About
Beaded Bowl Figure
Cameroon, Kom
late 19th - early 20th Century
Wood, fiber, beads, metal
Gift of William S. Arnett. 1994.3.3
The Kom of northwest Cameroon created statuary figures symbolizing the royal family and the chisendo, elite attendants of the fon (king). This chisendo reflected the power and status of the king, but it also served to assist him by welcoming royal guests to court with offerings of kola nuts or palm wine in its bowl. The figure’s seated posture illustrates its authority. The legs of the figure are also the legs of its chair, reinforcing the way in which the chisendo supports the king. This particular sculpture was probably carved during the later part of the reign of Foyn Yu who ruled from ca. 1865 to 1912. In African Art in Motion, African art scholar Robert Farris Thompson poetically describes another throne figure, said to represent Foyn Yu’s great-great grandmother, but can be applied to all such figures—“for all the historicity and magic presence, the figure strikes a calmly reassuring gesture, because the ancestor in traditional Africa is an extension of the living elder.”
This work is rare because it still has its indigo beads, which are often removed from old sculptures to adorn new ones. Beads like this were imported from Europe and create a work of striking color and texture: the smoothness of the wood on the face contrasts with the bugle-beads, which add length along the arms and legs and dynamism in the upper breast. A third texture is found in the small white beads, representing ivory bracelets and anklets, which compositionally create separation so that the arms do not get lost in the bowl and the feet do not get lost at the base of the chair. The warmth of the wood is complemented by the cool blue, but also reiterated by the red band at the bottom. Indigo is an important color in West Africa; it is a symbol of power, prosperity, and fertility. In the grasslands a resist-dye indigo cloth called ndop is worn by royalty and hung to distinguish royal spaces.
Gilbert Schneider, an American Baptist Missionary Society member, worked in Laikom (where the Fon lives) in the 1950s. By the mid-twentieth century bowl figures were no longer used in Laikom court ceremonies, so Foyn Law-aw used this figure to pay Schneider for his help in acquiring a new tin roof for the palace.