Estet Violencia Zaire

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Aesthetics and Politics of Violence in Central Africa

Author(s): Wyatt MacGaffey

Source: Journal of African Cultural Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1, In Honour of Professor Terence

Ranger, (Jun., 2000), pp. 63-75

Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1771856

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Journalof AfricanCulturalStudies,Volume13, Number1, June2000, pp. 63-75

Aestheticsandpolitics of violencein CentralAfricaWYATTMACGAFFEY(HaverfordCollege, Haverford,Pennsylvania)

ABSTRACT The BaKongo and other Central African peoples understand the place ofviolence in their lives in ways that resist translation into English because they seem to beboth 'real' and 'imaginary.' In the nineteenth century, imagined violence wasrepresented in the rituals of chiefs and in the complex forms of minkisi, fabricatedobjects which could be invoked to inflict retribution on others. The imaginativerepresentation of occult violence in these objects and in the insignia of chiefship hasearned many of them a place in the world's art museums. In recent years, vividlyimagined violence has been central to the popular understanding of national politics, inCongo/Zaire as in many other African countries; it can infact be regarded as a theory ofpolitical life, and compared as such with Western theories concerning the social orderingof violence.

A man I saw sitting in a village jail in Lower Congo in 1966 had been convicted ofmurderingsix people by witchcraftand sending their souls to Kinshasa in aeroplanesmade of leaves. The local court hadimposedthe maximumsentencein its power,30 daysimprisonment.The village was shocked butnot deeplydisturbedby the incident,as farasI could tell; to them, this kind of killing was almost banal.I found theirresponseto thisandmanysimilar incidentspuzzling,and have been tryingever since, with little success,to feel that I understood t. One strategy might be to recalibratemy sense of 'murder,'given that most deaths and indeed most misfortunes, including illness, are usuallyattributed by BaKongo to 'witchcraft,' kindoki; 'murder' is thus life's normalaccompaniment.It is also necessary to qualify an English-speaker'snormal sense of'witchcraft,' since kindoki, though mysterious and dangerous,is a power that almostanyone may have and which is necessary to society's leaders and defenders, such aselders,diviners and magicians.If that is so, perhapsmy mentaladjustment houldgo sofar as to reclassify kindoki from the domain of belief and irrationality 'religion') andbeginto think of it as a theoryof power,a political theory.In a papercalled 'From humanism to the science of man: colonialism in Africa andthe understandingof alien societies' (1976), ProfessorRangertraceda historyof socialscientific misrepresentationsof Africa, in which the exoticism of the results seemed toconfirmthe pretensionsof the discipline.He told his story optimistically, ookingforwardto a humane comparative science which would not objectify those whom, in theinterveningdecades, it has however become regrettablyconventionalto call the Other.Ranger has always insisted that African thought must be taken seriously, even after(perhapsespeciallyafter)it has been invidiously glossed by such terms as 'witchcraft';nparticular,he has repeatedlyshown that conceptual boundaries between the religious

ISSN 1369-6815print;1469-9346 online/00/010063-13 ? 2000 Journalof AfricanCulturalStudies


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64 WyattMacGaffey(irrational, traditional')and the political (rational,'modem') must be transcended.Thisdichotomyhas by no meansdisappeared;Africanconceptsof powerare still dismissed ascharacteristiconly of 'traditional'ruralpopulationscircumscribedby ethnicboundaries,althougha growing literaturechallenges this assumptionby showing the role of suchconceptsin today's nationalpolitics (Lan 1985;Comaroffand Comaroff1997;Gruenais1995;Meyer 1995;Schatzberg1997;Ciekawyand Geschiere1998;MacGaffey2000).Let us rescue the unfortunateprisonerfrom his jail and resituate him in a broadercontext, the inventoryof politicallyrelevantpowers;in so doing, we relieve the incidentof at least some of its burden of idiosyncratic irrationality.In its unmarkedsense,kindoki is the power to cause harmfor the personaland thereforeantisocial benefit ofthe witch. But those who defend society from witchcraft must themselves dispose ofsimilar powers, also kindoki, which togetherconstitute what Schatzberghas called amoral matrixof legitimate governance (Schatzberg 1993). From the earliest recordedtimes, BaKongo have relied on both chiefs and minkisi (sing. nkisi) to seek out andpunish witches. Chiefs were humanbeings, usually but not always men, and minkisiwere (andare)objects,but their functionscould be closely similarto those of chiefs, whooften relied on them to help maintain public order. Both chiefs and minkisi wereinvested with exceptional powers by the fact of having successfully undergonea ritualthattramsformedheirordinary,materialsubstance.The rituals,ngyadulu for chiefs andmpandulufor minkisi, were similar in form and purpose, the insignia of the chiefcorresponding o the 'medicines' of the nkisi. The chiefs themselves could be callednkisi. Political responsibilitieswere therefore n the hands, it would seem, of a figurethatwas notonly 'religious'butperhapsanobjectrather han a humanbeing.An nkisi is a container, aking any of manydifferent ormsfrom an anthropomorphicfigure to a cloth bundle,empoweredby animatingmedicines. The principalclasses ofminkisi were those thathealedandthose, called 'bloodnkisi' or nkondi (sing. andpl.;'hunter'), hathunteddownandpunishedwitches,thieves, adulterers,reaty-breakersndother wrongdoers.Minkisi of the nkondi class were sometimes carried in litters asthoughthey were chiefs, and chiefs could be appealedto in termsusually addressedtonkondi. Chiefs themselves were primarilycharacterizedby theirexceptional violence;like chiefs throughoutCentralAfrica,the Kongochief was 'a leopard'and a killer. One istold, 'if the candidatecould not kill his nephewwith the swordof powerwe would knowthat he was not fit to be chief.' The traditionssay, 'The chiefs killed manyof those theygoverned, and so they became famous.' Under Belgian rule, both invested killers andnkondi were suppressed.This paperdrawsupon indigenoustexts that describechiefshipand nkondi in the nineteenth century, before opening a discussion of the place ofviolence in modemAfricanpoliticalthought.1Nkondi took various forms, but they included impressive anthropomorphic tatuesstuck full of nails, many of them now well known as masterpieces of African art.Sometimes the pose of the figure, with upraised knife and thrusting jaw, is clearlyaggressive;othersdisplaya curiousserenity,contrastingwiththe impliedviolence of thenails andotherhardwaredriveninto chest, belly, shoulders,even the neck andface. Thefiguresrepresentneitheranavengingspiritforcenorits victim(thewitchor thiefwhich itwas commanded o findandpunish),butthe relationshipbetweenthe two. The nails were1 What ollowsis basedon an examinationf all the textsin K.E.Laman's orpusof 1915(writtenn KiKongo y native peakers)hatdealwiththerituals f chiefship ndof nkondi.Citationsf theKiKongoextsgivetheauthor's ameand he numberf theCahierromwhichthetext s taken.A completeistof theauthorsnd nformationbouthecorpus anbefoundnMacGaffey1991).The opicof thispapers examinedtgreaterengthnMacGaffey2000).


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Violence in CentralAfricaintended both to annoy the nkisi, arousing it to action, and to represent the pains that itwas called upon to inflict.

People seek out the nganga [operator;pl. banganga] of Nkondi to have him drive ironintohis nkisi. When he has driven in spikes on account of the bad dreams the sick person ishaving, he tells the ghost [thatanimates the nkisi] about those who are pleased to carrytroubles to that house. If the witch does not desist from his hostility towards others atnight... he will see in his dreamhis house on fire and himself trapped n a palmwinetapper'sclimbing loop. There will be a raging storm,and people fighting.Thatwill make him thinkthe dreamshave come to set him on fire, his mouth will be dry: 'Nkondi Mukwangahaspursuedme here, surely I will die in the same fashion.' Not long afterwardshe will feel aburdenon his back, a pain in the blood, blood will gush from his nose, and he will die of thisaffliction.People will say, 'NkondiMukwangacame to takehim, because of conflicts in thenight,butnow it is over' (Kwamba149).It is difficult to exaggerate the violence of the images comprised in invocations tonkondi; presumably they expressed not only the violence of storms and birds of prey butthe anger and grief of clients who felt themselves to be under attack:

Have you not heard,Mwene Mutinu,that somethinghas gone missing here?it is a difficultmatter,we have asked everybodyin the village. Their denial is, thatthey did not do it, thatwe should look for the culprit and punish him only. ThereforeMutinu,lick your motherStrike, destroy, do you not see the village? Slash and sweep. Afflict them with boils, withsores that never heal; spreadskin diseases throughout he village, give them all headaches,twist their armsandlegs, Lord Mutinu.Infectall the childrenwith coughs and colds. Spreadconfusion and misery among them. Whenever they seem to get better, strike them downagain. Enfeeble them until they seek out the diviner who will identify you, Mwene Mutinu(Kavuna58).To me, the violence represented here is imaginary, although it corresponds to the kind ofafflictions to which Kongo villagers were in truth vulnerable a century ago, includingpainful or debilitating illnesses, destructive tropical storms, and the attacks of dangerousanimals. The afflicted, however, believed that their sufferings were induced by the realthough hidden actions of relatives and neighbours, either witches or the clients of somenkisi, which would then have to be appeased.Nkondi's function was political; it was used very generally to control relationsbetween localized clans. Even if the offender against which it was directed was anindividual, nkondi held his whole group responsible, punishing any of them untilrestitution had been made. A legend traces the origin of Nkondi za Mafula, 'nkondi ofthe entrances to the village,' to the need to put an end to the primordial war of all againstall:

The people were numerous n the country,and anyone who went to a village where he hadno affines nor members of his own clan would be attackedand put in stocks until ransomwas paid. Thus they made it known that this was a strongclan. But the elders said, if wecarryon like this what will happento us when we travelto otherregions?Ah, it is not goodto imprisonsomeone with no fault to his charge;therefore t would be a good thingto set upNkondi in the midst of the clans. But within the clan you may not invoke Nkondi (Kwamba139).This description accurately reflects conditions prevailing in most of Kongo during theperiod of the slave trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when large tractsbetween settlements were unpopulated and unregulated. Traders depended on culticassociations and treaties to guarantee them safe passage and a kindly reception; often itwas considered advisable to carry protective minkisi and to perform special ritualsbefore and after an expedition. Where no chief had arisen to control a given area, treatiesbetween clans, forbidding war and permitting marriage, were commonly sanctioned by

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66 WyattMacGaffeyNkondi;the partiesto the agreement nvited the nkisi to attackanyone who broke it.Accordingto an Englishtrader Phillips1887: 161):These etishesplaya most mportantartnregulatingheconduct f individualsr families- nay,intertribaleudsare settledby thesamemeans,decisions nforced, isturbances.largenumberf caseswhich, n theabsence f fetishes,wouldbe matterorgovernmentalrepression,re husdealtwith n a simple,private,nexpensivemanner,ever oming o thecognizancef [theEuropeanovernment'sppointed]ative hiefsat all.Though minkisi continued in covert use, spectacularnkondi with public regulatoryfunctions had more or less disappeared by 1920 under the combined influence ofgovernmentand Christianmissions. Popularanxieties concerningwitchcraftcontinued,togetherwithsporadicmovementsintended o rid communitiesof its banefuleffects. Oneof these, Munkukusa,which swept Kongo villages between 1947 and the early 1950s,recapitulatedhe essential elementsof nkondi rituals,without the use of a central mage,in an explodedor deconstructed ormcombinedwith Christianelements.Gravedirt wasbroughtat night from the cemeteryto the village church to be placed on the high table.When the ancestors of all the clans were represented by quantitiesof dirt, it was alldumpedin a cross-shapedtrenchin frontof the door of the church,called 'the cross ofJesus.' Into a second cross, of wood, each of the villagersin turnhammereda nail whileswearing, 'If I am a witch, if I have eaten my elders, then let my sign be death 'Immediatelyafterwardshe smeared mud from the cross of Jesus on his face; the nameMunkukusarefers to this rubbing, which has the same function as medicines fromnkondi appliedto the body to establish a connectionbetween the nkisi and the oath-taker JanzenandMacGaffey1974:83).The nailing procedure,komanloko, 'to nail a curse,' also described any of severalstandardizedways by which an individualcouldappealfor helpby insultingor provokinga chief; the verb koma,besides meaning 'to nail,' also means 'to arouse,provoke.' Inretaliation,the chief would seize the plaintiff and only release him after the offendingparty had paid a large sum amounting to a fine (this mode of arbitration s knownthroughoutCentralAfrica). Nkondi, too, could be 'aroused' by insults referringforexample to the genitals of the nkisi's mother-in-law or suggesting that it was thelaughing-stockof the neighbourhood, ot an nkisi at all butmerelya piece of wood.The rituals for investing chiefs differed from district to district in Kongo, buteverywherethe chief was transformedby theminto a 'leopard'anda killer. 'Whoever sto be invested brandishes he sword of powerandhavingbrandishedt he kills a nephewand licks blood from the sword' (Lunungu 159). Laman says that many of thoseappointedas ntinu refused to commit the requiredmurder,but might submit to othertests of extraordinarycapacities (Laman 1957: 140). Usually a hunt or mock battlefollowed the investiture,demonstratingby its success that the investiturehad worked,thatthepowerto kill had been induced.The investituresequence exemplifiedthe sameprinciplesas did thecompositionof annkisi. It began with the burial of the chief's predecessor,from whom the candidateacquiredpowerby contact:

When omeone adacceptedheoffice, heChildrenookhimandputhim nthehousewiththecorpseof thedeadchief.Theysethim downon thewrappedundleof thecorpseandlaidhimouton it.Whilehelayon thenyombo,heymarkedimwithredandwhiteclayandsang hissong,'Hehasseen theleopard,heSpottedOne,thefrightfulreature.' hen heChildrenookhimandcarried imon theirbacks ohis house Matunta13).The leopard, 'the spotted one,' was the mummy of his predecessor, coloured intransitional ed.Amongthe BaYanzi,eastof the BaKongo,who alongwithotherpeoples


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Violence in CentralAfricaof the region share the same ritualvalues, the candidatecould not be invested until anactual eopard,believed to incarnatehis predecessor,had been killed, indicatingancestralacceptanceof his candidacy.At his own deaththe chief s nails would be cut and his teethbroken to renderhim less dangerous n his leopardphase (De Plaen 1974). In some partsof Kongo, the candidatemightbe obliged to seek the approvalof the deadby spendingthe night in a cave, a rite analogousto thatof leaving an nkisi in the cemetery;if thenkisi were still there in the morning,or the candidateemerged alive and mysteriouslymarkedwith red andwhite spots,the approvalof the dead was assured.Investiture included the composition of an nkisi nsi, a medication of the domain(nsi). In a hole in the earthwere placed items which, like the medicines of an nkisi,suggested by their names or association the attributes of the chiefs power. Examplesinclude a kinkanda monkey, known for its resistance to death; a double bell, used tomake official announcements; leopard's claws and teeth; creepers, which by theirramification suggested the ever-expanding power and perdurability of chiefship; lusaku-saku, a plant, that the chiefs reign might be blessed, sakumunwa mungodila, forstrength, ngolo.

Whoever is the one being invested- or two of them,as it maybe - holds the sword of powerwhich is to be put in the ground.The first chief is the principalto hold the sword, or theremay be two principals. When they hold the sword that is to be put in the ground, theprincipalputshis handuppermost, he others afterhim, andtogetherthey brandish t, so thatthe power is 'raised.'Then they thrust t into the hole so that 'thepower stands forth.' Thenotherchiefs stick theirfingers n the hole. The hole signifies two things:the chief who stoodthe swordin the hole has the powerof execution,andthose who held it afterhim andheld itin the hole have the power to bury alive prisoners,or anyone who has committed a crimesuch as murderor disregardinghe chief s law (Lutete232).The insignia prepared for the chief included some of the finest products of Kongo art,which were expected to combine aesthetic merit with messages of violence. 'The manwho carved the chief s staff and made it frightful received a slave as payment' (Lutete236); the candidate also received:

A cap with leopard claws, the whole thing sewn over with leopard claws; a necklace ofleopard'steethto go on his neck;and on his armsivory bracelets- not those that come fromEurope, but in this country they cut pieces of ivory and make bracelets of them. Thebracelets were on his armsfromthe wrist to the elbow; both armswere full of bracelets. Healso put two copperbracelets on his arms. The reasonhe wore ivory bracelets andleopard'sclaws and a necklace of leopard's teeth is this: that he might be respectedas those animalsare. He would be seen as frightening ike the leopardand the elephant.When he put on thecap, the necklace andthe bracelets,all who saw him would feel fear andrespect.If they hada toothof a lion also, they would attach hat to the necklace (Kunzi 123).In the following account from Mayombe the arbitrary exactions of the chief are asevident as the fact that theatrically enacted violence celebrates his greatness and helps tokeep the people terrified.

The clan which ruled over all the clans that came from Ntandu was Ma Nsundi, whooppressedthem greatly.He hada rule thatno one mightstep over the legs of the wife of theking, Ma Nsundi, nor step on her mat [bothactions implying sexual intercourse].If peopledid not closely follow the commands of NtinuMa Nsundi they were madeprisoner, hatis,tied up; one who did not have 100 cloths with which to redeem himself would be executedby theroyalsword.The king appointedone manto execute prisoners.The sword(mbele ya makenda)was madewith an ivory handle, well carved in the form of a woman, showing her hairstyleand herbreasts; it was very sharp. This knife could not be taken outside except on the day ofexecution(Babutidi 13).

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68 WyattMacGaffeyThe missionaryethnographerL. Bittremieuxsaw such a swordin Mayombe, probably nthe 1930s. It was 70 cm. long, kept in a raffia bundlealong with other insignia of thechiefship,and handled with reverence.Originally, t had been one of four, two male andtwo female, of which one was damaged and two had been taken by Europeans.The'flawless' ivory carvingshowed a womanwith her long hair dressed down her back andherhands crossed behindher;the referenceof the image is to the execution,in the sacredforest,of a womancaughtin adultery Bittremieux1940: 119-20).On theappointed ay,all thepeopleof theregioncame o watch.Fromall directionsheybrought almwinefor theking.They aidtheprisonern his [or her]backandpeggedhisarmsand egsto theground.Then heysang,'Eh,Makenda, ho executespeople 'Whilethey sang,ndungu rums,argembumarums,ngongibells andwoodenmpwandarumpetssounded.Makenda,he manappointedo this work,dancedwith his sword n his hand.2Whenhe raised t to strike,he sang, 'I will cut, eh, let it cut ' Utteringhis threat,he

furiously ttacked heprisoner, everinghis head.Thepublicapplauded,E wewe ' TheChildrenndGrandchildrenf Ma Nsundi ookupthe headandsoaked t in wateruntil trotted nd heskinand he flesh ellaway;hen heyhung heskullon one of thepolesof theking'scompoundo thatpassing trangersmight ee it andknow hat his wasthe residenceof agreatkingwhoexecuted eople.The 'sword of power' (mbeele a lulendo) was also called kipaba, andin coastalregions(Ngoyo) in particulart mightbe made of wood; in that form it was a sign rather han aweapon (but there is no record of a MuKongoever fighting with a sword ). When thechief Makonde Mambutuwas to be enthroned,he would order a sword from the smith(ngangula).The kipaba was used as follows. If a manwas sentencedby othersbutdid not submit,they wouldappealto Mambutuwho, when he came, would stick his swordin the groundto open the trial. When the recalcitrant aw the kipaba he would immediatelyagree topay his fine because the sword stuckin the public place of trial(mbazia nkanu)signifiedthat the chief had 'arisen.' The meaningof the kipaba is thatanyone who rejectedthedecisionof the chief would be arresteduntil his peopleransomedhim (Babutidi18).Chiefly titles were both a reward for wealth and a means to increase it. Most of ourauthors emphasize the cost of titles; in Mayombe an important constituent of theinvestiturefee consisted of slaves. Lutetegives few figures,but Kinkelawrote that theinvestorswould receive 'shacklesof the day and of the night,' thatis, ten slaves of eachkind;those 'of the night' were handedover by occultmeans(kindoki), meaningthat thecorrespondingnumberof individuals would be seen to die some time later. Doutrelouxwas told that these slaves were young women (Doutreloux 1967: 169-70). Besides theanimals consumed at the feast, Kinkela wrote, 'I have heard that one candidate wascharged 30 slaves, also goats, pigs, ducks, chickens and quantitiesof palm wine, notelling what the cost' (Kinkela 94; Doutreloux 1967: 169-70, 190).3 These paymentsamounted to physical announcementsof the kind of powers over productionthat theinvested chief was supposed to wield. Once invested, the chief could help himself toanythinghe fancied,includingany woman;no one could object,because it was 'a rule ofthe title.' Moreover,his death would be an occasion for furtherlevies, either throughspecial rules obtaining at that time or simply because social standardsdemandedtheexpenditureof huge amounts of importedgunpowderandcloth, plus ritualfees and foodfor feasts. Investedchiefs were buriedin the royal cemetery, minorchiefs at its edge;2 Kenda,odecapitate.3 Thenightpeoplebecamea sourceof occultpower orthosewho receivedhem,exactlyas annkisi derivedorce roma victim mprisonednit,anda witchaccumulateditchcraftowers(makundu).


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Violence in CentralAfricacommonershad their own cemetery,andthe bodies of people of no importancemightbethrownaside.The lengthandcost of the funeralvariedaccordingly.The rituals of investiture identify the chief with the leopard, and some of themrequiredhim to performpublic acts of exceptionalviolence: to kill his nephew, to handover ten or more slaves to the investors,to sponsordramaticpublicexecutions,and so on.How much of this violence in fact occurred?Why is it specifiedin some rituals but notall? All of it seems quite likely, except that the same text that speaks of slaves handedover 'by day' mentionsa like number by night,' by occult means. It is a commonplaceofthe texts thatchiefs 'oppressand kill and makewaruponother clans.' How much of thisviolence was partof the historyof the times rather hanof the essence of chiefship?Whatis therelationbetween model and 'fact'?The rituals of chiefly investiture were undeniably anchored in local politics andeconomics. They initiated wealthy men into what was effectively a title associationwhose membersreinforced heiroligarchiccontrolover populationsof slaves or potentialslaves, andwho profited romthe initiationfees requiredof new members.In 1816, a treestood outsidethe compoundof the king of Boma,hungwith the skulls of his enemies. Inthe vicinity of Mukimbungu, in the 1880s, local chiefs consecrated a trade pact byexecutinga slave whose body hungfrom a tree until it disintegrated. vorycarvingsfromMayombeshow the chief, his munkwisa n his teeth,enthroneduponthe body of a slave,boundand gagged, and a soapstone figureshows a chief drivinga knife into the earof aman upon whom he is sitting. 'When a chief [with the title] Kayi Ngoma firstbegan torule and took chargeof his market,he burieda man alive and then enteredthe market'(Kimbembe 80). In 1929, in the vicinity of Kisantu (eastern Kongo), an officialexecutioner admitted having killed six slaves at the funeral of the reigning chief'spredecessor (Swartenbroeckx 1966: 171). The victims did not have to be criminals,though one who, on anotheroccasion, had brokenmarket rules might be executed insimilarfashion. It is probably rrelevant o tryto distinguishbetween 'criminal'andnon-criminalvictims;bothestablishedthe chiefs power.It is tempting,therefore,to suppose that the images of death in the ritualsexpressedthe actualviolence of nineteenthcenturychiefs, who achievedrenownby fightingwars,enslaving the weak, publicly executing wrongdoers,and sacrificingothers in politicalrituals. But the same rituals describe the chief's violence as 'imaginary,' a form ofwitchcraft, and suggest that chiefship was a depersonalizedpower whose principles,realizedin the chief, were only 'contingently'(accidentellement)attached to his person(Doutreloux 1967: 199). Often enough, a communitythat felt it needed a chief for themystical benefits that were mediated by the office had to capture some unwillingindividual who would be no more than a living nkisi embodyingin mythologizedformthe contradictionsof Kongo society. Some traditionsrequired hatthe chief be castratedor impotent.His function as a sort of animatenkisi-object is striking;usually,he andhisfollowers, like the nganga and associates of any majornkisi, were subjectto a numberof restrictions, ncludingsome which emphasizedthatthoughthe chief was a leopardhewas also not a leopard,or shouldnotbe so to excess:

The chief may not tear at meat with his nails, for to do so is to summon the Lord of theCountry Mfumu nsi, the leopard);he mustcut it with a knife. He may not scratchwith hisnailson the ground or the samereason; eopardswill attack ivestock in the village. He mustnot eat meatthat is still bloody, as leopardsdo. He may not eat standingup, andhe may notsleep in the village of anotherchief. He may not carrypalmwine;that is for his slaves andthe Children o do. He may not open the lukobe, thebox of medicinesthatis keptinside hishouse, lest in a little while the leopardattack he livestock(Matunta314).

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70 WyattMacGaffeyAdditionalrules show the extent to which the chief was a creatureof his clan's relativesby marriage, ts Childrenand Grandchildren.The power of the nkisi to cure leprosyprovidedthem with interestingmeans of discipliningthe chief. He would contractthedisease if he returned o the investituresite on his own, or if he ate the meat of goat, theharnessed bush-buck, or the striped mbendefield-rat, and would have to pay thebangangato cure himby reconsecratinghim. The Childrenkeptthe leopardskintself:If the Childrenufferaninjustice t the handsof the chief or the clan of theirFathers,ndaresadorangry n account f suchanattempt ytheirFathers,heyspeakas follows: Arewe notyourChildren?f wearenotyourChildren,howustheplaceof your nvestiture.'fthechiefshouldarguewithhis Children e wouldcontracteprosy.Untilhepaida fine, heChildren f the chiefwouldhidetheskin n theplacewhere hey kept t. When heyput tsomewheren orderocontrol hechiefship f theirFathers,he Fatherswouldhavetopaythem hefineof apig,fortheyknew hat hechiefshipwas n theskin Lunungu71).In effect, the restrictionscould be no more than devices for controlling the chief andextracting wealth from his lineage. We are left, therefore, with a double ambiguity,insoluble on the evidence available: some of the powersof a given chief were no doubt'real,' others can only have been 'imaginary';some chiefs were apparentlydespots,butothers were no more thanpuppets.These ambiguities,however,areproductsnot so muchof the data themselvesas of my readingof them,since the distinctions between real andimaginary,personandobjectare ones that I feel I haveto make.A traditional nthropological omment on the violence of CentralAfricankings is thatkilling, like the incest sometimesrequiredof the ruler,symbolizesthe king's exceptionalstatus with respect to normalsociety. The BaKongo indeed think thatkilling indicatespowersthatordinarypeople do not have;one who could notkill as expectedlackedwhatit takes to be chief, and one who could even kill a relative demonstrated hathe wouldgovern impartially. The concept of power is more complex than that, however; theobligatoryhorrendousdeed is thoughtof as a real test, not a symbolic change of status.The witchcraftpower (kindoki) that leaders and wealthy people must have takes theform of a sort of gland in the belly, called kundu which in former times could berevealedby means of the poison ordeal, nkasa. The activity of the witch (ndoki) is to'eat people' (dia bantu); the more victims one eats, the more makundu e accumulates.This expressionis not a metaphor;actual bones found aroundsomeone's house may beadducedin evidence againsthim. It is true that the meal is supposedto take place in anotherworld,visible only in dreamsor to diviners,who have four eyes, but it is none theless real. The chief, too, is supposed to 'eat' in the visible sense thathe is expected toconsumeconspicuously,thathe shouldalso cause his followers to eat well, and thatthecost of this benefit s a certainamountof occult 'eating'of nocturnalvictims handedoverby the chief to those from whom he obtains his power or with whom he is obliged tobargain or the good of his people. In Kongo thinking,an orderedsociety is one in which'eating,' both literal and metaphorical (but for whom is it a metaphor?)is properlydistributed.Identificationof authoritywith violence did not mean that in fact the chiefs alwaysruledby force. The EnglishsailorAndrewBattellreportedn the seventeenthcentury,'InCases Criminall they proceed but slenderly, for they doe very hardly and seldomecondemne any man to death.' From northernMayombe we learn that a chief may beinvested when it is seen that his deeds are remarkable,but only if he looks afterpeoplewell andprovidesfor strangers. Thoughhe looks like a chief, butdoes not do good, hecannotbe given chiefship' (Mvubu343). Kindoki, the idiom of power, is also, by itsambiguity, a medium of negotiation, providing sanctions against chiefs as well as in


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Violence in CentralAfricasupportof them. The point was made some time ago by KarenFields with respect toBritishrule in what is now Zambia.Where 'witchcraftpractices'were partof the moralfabricof the community,DistrictOfficers were forcedto relyon them as an alternative oless subtle forms of violence, andcame to recognize that the official program o root out'superstition'andcreate a fully 'rational'political systemmade no sense (Fields 1982).Thoughit is impossibleto estimatehow much violence occurred n Kongo duringthenineteenth century (before Europeans penetrated the interior), it was probably notextensive, and in any case it was limited by a specific sense of its meaning as anindication or test of magical potency. During the first World War, BaKongo wereappalledto hear of the continuing slaughter n Europe;theirown wars,being essentiallydivinatoryordealsor trialsby combat,endedafterthe firstcasualties:As soonas one ortwopeoplehaddied,theywouldhaltandsound hengongiso that hechiefs couldnegotiate, aying,'Putup yourweapons 'Everyone eturnedo thevillage.When heywereready heybeat hegreatnkokodrum;he chiefssounded gongiat all theentrances,nd hewarwas over.Thoseresponsibleorcausinghe deathspaid thousands'(mafunda,lothbundles r theequivalent)ndslaves;f two mendied, heypaid wopeopleand wothousand.n theirwars ew died Mato 80).Introducinga collection of papers on violence, David Riches remarks that the act ofviolence is always one of contested legitimacy, thus a sign of the presenceof politicalcompetition (Riches 1986: 9). The essential personnel in the act of violence are theperformer, he victim and 'the witness,' that is, the audience whose judgmentis soughtwith regardto the legitimacy of the event. Violence, whether 'real,' as in stabbing,or'imaginary,' as by sorcery, is both highly visible and highly comprehensible; itsperformance equires ittle more thanthe resources of the humanbody.The propertiesofviolence, uniquely among social acts, 'make it highly appropriateboth for practical(instrumental)and for symbolic (expressive) purposes:as a means of transforming hesocial environment instrumentalpurpose)anddramatizing he importanceof key socialideas (expressivepurpose),violence can be highly efficacious' (ibid: 11). The aestheticaspect is an importantelement of performancesof violence before an audience, evenwhen the violence is instrumentallyeal. The two functionsof violence correspond o theactualuse of violence, as in war andkidnapping,and to its dramatizationn chiefly mythand ritual;clearly, the two are not independent,butneither does the one follow from theother.Moreover,the specific content,certainlyof ritualviolence, and to a considerableextent also of practical violence, is culturally embedded, that is, it conforms to aparticular,ocal tradition.In the absence of the necessary historical data, we may tentatively resolve theapparent ontradictionbetweenthe celebratedviolence of Kongochiefs and the apparentfact that at least some of them were mere figureheads,or were esteemed for the mildvirtues of wisdom and hospitality,by the classic device of distinguishingbetween theking and the kingship.4The office, in the abstract,was definedby its violence and alsoby its guaranteeof continuityin the face of dangersnaturaland social. The incumbent,however, was the person most suitable at the time, 'suitability' being defined by hisabilities in relation to the currentpolitical situation. This distinction would not coincide,however, with that between 'imaginary'and 'real' powers, since for the BaKongo therealityof 'imaginary'kindoki explainsall exceptional,'real' effects.The 'West' or the 'modem' tends to be seen in the eyes of its native inhabitantsasquintessentiallycivilized in partbecause they represent it as a domain of reasonable4 I owethissuggestionoEdnaBay,whoencountered similar roblemwithrespectothekingsof Dahomey.

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72 WyattMacGaffeydiscourse from which violence is excluded; war is waged in other partsof the world,murderers re sentaway tojails. Violence is thusexceptional,deviant,the fault of others,although n the 1990s it became more difficultto sustainthis comforting mage. F. Barthmentions the peculiar disparity in our culture between ethical principles supportingjustice and security, and 'the known existence of crime, perversity, and war.' Thecodifiersof our Theoryof Man live on the polite side of this dichotomy,while personswho pass across it are 'subjectto elaboraterites of brutalization r rehabilitation,'n jailor the electric chair. In othersocieties, thisprivilegedinnocence is notpossible.The NewGuineavillage Barth s writingabout is 'a world where attackerand victim were knownto each other as social persons';guests at festivals were knownindividuallyas the agentsof specificacts of violence (Barth1975).Discussing the Piaroaof Venezuela,Overing reportsthatthey believe thatall deathsaremurderseffected andalso avenged by sorcery,althoughPiaroa ife is free of physicalviolence and,froman observer'spointof view, very peaceful(Overing1986). BaKongo,too, think of themselvesas constantlysubjectto violent attack,although in the twentiethcenturyat least) they have had a reputation or 'pacifism' andphysical violence amongthem is mostly the work of the police. I once asked a man what hadhappened o his firstwife; with resignation,not anger, he replied, 'Oh, her parentsate her on our weddingnight.' Such 'eating,' provoked in this instance by the parents' quasi-legitimatedissatisfactionover the amountof marriagemoney they hadreceived,happens'at night,'invisibly, but it is real, not metaphorical,in the minds of those who speak of it. Theoccult power that makes such violence possible is kindoki, which all elders have insome degree and which is also a necessary attribute of chiefs and banganga. Theambiguities of the capacity for violence - an evil in private hands, beneficial whenexercisedby the guardiansof publicorder;a terrifyingandever-presentrealitywhich isnevertheless invisible - complicate any attemptto interpret he models and realities ofchiefshipin the nineteenthcentury.5Given the wide distributionof the idea that 'the chief is a leopard,'we can say thatauthority tself, at whateverlevel, was and is understood n Centraland West Africa asnecessarypublicviolence (MacGaffey1986;Vansina 1991). In Benin, 'therightto kill isthe definingcharacteristicof kingship' (Ben-Amos 1976:246). The violence of chiefs isculturallymuchmorecomplex than the familiarfunctionalist dea thata sovereignshouldmonopolizethe power of life anddeath,or that he is obligedto defendthe polity againstinvaders.Thatthe chief at his investiturekills his nephew may stateby implicationthathe will rule impartially,or that he has ceased to be an ordinaryhumanbeing definedbysocial bonds,butit also impliesa very particular iew of human ife and its availabilityasraw material or 'symbolism.'Amongthe easternLuba,everynew chief was anointedonhis forehead with blood from a man sacrificedfor the purpose.The chief put his foot onthe skull anddrank he victim's blood mixed with beer;unless he could do thishe was notrue chief (Lucas 1966: 90). The royal regalia, including beautifully carved femalefigures,were regularlyanointedwith the blood of sacrificialvictims. The drumplayedonly at the funeralsandenthronements f chiefs was coveredwithskin from the scarifiedtorso of a woman sacrificed for the purpose.The Nyim of the Bushoong (Kuba) wasbelieved able to transform himself into a leopard and among the BaTetela theassimilation of the lineage chief to the leopard was so strong that he abstainedfrom

5 The BaKongo have been noted in modern times for the absence of violence among them. Bycontrast,in NorthernGhana,where I have spent some time, violence is never far below thesurface.


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Violence in CentralAfricaeating its flesh, for 'the leoparddoes not eat the leopard'(De Heusch 1985: 98). Such alineage chief was said 'to destroymen as the leoparddestroys goats.' The Kanongeshaofthe Ndembu in modem Zambiasat on lion andleopardskins and wore a braceletmade ofhuman genitalia which was soaked in sacrificial blood at each installation. He was asorcererwho could cause barrenness n both land andpeople shouldhe touchhis braceletto the ground(Turner1957:318-21).The relation of violence to other values is quite complex. The Kanongeshaof theNdembu, for example, was a ritual figureunable to control his nominal subordinates.Discussing the role of the Tetela lineage head, De Heusch notes thatalthoughthe ritualcharacterizeschiefship as violent, in fact the candidatechief mustbe generouswith hisgifts if he is to be allowed,once in his lifetime,to wear the leopardskin;he circulationofgoods, linked to the circulation of women as wives and mothers, expresses theperpetuationof life itself. At the festival in which the chief became a leopard,his wivesas well as the members of his lineage were also allowed to wear the leopardskin(DeHeusch 1954:98). Amongthe Shona in Zimbabwe,where the chief is a 'lion,' David Lannotes that although, by their very nature, the spirits of dead chiefs are conquerors,warriors,and killers, 'it is throughtheir violence that the fertility of the earth is madeavailableto their descendants' Lan 1985: 152).The Tetela lineage head, like most Kongo chiefs, achieved his position by obligatorygenerosity, and De Heusch can only explain his identification with the leopard bydrawingupon psychoanalysis.Rene Girardhas included African examples of violencerelatedto royalty in his Violence and the Sacred (Girard 1977). He ranges widely insearch of illustrative examples, which he believes generate a theory of the natureof'primitivereligion.' Necessaryelements of this theoryinclude the sacrificeof a surrogatevictim, and an oedipal association in royal ritualsbetween the king's obligatoryincestand his symbolic death. According to Girard,the king assures the well-being of hispeople by taking their sins upon himself. Examplesof this complex are said to exist ineasternAfrica, 'betweenEgypt and Swaziland,'but appearto be lackingin the west. Innone of the rituals of Kongo chiefship, for example, can the chief be regardedas ascapegoat;blood is not poureduponhim,nor is royalincestpracticed.In Bantu languages generally, 'to eat' is often used to denote access to power. Theelephantis a chief among animals because it eats more than others. 'These are imageswhich depictaccess to poweras ingestion/incorporationather hanoccupyinga positionor territory,or imposingorder.' Poweris understoodas a personalproperty,butis 'tied toconcrete embodiments,person, and materialsymbols, ratherthan to abstract structuressuch as offices, organizations,and territories' Fabian1990: 24). The metaphorof eatingdominatesthe politicalcultureof sub-SaharanAfrica in the late twentiethcentury,but thelinguisticassociationbetween 'wealth' and 'eating'is centuriesold. It is a premiseof 'thepolitics of the belly' that people admired for their success achieve it by eating thesubstanceof others,using meanswhich, in lesser men, would be criminal.Presidentsandpoliticiansareexpected to demonstratea capacityfor larceny, 'corruption'andviolence,as well as princely largesse towards their followers. At every political level, however,'eating'is polysemous:it means not only to feed oneself, not at all easy in an economyofpoverty, wracked by 'structuraladjustment,'but also 'to accumulate, exploit, attack,conqueror kill by witchcraft' Bayart1993:269).President Mobutu Sese Seko appealed to traditional values in 1965, when hedeliberately entrappedfour well-known politicians into a plot against him and thenpublicly executed them. After that, everybody knew that the easy-going politics andmusical-chairsgovernmentalchangesthat hadprevailed n what was thenthe Democratic

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74 WyattMacGaffeyRepublicof Congo were no more. In the face of world-wideprotests,Mobutuarguedatthe time thathe was expectedto conducthimself with the decisive violence characteristicof 'a Bantu chief.' There is no reason to thinkthat Mobutuhadany trueunderstandingfthe chiefly tradition, but the tradition itself is pervasive. In 1980, popular opinionexplainedthe arrival of Ba'hai missionariesin northeasternZaire by the 'fact' that, inorderto pay for the expensivenew airportn Kisangani, he Presidenthad hadto admitanew groupof tradersn souls whose nocturnalactivities wouldbringin foreign exchange.On the otherhand,the execution did not earn the Presidentwidespreadadmiration;myneighbours n 1965 were stunned:aesthetically imaginedviolence is easier to live withthanthe real thing.The violence of chiefs, to earnpublic approval,must be a containedviolence.The chief as killer in defence of the public good readily slips into the mode of thechief as sorcererand cannibal.In popularopinion, the deathof prominentpoliticiansinZairewas never 'natural,'but always the result of some kind of sorcery. OppositiontoMobutu n the 1990s includedstories,widelycirculated n the pressas well as by word ofmouth,which accused him of strengtheninghis personand his regime by witchcraftandby occulttechniquesobtained rom all over the world.It was believed thathe was obligedto hand over the souls of citizens to pay for these secrets, as witches do and chiefs did.When the oppositionpartiesdenounced theharmful nfluence of the marabouts nd otheroccult,destructivepractices hatgovernus' theywere not employing metaphor.Social scientific recognitionof this complex has been inhibitedby the conventionaltreatment of 'religion' and 'politics' as separate substances, and by the'anthropologization' f indigenousbelief, treating t as thoughit were characteristic nlyof 'traditional,'ruralpopulationscircumscribedby ethnic boundaries Geschiere 1997).The liberal ethnocentrismof foreign commentatorsalso inclines them to pass by insilence beliefs which they cannot personally endorse. Faced with the incredulity ofstrangers,educatedAfricans, however, do not hesitate to invoke 'African realities notapparento the Cartesian ationalityof the North'(Gruenaiset al., 1995: 166).One shouldnotrecklesslygeneralizeabout'Africa,'certainlynot aboutthedistribution of violence in it. Even Mobutu, though he did not hesitate to orderexecutions, did not rule primarilyby violence, and the incidence of violence in Zaire,before the collapse of his regimein the bloody events of 1996-97, was not high. It is myimpression, after living in Kisangani and studying court records there, that amongordinarypeoplethere was a somewhathigherrateof violent crimein thenortheast han nthe southwestof the country.The BaKongo of the southwest were describedto me bymagistratesas particularlypreoccupiedwithwitchcraft;t may be that maginedviolence,now recordedonly in legends about great chiefs of the past and in the vitrines of artmuseumsaround he world,substitutedor the realthing.WYATT ACGAFFEYan be contactedat 908 CherokeeRd.,Louisville,KY40204, USA;email:wmacgaff@ averford.edu.


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Violence in Central AfricaREFERENCESBarth,F. 1975. Ritual and Knowledge among the Baktamanof New Guinea. New Haven:Yale

UniversityPress.1987. Cosmologies n theMaking. New York:CambridgeUniversityPress.Bayart,Jean-Francois.1993. TheState in Africa:thePolitics of theBelly. London:Longman.Ben-Amos,P. 1976. Men and animals n Benin art.Man 11:243-252.Bittremieux,L. 1940. NgandaTsundi:volk en vernomden.Kongo-Overzee6: 49-65, 113-134.Ciekawy, Diane and P. Geschiere. 1998. Containing witchcraft: conflicting scenarios inpostcolonialAfrica. AfricanStudiesReview 41 (3): 1-14.Comaroff,Jean L. and JohnComaroff. 1997. Postcolonialpolitics and discourses of democracy nsouthernAfrica: an anthropologicalreflection on African political modernities. Journal ofAnthropologicalResearch 53 (2): 123-146.De Heusch,Luc. 1954. Autoriteet prestigedans la societe tetela. Zaire 10: 1011-1027.. 1985. Sacrificein Africa: a StructuralistApproach. Tr. LindaO'Brien and Alice Morton.Bloomington,Indiana: ndianaUniversityPress.De Plaen,G. 1974. Les structuresd'autorite des Bayanzi. Paris:EditionsUniversitaires.Doutreloux,A. 1967. L'ombredesfetiches. Louvain:Nauwelaerts.Fabian,J. 1990. Power and Performance. Madison:Universityof Wisconsin Press.Fields, K. 1982. Political contingencies of witchcraft n CentralAfrica: culture and the state inMarxist heory. CanadianJournalof AfricanStudies 16 (3): 567-593.Geschiere, Peter. 1997. TheModernity of Witchcraft. Tr. Peter Geschiere and Janet Roitman.Charlottesville,Virginia:Universityof VirginiaPress.Girard,R. 1977. Violence and the Sacred. Tr. PatrickGregory. Baltimore, Maryland:JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress.Gruenais,M.E.,Mounda Mbambiand J. Tonda. 1995. Messies, f6tiches et luttede pouvoirsentreles 'grandshommes'du Congodemocratique.Cahiersd'etudesafricaines 137: 163-193.

Janzen,J.M. and W. MacGaffey. 1974. An Anthology of Kongo Religion. Lawrence, Kansas:Universityof KansasPress.Laman,K.E. 1957. TheKongo, vol. II. (StudiaEthnographicaUpsaliensia8.) Uppsala:AlmqvistandWiksells.Lan,D. 1985. Guns and Rain. London:JamesCurrey.Lucas,S. A. 1966. L'6tat traditionnel uba. Problemessociauxcongolais 74: 83-97.MacGaffey, W. 1986. Religion and Society in CentralAfrica. Chicago: University of ChicagoPress.(trans.anded.). 1991. Artand Healing of theBaKongo. Stockholm:FolkensMuseet.. 2000. KongoPolitical Culture. Bloomington,Indiana: ndianaUniversityPress.Meyer, Birgit. 1995. 'Delivered from the powers of darkness':confessions of Satanic riches inChristianGhana. Africa65 (2): 236-255.Overing,J. 1986. Images of cannibalism,death anddomination n a 'non-violent' society. In TheAnthropologyof Violence,ed. by D. Riches,pp. 86-102. London:Basil Blackwell.Phillips, R.C. 1887. The social system of the Lower Congo. Journal of the ManchesterGeographicalSociety3: 154-169.Ranger, T.O. 1976. From humanism to the science of man: colonialism in Africa and theunderstanding f Africansocieties. Transactionsof theRoyalHistoricalSociety(5th series) 26:115-141.Riches, D. 1986. The phenomenon of violence. In The Anthropology of Violence, ed. by D.Riches,pp. 1-27. London:Basil Blackwell.Schatzberg,M.G. 1993. Power, legitimacy and 'democratisation' n Africa. Africa 63 (4): 445-461.- 1997. Alternatecausalities and theories of politics: explaining political life in the Congo

(Zaire). Unpublishedpaper.Swartenbroeckx,RP. 1966. L'esclavage chez les Yansi. Bulletin de la Societe Royale Belged'Anthropologie t de Prehistoire77: 145-204.Turner,V.W. 1957. Schism and Continuity.Manchester:ManchesterUniversityPress.Vansina, J. 1991. Paths in the Rainforests: toward a brief history of political tradition inequatorialAfrica. Madison:Universityof Wisconsin Press.

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