Label Text:
Since before the seventeenth century, Luba and Songye people have consulted ancestral spirits with the guidance of diviners and tools like the kakishi and katatora displayed here, in order to reveal insight on personal issues. Bafu, or ancestral spirits, transmit truths for the present through a dynamic memory of the past.
In the Luba practice called kashekesheke, the diviner and the person asking questions begin by rubbing the kakishi with aromatic plants, and then together they grasp the object from its middle and place it on a woven mat. The diviner leads in asking yes or no questions, and the bafu move the kakishi in patterns that indicate answers. With the knowledge gleaned from the bafu, both participants reexamine the past with an understanding of what is troubling the present and form a collective solution for moving forward. Memory reconstitutes the present. (Tacia Díaz, Class of 2019)
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+1999.173 |
