberts.) Beautiful satin patina, erosions and gaps.
The Luba (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, which means “the Lubas”). The Luba have two main types of figures: the mikisi mihasi , embodying deceased relatives or spirits, and the mikisi mihake , sculptures dedicated to containing a magic charge, in the head or the abdomen, in order to solve a problem.

( Luba , Roberts, 5 Continents; "Treasures of Africa" ed. of the Museum of Tervuren).