Luba arrow rest, Democratic Republic of Congo, 20th century.

Luba arrow rest, Democratic Republic of Congo, 20th century.
Wood.
Cracks in the front area, slight breaks and restorations.
Provenance: Carel van Lier (1897 - 1945) before 1927, Former collection of Jan Sluijters (1881 - 1957).
Measurements: 49 cm (height).
Standing female figure, hands resting on her belly, with tripod-like headdress. Originally used to hold a bow and arrow. Later it became a symbol of power.
This is a ceremonial figure of the Luba Ethnicity, the Luba are a people of the Bantu linguistic family, inhabiting the southeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the middle of the 16th century they constituted a feudal kingdom whose court developed a singularly refined art, which has survived to the present day: figures for ancestor worship, masks, stools supported by caryatids (kneeling women), goblets, etc. The Luba Empire was characterized by the existence of a central authority, called mulopwe (king), who, copying from the European colonizers, took on a sacred character.
Their religion was traditionally based on ancestor worship, but with the arrival of the Belgians and their political domination, a large part of the Luba converted to Christianity.