<div class="description">
Its size, facial features, feather headdress (as worn by a local <em>nganga</em> or ritual specialist), and hangings of cloth seem to indicate that this <em>nkisi</em> figure in Vili style belongs to a type called <em>nduda</em>. While the hangings incorporate the typical shells, trade beads, knotted cloth strips, and small horns filled with medicine, they do not include the central symbol of the classic nduda: "night guns," or small grass tubes extending from clay or resin and loaded with gunpowder that was discharged against witches. Unless its night guns were lost during the course of its life history, this nkisi may instead be an example of a more general type called<em> mpanzu</em>, whose functions included protection and self-defense.</div>
<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.433">https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.433</a>