Whistle (kasengosengo) (late 1800s): Art, History and Details

Whistle (kasengosengo) (late 1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Carved out of ivory or wood in a variety of shapes, Chokwe whistles often bear miniature, stylized renderings of masks. Cikunza, the "patron saint" of the boys' initiation into manhood, is depicted with a pointed extension imitating the horn of a road antelope, symbolizing the fertility spirit. Typically such whistles were used by men during the hunt to communicate with their co-hunters and to call their dogs. They were either worn attached to a string as a necklace or tied to a spear.

Object facts

• Title: Whistle (kasengosengo)
• Date: late 1800s
• Culture: Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo or Angola, Chokwe people, late 19th century
• Type: Musical Instrument
• Technique: Probably hippopotamus ivory
• Dimensions: Overall: 8.6 x 3.2 cm (3 3/8 x 1 1/4 in.)
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 1915.444

Collection credit

Educational Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Second Careers : Two Tributaries in African Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2019

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.