2-734-549 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Male Figure, late 1800s-early 1900s. This object is one of only two seated male Beembe figures of such a size preserved in the West; the other is in the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich, Switzerland. They could have represented revered ancestors and functioned in a cult in their honor, but we lack any primary information to support such hypotheses. A field photograph taken in 1926 by a Swedish missionary shows a third sculpture of the same size caringly held by a Beembe man standing in front of what may be an ancestral shrine. Because it lacks the typical abdominal scarifications, it is not impossible that the Delenne figure was originally dressed with fabrics and other accoutrements covering its torso and legs, which would also account for its scuffed and unfinished state. This sculpture played a role in ancestral worship among the Beembe people. Ancestors are held in high regard among the Beembe, and this figure is thought to represent an idealized form of a deceased individual within the ethnic group.