carved chair rung, unrecorded Chokwe artist

Artwork Overview

unrecorded Chokwe artist, carved chair rung
unrecorded Chokwe artist, carved chair rung
unrecorded Chokwe artist
carved chair rung
late 1800s–1914
unrecorded Chokwe artist, artist
carved chair rung, late 1800s–1914
Where object was made: Angola
Material/technique: wood; carving
Dimensions:
Object Height/Width/Depth (Height x Width x Depth): 9.5 x 31.5 x 3 cm
Object Height/Width/Depth (Height x Width x Depth): 3 3/4 x 12 3/8 x 1 3/16 in
Credit line: Gift of Claude D. Brown
Accession number: 2007.0896
Not on display
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DOGS
As an integral part of the hunt, dogs enjoy a high place in Chokwe society. Dogs smell out game for the hunter. In the same way, the symbolic carved dogs in the diviner's basket metaphorically "smell out" problems and their solutions. They perform the same function in the Hamba shrines, mediating fertility and hutning success. Thus, the two dogs copulating show above center are an important center of fertility, a concept very important to a people so dependent on the productivity of their environment as are the Chokwe.