nkisi

nkisi, in west-central African lore, any object or material substance invested with sacred energy and made available for spiritual protection. One tradition of the Kongo people of west-central Africa holds that the god Funza gave the world the first nkisi. Africans uprooted during the Atlantic slave-trade era carried with them some knowledge of nkisi making. In places throughout the United States, particularly in the Deep South, African descendants still create minkisi. Nkisi making is also found throughout the Caribbean and South America, in places such as Cuba, Haiti, and Brazil.

Minkisi are typically created from vessels or sculptures made of ceramic, cloth, wood, or other material. They contain spiritually potent substances referred to as “medicines”—such as soil, clay, or relics from a grave—to heal and defend against spiritual maladies. (Nkisi is the Kongolese word for “sacred medicine.”) A nkisi is usually created by a nganga—a spiritual healer, diviner, and mediator—who draws power for the nkisi from the bakisi, messengers from the spirit world. The creators of the nkisi inscribe cosmograms—symbols on the surface or interior that may come in the form of puns or symbols such as the sign of the four moments of the sun (a cross with circles on the ends).

A nkisi has many interrelated functions. African doctors use it to effect healing. They use the nkisi to search for the spiritual and physical source of a malady and then chase it away from the body. As a preventive measure, spiritual leaders also use it to protect the human soul, guarding it against disease and illness. In addition, they may use it to bind its owner to a friend or to attract lovers. It is also used to serve as a charm to repel enemies, arrest them in their tracks, or inflict an illness on them. Alternatively, a nkisi can be used to embody and direct a spirit; similarly, it can be used as a hiding place for a troubled soul, keeping order.

Nkisi forms include the nkonde (nkondi) figurines that contain “medicine” in the lower belly region, indicated by a mirror. Nails or similar objects driven into the figure activate the nkondi’s powers. Minkisi may also be natural objects such as trees, water, and mounds of soil or human-made objects such as charms, lamps, or broken ceramic plate decorations at grave sites that signify an ancestor crossing over from the living world to the transcendent world. Minkisi may also serve as surface adornments on caskets that honour the deceased spirit and guide it to the transcendent world, preventing the spirit from wandering or returning to haunt survivors.