Snuffbox/Mortar Tesa Ya Ma Kanya

Origin: Chokwe Tribe, Angola
Composition: wood, rope, natural accumulation

The masterpieces created by Chokwe artists undoubtedly belong to a "court art." They were created at least as far back as the middle of the 19th century, when important chiefdoms at the sources of the Kwango and the Kasai Rivers were dominant. Each of these chiefdoms was ruled by a mwanangana, meaning "lord of the land," who ruled by divine right and was ritually enthroned in the company of his wife.

Snuffboxes and mortars (known a tesa ya ma kanya) are among the numerous power insignia and ritual objects owned by the mwanangana. They were used to contain and grind tobacco, a New World plant introduced into Angola in the 17th century. When creating snuffboxes, professional sculptors, under the patronage of the courts of aristocrats and rulers, gave free reign to their faculties of imagination and innovation—building upon a traditional semiotic base. The surviving examples, unfortunately few, have a distinct aesthetic and metaphorical grammar that stress concepts of social status and the principles that supported the political and religious centrality of chiefs.

Most Chokwe works of art have a function linked both to religious beliefs and to the exercise of power—the pomp with which rulers and aristocrats surround themselves. The aim of the Chokwe artist was to load his emotional message with metaphoric values drawn from Chokwe culture, and to express the whole in a work, or utombo, of great simplicity and economy.

Despite their diminutive size, Chokwe snuffboxes are highly sought after, and represented in many of the world's most important museum collections, including the Musée du quai Branly (Paris), and the Brooklyn Museum. (Ref: Jordán, "Chokwe!"; Siegmann, "African Art: A Century at the Brooklyn Museum").

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