Carved figure
date: label: Accession Date
content: 24 Oct 1921
name: label: Collector
content: Mrs. Sarita S. Ward
label: Collector
content: Mr. Herbert Ward
label: Donor Name
content: Mrs. Sarita S. Ward
notes: label: Notes
content: Carved wooden female figure with scarification marks carved on mid-line, chest, stomach, face, upper back, and around neck. String with glass beads around waist. Bead colors: blue & white, red, white, and blue. Found inside E323645 in 1986 during the Move to the Museum Support Center. Assigned T- 24097 at that time.
label: Notes
content: The figure is most probably an ancestral figure. Allen Roberts, an anthropologist, who worked among the Tabwa has published widely on their art. The Ward figure is carved with the characteristic Tabwa scarification pattern consisting of a series of isosceles triangles often juxtaposed in divided diamonds. This pattern is known as balamwezi, the "rising of the new moon" According to Roberts and Maurer, "The symbol is multi-referential and represents the triumph of light over dark, wisdom over ignorance, good over evil. The triangle may symbolize the most important positions of the moon, near western and eastern horizons and at the zenith; it also stands for social triangles, when a person (the apex of the triangle) is pulled by opposing forces and loyalties (the basal points)." (Roberts and Maurer, p. 72) . Roberts and Maurer further note that, "There are important dilemmas in Tabwa social life, always mediated by a person whose attention is pulled both ways at once. Motifs on ancestral figures such as the body midline so often elaborated by scarification reflects the duality of Tabwa philosophy. Left and right are defined by these lines as symmetrical, yet opposite in the qualities associated with them (receptivity, decline, and femaleness versus action, initiative and maleness, respectively). The midline divides these, but also connects head and loins, hence wisdom and sexuality which each in turn, mediates such differences." : Allen Roberts and Evan M. Maurer, "The Rising of the New Moon: A Century of Tabwa Art" African Arts Vol 19, no 3 (May, 1986) p 72.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 7 Jul 2017
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Africa
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Tabwa
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 067312
label: USNM Number
content: E431933-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Figure
physicalDescription: label: Maximum Length - Object
content: 35 cm
label: Maximum Width - Object
content: 10.5 cm
label: Depth - Object
content: 9 cm