Powerful Human Forms
The Nksis are used by the Kongo people as powerful connectors to the Spirit realm. Like the Boli, the are often filled with various magical libation that suit their desired kind of powers. They jab bits of metal, such as nails, and tie bits of rope and string about the figure as a way to release the power contained within the Knisi figure. As Western colonizers infiltrated their land, they would steal away these figures from the Kongo peoples, as a way of depleting moral. These figures were used as a way to beseech protection. They believed that these figures, when pierced and sacrificed to would draw the powerful spirits' attention, and they would come to their aid. The object we see here, would have been a very powerful Knisi as it is covered in a cocoon of powerful objects, the more a Knisi is smothered the more powerful (charged) it becomes.