A ritual specialist created this nkisi figure to consult the spirit world on behalf of those who came to the figure for help. The nkisi served as a modern-day mediator or attorney, maintaining order, enforcing agreements, and calling out wrongdoers. But instead of a briefcase and cell-phone, its tools of the trade were the nails, mirrors, beads, shells, teeth, metal hooks, string, cloth bundles, and other things stuck to it, which defined its powers and behavior. Dirt from a graveyard, sealed into a cavity in its stomach, gave it the spiritual charge to do its work.
The nkisi served as both a mediator and a community record of contracts and agreements. If you needed to seal a contract or settle a dispute, you and anyone else involved would lick nails, treat them with a sacrificial offering, and have them hammered into the wooden figure by the ritual specialist. This activated the nkisi’s power to hold both parties accountable.
The nkisi was a kind of sheriff, a hunter of scofflaws, a wrangler of wrongdoers, and once held a knife or spear in its raised hand to symbolize its policing role.
The mirror-covered box in the center of the nkisi’s stomach contains materials associated with the spirit world—including dirt from a gravesite—that give the figure a spiritual charge. The mirror alludes to the surface of water, a boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead.
The thick collar around the nkisi’s neck and the bulging pack on its head contain materials that empower the figure and guide its actions. The animal teeth and metal hooks signal the figure’s ability to hunt down, attack, and trap any transgressors.