of the Luba-Hemba, Dem. Rep. of Congo, with a beautiful female figure on top, as well as with seven spears from Congo. Standing in a specially produced stand.
1: A chief’s staff of the Luba-Hemba from eastern Congo. The honour and prestige staff made from a single piece of hard wood (red-to-dark-brown) bears above a very nicely carved standing female figure in the typical Hemba style: with a proportionally large head and a very stern expression upon the downward elongated face. With accentuated, high eyebrows and big, lowered lids next to a long, flat nose. The mouth is closed.
Typically Hemba is also the far backward-sweeping hairstyle, resolved here in a thick ring of knops. Up on the apex, above the high forehead sit two ‘empowering’ iron pins before two round openings, previously filled up with ‘magical material’. Round her neck the woman wears a choker made of small, red, blue and white glass pearls. The short arms are carved by the body and she holds her breasts in both hands. The abdomen and back of the woman display the typical for the tribe raised decorative scarification marks of the Luba.
She stands on short, bent legs, which are covered with a light brown skirt made of an old textile weave. From the flat, enlarged transition to the actual staff hangs a three-tiered chain of glass pearls, made of small white and occasionally a red and yellow pearl. The long, round stem of the honour staff is spirally wrapped up in two pieces by a wide iron band. It concludes in a grommet at the bottom with a long, round iron tip.
This chief’s staff, especially the female figure atop it (height: 22,5 cm) is a very good example of the high carving craft of the Luba-Hemba! Length: 133 cm (in total).
2: This lot also includes seven more spears and lances of different tribes of the Congo (Mongo, Ngbaka, Ngandu, Saka, Lega and others). All with round wooden stems and iron-arrowheads, one of the tips with barbs, three with sculpted stems, two featuring iron spiral wrapping of the stem, one featuring a wrapping in sheet metal and copper, four with enlarged iron shoe underneath, two with a pointed iron shoe and one without. Length: c. 126 cm to 218 cm. All eight items in this mixed lot: first half of the 20th century or earlier. This mixed lot also includes a special wooden stand (created for sticks, spears or similar objects). (ME)

Provenance:
Private Collection of Dr. Karl-Ferdinand Schädler, Munich, G.