Chokwe Chief's Throne
The carved wooden thrones of the Chokwe chiefs of Angola are low seats supported by figural groups, ancestors, rulers, hunters, and scenes of everyday life, that turn each throne into a small chronicle of the chiefdom. The seat and backrest are often studded with brass tacks and worked with openwork motifs, while the supporting figures served as personal emblems of the soba and his lineage. Thrones were made by the chief's carvers and passed down the chiefly line, and a new ruler might commission a throne that linked him to the ancestors shown beneath the seat. In Chokwe court culture the thro