Who is kuba

They are mostly farmers and fishermen. Each Kuba king and chief owns a Moshambwooy mask and wears it during royal ceremonies and initiation rites. The masks are decorated with colorful beads, cowrie shells, and animal skins to indicate the high rank and royal status.

When the ruling king dies, the mask gets buried along with the king. The kingdom began as a conglomeration of several chiefdoms of various ethnic groups with no real central authority.

In approximately , an individual from outside the area known as Shyaam a-Mbul a Ngoong usurped the position of one of the area rulers and united all the chiefdoms under his leadership.

The Kuba believed in Bumba the Sky Father who spewed out the sun, moon, stars, and planets. University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art. View Museum Locations Telephone Fax The University of Iowa University of Iowa. Kuba See All. Types of Art Aside from beautiful cloth, the Kuba also produce carved wooden masks and figures.

History In the 16th century, the Kuba peoples migrated from the distant north to their current location along the Sankuru River. First, the raffia fibers are stripped and kneaded for an initial softening. The strands are then colored using vegetable dyes, creating the shades of ivory, brown, clay red, and indigo blue that are associated with many arts of the Kuba kingdom.

A flatweave textile is then produced on an inclined heddle loom, usually by male weavers. At this point, another round of dyeing or kneading may take place, before handing the piece off for "finishing" work typically carried out by Kuba women. A single placemat-sized Kuba cloth can take several days to complete. Often, many articles are joined together for larger prestige pieces, which were historically used to denote the wealth and supremacy of Kuba rulers.

As Lamine Berete , who has sold vintage African textiles in the US for over 25 years, has noted, an outsider might not be able to look at a Kuba cloth and discern meaning from its patterns and markings. Because of the rich and diverse history of these cloths, which spans several centuries and various ethnic groups, there are innumerable meanings to be found in the vast world of Kuba tapestry-making.

In the humid equatorial environment of Central Africa, these organic materials suffer from exposure to the climate. The tradition of burying the skirts, overskirts and panels with the deceased also reduces the number of textiles available for preservation.

As a textile conservator, the author has worked with over Kuba textiles and has encountered a range of conservation problems. Some textiles have been distorted from wear, storage or from manipulation during manufacture. Other pieces are fragmented. The majority are soiled and stained with food, blood, urine and water.

Still others have been damaged by insects or rodents. The fibers are often in advanced stages of deterioration which result-from the type of dyes used, the softening of the fibers due to pounding during the manufacture, and the abraded condition of the cloth caused by wear.

Some cloths have been rubbed with processed manioc flour. The reason for its presence is unclear. Perhaps it was introduced into the cloth because it was considered to be physically or visually pleasing, or perhaps it is simply that the cloth has been softened in the same mortar in which manioc flour has been processed. Another problem which confronts the conservator is the question of how to treat fabrics which have been disassembled into their component parts for display or other purposes by collectors.

Solutions to these problems and appropriate conservation techniques are not in themselves unique. The cloths can be washed, blocked, mended, patched and mounted for display by employing generally accepted textile conservation techniques. However because these textiles have been created under cultural rules which differ from our own, issues regarding care and treatment are complex. It is important that treatment decisions for ethnographic objects be informed and made in consideration of the original cultural context.

After the initial examination, if a decision is made to wash or block a cloth, the author has found that humidifying the cloth prior to any manipulation is much less stressful to the object. This is not an original idea, but it is an important one to remember when one is treating raffia textiles. One method of humidification to use before washing and blocking Kuba textiles is cool mist humidification.

It is this humidification system that the author has adapted. An effective chamber can be made with a variety of materials as simple as felt covered cardboard tubes laid on a clean table surface to form a rectangle.

To complete the chamber simply place a piece of blotter paper inside the tubing, lay a sheet of 3 mm mylar over the rectangle leaving several inches overlap on each side, use a piece of plexiglas to fit as a lid on top of the tubular rectangle and insert tubing to direct the mist. Areas of the textile which are particularly creased can then be misted locally.

After humidification, the textile can be tested and then washed in an Orvus detergent and water solution. When the piece has been rinsed several times it is ready for blocking. Raffia cloth behaves much like linen during the blocking process and care must be taken to readjust the pins while the piece is drying in order to avoid stress or pulling as the fibers contract.

In the author's experience, some cloth stiffens as a result of washing and blocking, while other cloth softens from the same process. The degree of pliability may be related to the amount of soil in the fabric, or the readjusting of the fabric as it dries, or both. Possibly the dyes used in production and the processes of softening the fabric also play a role.

These variables are subjects for speculation. The long term effects of washing and blocking raffia fibers are also unclear at this time. These are areas in which in depth textile conservation research is necessary.

During preparation for exhibition and storage, there is often the opportunity to patch and mend raffia textiles where insect, rodent, and wear damage have resulted in holes or tears. Most invisible mends and patches have been achieved with the use of like materials. Raffia fiber is available at craft supply stores.