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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:'Lukasa'! (the devil's toy): African inspirations and Western objects
Author:Walker, Drew
Year:1996
Periodical:Afrika Focus
Volume:12
Issue:4
Pages:143-160
Language:English
Geographic term:Congo (Democratic Republic of)
Subjects:Luba
ritual objects
External link:https://doi.org/10.21825/af.v12i4.5600
Abstract:In the discussions surrounding the Luba object-become-art object called the 'lukasa', the topics of memory, forgetting, history and beauty all come together. The 'lukasa' is an esoteric mnemonic device among the Luba of Zaire, created, manipulated and protected by the Bambudye, a once powerful secret society closely associated with the concept of divine rule. Its function is the transmission of certain kinds of information. Drawing on Marcel Mauss's classic work 'The Gift' and Walter Benjamin's observations on beauty and the ritual value of art in his essay 'On some motifs in Baudelaire', and offering the example of another ritual object, the Bible, as a Western mnemonic device, the present author critiques the thinking of colonial and postcolonial Western scholars concerning objects such as the 'lukasa' in the context of colonial rule and exchange in West Africa. By opposing a few commonly accepted conceptions, such as memory, reading and the Bible to other conceptions made possible by considering the strange 'thing' the Luba call 'lukasa', he establishes the need to regard 'art objects' as much more complex than formerly assumed. In the process he recollects his own childhood fascination with the then newly invented pocket calculator. Notes, ref., sum.
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