ABSTRACT
Abakua altar drums carry a "symbolic and ritual" function. They are mounted with a consecrated goatskin parche, and all but the goblet-shaped sese carry the cord-and-wedge tuning system like the four drums of the Abakua orchestra. The sese drum supports the leadership edifice of the potencia, the four ancestral personages, the obones: Iyamba, Mokongo, Isue and Isunekue. The "power" of Bakongo minkisi objects, anthro-pologist Wyatt MacGaffey argues, lies not only in the "complexity" of their assembled contents and social investments but also in the "visual astonishment" they are intended to produce. Aesthetically marked display, through artistic elaboration, projects an awe-inspiring, even fearsome, presence, and compels respect. The overall aesthetic effect of Jesus's adornments is the outward visual and emotional expression of the object's spiritual power—whether it is an altar staff or drum. With cowries against black leather, for example, Jesus created a high-contrast value effect: porcelain-white cowries against textured black.
