The Congo is located in central Africa and borders the Central African Republic. This country has more than 250 languages which makes for a diverse group of people.
The first are the Batwa, or Pygmies. The Pygmies are hunter-gatherers who exchange the animals they kill for agricultural products. As a result, much of the ancient Pygmy art is found on rocks in caves. These people are the earliest inhabitants of the Congo, but are slowly being assimilated into the regular African population we see today.
Archaeologists have found thousands of sites that contain Pygmy art. The art tends to be very simple such as finger paintings on top of rocks. But some of the art can be very detailed where the animals are distorted on purpose.
Though much of the rock art that the Pygmies have is very hard to distinguish as representing some type of real life object. There are two subjects that tend to be displayed the most. These two objects are fertility and weather.
The subject of weather shows images of the sun, the rain, the clouds, and the moon. This is the case with most Africans because since it is very dry in the region, they depend on these meteorological subjects to keep them alive. As for the Pygmies, they depend on the clouds and rain to give them rain so they could drink water. They also depend on the sun to give them light so they could hunt for their food so they could eat or trade this meat. The Pygmies practically thought that since these objects made me survive, then that means they have to honor them in some type of way. This lead to them making works of art on these such objects.
Fertility is also a very important subject to the people of Africa and the Pygmy people as well. Fertility means the survival of the people. And the survival of the people means that you can now have more workers to work with you.
The Pygmy's love towards the subject of fertility lead to their love to maternal figures as well. Maternal is meant to give off a motherly feel. This motherly feel comes in the form of a mother carrying a child, or a mother with her child in her womb. This goes back to the subject of fertility because both of these concepts lead to the survival of the species. As a result of the Pygmy people being well known for their worship for fertility, the African people have believed they have supernatural powers that boost fertility.
A good example of the Pygmy people's love for fertility is the Tikar Figure. The figure has a very large head which was meant to represent the Pygmies because they are well known for having heads of large sizes. The large head is supposed to symbolize knowledge. The figure is also female and has a protruding belly as to show she is pregnant.
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