Carving

The Makonde were a matriarchal, agricultural society. Traditionally, it is thought, the sculpture of the Makonde was restricted to ceremonial and ritual goods. But when they migrated from Mozambique to Tanzania in the 1950s and 1960s, carving became a means to both earn revenue and maintain a cosmological tradition based on the presence of the supernatural within the natural world. Early commercial Makonde sculpture primarily consisted of naturalistic pieces and copies of well-known Kenyan woodcarvings. In the mid-1950s, around Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's main city, sculptors began carving Shetani spirits or creatures. These images proved to be commercially successful. The three main styles of Makonde sculpture are: Shetani (spirit world), Ujamaa (tree of life) and Binadamu (everyday life). Shetani spirits or creatures were probably unknown before the advent of commercial art production in the mid-1950s. Tales of encounters with these rarely seen spirits or creatures were part of Makonde mythology and folklore and may have served as artistic inspiration for the pieces.

Commercial art.

Figure is in the Shetani style. These figures depict mystical beings who are sometimes mischievous and sometimes malevolent. They tend to feature the snake, who is believed to be a familiar belonging to a witch or sorcerer, and the bird, who is associated with the sky- one of the locales of the spirit world. Birds and serpents are believed to be carriers of fertility. In this style, there is no line between humans and animals. Life and the giver of life is revered. Death is seen as part of the continuous cycle, with departed ancestors guiding and directing living forces.

Stylized figurative carving made from dark brown wood. Major component is a combined bird and reptilian form perched on a roughly carved base showing the sap wood; large flowing projections terminating in sharp points spring from its head. Two smaller similar projections emerge from a large bird like head which springs from the back of the first figure. Three similar projections spring from the main form. In addition composite forms consisting of a pockmarked limb, a breast, a wing-like projection, and two reptilian sections protrude in the region of the prominent eyes of the major form; eyeballs are inlaid, light coloured wood; mouth is elongated with an incised tongue.