Female Figure

There is a tremendous diversity of stylistic convention found among the Bantu peoples of Eastern Tanzania. There have been attempts to reconcile these stylistic modalities in terms of assigning each ethnic group a particular style, based on a few examples collected during the German colonial period in Tanzania and attempting to extrapolate from there.

The difficulty with this approach however is that the peoples in question are active living cultures which, in point of fact, are in many cases living in reciprocal relations with one another. Therefore the styles that may have been found among a specific group may at that time have been found among their neighbors as well. Jumping ahead seventy or more years, the situation only becomes more complex.

It is best in such cases to ascribe the attribution of figures such as this not to one ethnic group but to an area or cluster of peoples or simply use a regional approach, such as a ‘Northeastern Tanzanian Shrine Figure’ rather than the original attribution of “a Kamba Fetish Figure’. In truth, we have no real evidence the piece is strictly Kamba, nor do we know that it was a Fetish. It did however serve in a shrine, and is from the general region of Northeastern Tanzania, that the Southern Kamba, among other peoples, inhabit.

Additionally, since it is not a more valuable or rare example if it were to be determined to indeed be Kamba as opposed to Doe or Pare or Zaramo, the specific attribution is almost meaningless.

The figure itself is a tour de force of figural carving; the volumes of the body change from the bottom up; the legs and hips swell with fertility, the abdomen is narrow but with large forward thrusting breasts. The arms seem almost an afterthought, and the head, though carefully and delicately carved seem to be almost vestigial.

Such figures may have had some connection to fertility rites for obvious reasons, though it is also possible that the figure may have been used as a tutelary spirit in initiations. Too little is known of the region to say with certainty.

What is clear is that this fine old piece occupied a place of pride and importance in a family or village shrine, or was the property of a ritualist, who maintained it and cared for it for a great deal of time. This exceedingly rare figure is a powerful reminder of the quality and scarcity of Tanzanian art.