Panels for a woman's ceremonial skirt (ncak mhahla),

mid-20th century

The long ceremonial skirts (ncak) of royal Bushong women in the Kuba confederacy evoke prestige and cultural knowledge. Located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kuba is a confederation of eighteen groups who pay tribute to a king drawn from the Bushong group. While ncak cloths once were worn at elite funerals and gifted to be placed on graves, today women wear them for a variety of ceremonial events. Female artists collaborate to embroider cloths with circles, crescents, branches, and V shapes, or to appliqué patches of cloth. The resulting compositions range from free-floating to densely nested or interlocking, and both the individual shapes and the compositions hold significance within Kuba society. The arrowhead shapes represent the bows and arrows women carry during Itul, a ceremonial performance in which dancers defeat a costumed mythic enemy. As the cloths are worn spiraled around the body, with only the lower edges peeking out, the majority of the design is usually concealed.