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Figure, nkondi
Kongo
late 19th century
Wood, pigment, mirror, nails, fiber
H. 30 cm
TC 16

Nkondi (plural minkondi), a subcategory of nkisi, is embedded with nails and iron blades.

"The business of nkondi was to identify and hunt down unknown wrong-doers, such as thieves and those who were believed to have caused sickness and death among their neighbors by occult means; nkondi could also punish those who swore false oaths and villages that broke treaties entered into under their [minkondi] supervision...To provoke nkondi...nails, blades and other hardware were driven into it. Angered by these injuries, nkondi would mysteriously fly to the attack, inflicting on the wrong-doer similar harm." (Phillips 1995: 246)

Provenance:
Ernst Anspach, New York, 1995
"...The object has been in my collection since June 1967 when I acquired it from a Dutch dealer. According to Frere Joseph Cornet at the time of his visit director of the Kinshasa Museum, it was the most beautiful small nail fetish he had ever seen." (Anspach, June 21,1995)
Dutch dealer 1967

Publishing History:
Michael Vlach. The Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts. Washington DC. Smithsonian Institution, 1978: plate 78.

Exhibition History:
Museum of Notre Dame University
Cleveland Museum of Art
Milwaukee Art Center
Museum of Fine Arts Boston
St. Louis Art Museum
University of Washington
Smithsonian Institution