African Arts Gallery

Of a particularly creative design, this sculpted figure breaks down into three blocks: a large and strange head on which develop huge ear flaps, a bust flanked by arcs of circles which would represent truncated arms, stocky legs with muscular globular framing a male sex placed in evidence. Sculpted details punctuate the morphology, realistic gaze with hollowed-out pupils, incisions.
Dark satin patina, warm reflections. Lacks.
Formerly designated under the name "Niam-Niam" because considered as cannibals, the tribes grouped under the name of Zande, Azandé, settled, coming from Chad, on the border of the R.D.C. (Zaire), Sudan and the Central African Republic. According to their beliefs, man is endowed with two souls, one of which is transformed upon his death into an animal-totem of the clan to which he belongs. The name of their ethnic group means: "those who own a lot of land", an allusion to their warlike past originating in Sudan. The Yanda statuettes were exhibited in divinatory seances during which the head of the society smeared them with paste and blew smoke on them.