This is the rating and price for Songye Power Figure, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Description : Songye Power Figure, Democratic Republic of the Congo nkisi Wood, metal, African Buffalo ( Syncerus caffer) horn, African Royal Python ( Python regius) skin, shells, cloth Height 24 3/4in (63cm) Provenance Robert Jacobsen Collection, Copenhagen German Private Collection Alexandre Bernand Collection, Paris French Private Collection Canadian Private Collection John Mack notes, 'The efficacy of mankisi [plural for nkisi] has several sources. Most important are the many different types of substance and paraphernalia applied to the figures. Most of these are regarded as inherently powerful or aggressive--substances such as parts of lions, leopards, snakes, bees and birds of prey; the sexual organs of crocodiles and earth from the tracks of elephants; human elements taken from such exceptional categories of person as suicides, sorcerers, epileptics or twins. Items of regalia may also festoon the figure, recalling the typical attributes of chiefly dress or of the hunter. The figures themselves are always male and have a combination of characteristics that constitute a gerneralised reference to ancestors. The most important and detailed study of Songye masks and figures to date is by Hersk. She notes that the efficacious substances listed above are thought of as having been contrived at the beginning of creation and were originally contained in horns and calabashes. . . In general, the head and the swollen abdomen of the figure hold the empowering concoctions, which--as in Kongo ideas about their magical figures--may themselves be regarded as in a sense 'containers', vehicles of mystical force. There is no prescribed formula or choice of elements unerringly adhered to in the creation of a magical figure: each is empowered by a variety of such substances, assembled in varying combinations according to the preferences and experience of the ritual specialist, the nganga, who 'creates' the object. It is significant that the carved properties of the figures are considered secondary. It is unquestionably the substances applied subsequently that are the critical element; indeed the nganga credited with the creation of the object may or may not also be its sculptor.' (Phillips, Tom (ed.), Africa: The Art of a Continent, Prestel Verlag, 2004, p. 283)
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