Tag: Nkutu

NOW: Bakongo Nkutu (Prestige Cape) – Af1853,0713.1

Continuing with another African Nalbound Object of the Week, this stunning nkutu (prestige cape) comes from mid-19th century Congo. While the tradition of net-like garments being worn by high ranking individuals is believed to have its roots in at least the 16th century, we currently only have evidence of this style of nkutu/kinzembe/zamba kya mfumu from the 19th century.1 There are quite a few examples in museums around the world; including several others in The British Museum.2

Nkutu (Prestige Cape) Af1853,0713.1 © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Object: Bakongo Nkutu – Af1853,0713.1

Description: A beautiful prestige cape made from raffia palm fiber. This cape has openwork that forms several undulating chevrons. Close examination shows that the individual lengths of fiber were knotted to the previous as each new length was added to continue the nalbinding. There is a cut and bound slit in the middle for the head. The outer edge has raffia fringe knotted on. Length: 79 cm, Width: 125 cm3

Dated to: before 1853 CE4

Culture: Bakongo5

Find location: Congo6

Material: Raffia palm fiber7

Stitch(es) used: The museum catalog states it is an “Interlinked structure arranged in narrow bands with worked holes throughout.”8 The catalog also references a publication where it states the cape was made “using a form of interlinking (sprang).”9 Interlinking is a structural term, not a technique. Sprang can use interlinking (amongst other structures), but so can other techniques. In this case, the nalbinding stitch used does not just intralace once with the previous stitches in the same row as in many spiraled nalbinding stitches. Instead, this stitch intralaces and interlinks several times with each previous stitch before crossing itself to proceed to the next stitch.

The beautiful zoomable photographs in the The British Museum’s online catalog show that this cape was nalbound in the same stitch as that found in the Kongalese Prestige Cape that is in The Textile Museum that was February 13, 2024’s Nalbound Object of the Week: B1 UU/OO/UU/OOU as determined by Anne Marie Decker during her examination on 14 June 2023.

A section of the prestige cape zoomed in to show one single row with the individual loops highlighted by Anne Marie Decker in different colors in order to show the nalbinding stitch: B1 UU/OO/UU/OOU.
Base photo credit: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
A section of the prestige cape zoomed in to show how the patterned holes are created in one single row by not interlinking with previous stitches. The individual loops highlighted by Anne Marie Decker in different colors in order to show the nalbinding stitch: B1 UU/OO/UU/OOU.
Base photo credit: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
Two sections of the prestige cape zoomed in to show one single row with the individual loops highlighted by Anne Marie Decker in different colors in order to show the nalbinding stitch:
B1 UU/OO/UU/OOU.
Base photo credit: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Inventory number: Af1853,0713.1

Current location: The British Museum

Link to museum catalog or other data: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1853-0713-1

Some sources in which more information can be found:

LaGamma, Alisa, ed. Kongo: Power and Majesty. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016. ISBN 978-1-58839-575-7

Photographs (if permissions allow): There are several additional photos available in the British Museum’s online catalog entry for this cape.


An etching of a prestige cape being worn was published in Henry M. Stanely’s Africa inexplorada : el continente misterioso
on Pg.151 Source: Biblioteca de la Academia de Artillería / Biblioteca Virtual de Defensa
© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Please note that sharing to other venues will likely be intermittent. If you wish to receive these each week, please remember to follow the blog.
Patrons on Patreon receive early access previews, occasional extra details, and priority requests.

  1. The net-like garment found on the statue ostensibly of António Manuel ne Vunda, Kongalese ambassador to Rome in 1608 has been interpreted as an earlier version of these prestige capes. However, it does rather look more like the net-like garment worn by a priest of the ngufui sect in Sierra Leone as shown on page 154 of “Weaving in Africa: South of the Sahara”. ↩︎
  2. Additional prestige capes in the British Museum are: Af1954,+23.2039, Af1954,+23.2038, and Af1993,02.379. ↩︎
  3. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1853-0713-1 Accessed 2/9/2026 ↩︎
  4. 1853 was when the cape was donated to the British Museum. Collection date unknown. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1853-0713-1 Accessed 2/9/2026 ↩︎
  5. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1853-0713-1 Accessed 2/9/2026 ↩︎
  6. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1853-0713-1 Accessed 2/9/2026 ↩︎
  7. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1853-0713-1 Accessed 2/9/2026 ↩︎
  8. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1853-0713-1 Accessed 2/9/2026 ↩︎
  9. LaGamma, Alisa, ed. Kongo: Power and Majesty. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016. ISBN 978-1-58839-575-7 p.108 fig.66
    (text by John K Thornton) ↩︎

NOW: Kinzembe, Nkutu, or Zamba kya mfumu – Kongalese Prestige Cape 1962.1.14

This week’s Nalbound Object of the Week comes from Central Africa. There are quite a few of these beautifully fine Prestige Capes from the former Kingdom of Kongo now in museums around the world. I was honored to be able to examine this particular one closely. Until you are in the presence of one, it is hard to comprehend just how delicate and fine this complex compound nalbinding is; and then you add in the openwork patterning. Definitely breathtaking.

Photo Credit: Textile Museum Acquisition – Public Domain

Object: Kinzembe,1 Nkutu,2 or Zamba kya mfumu3 – Kongalese Prestige Cape

Description: A stunningly fine raffia cape worked in a trebly intralaced compound nalbinding stitch with an openwork zigzag pattern. The neck opening has a layer of Simple Looping around the edge. The outer edges have raffia fringe knotted onto them. The front and back rows have strings knotted on every few stitches from which the handle-like tassels are suspended. This cape has one both front and back. Some also have them off the sides.

There is an illustration of an etching, based on a photograph, that was made ca. 1880 of a Chief in Full Dress Attire wearing a nkutu on page 73 of Kongo: Power and Majesty.

Dated to: 19th century CE4

Find location: Democratic Republic of Congo, what was southern Zaire.5

Material: raffia6

Stitch(es) used: B1 UU/OO/UU/OOU as determined by Anne Marie Decker during her examination of the object on 14 June 2023. The row heights are very fine for this compound of a nalbinding stitch; around 5/8ths of an inch. There is a single row of Z-crossed Simple Looping, F1 O, around the neck opening.

The Textile Museum specifies that the structure is “looping,” but not the specific stitch used.7 This type of cape has also been misidentified as sprang8 in other examples, but they are not.

So far, the only other place where we see other stitches in the same trebly intralaced family of stitches is in the Omani stitch sock as described by Peter Collingwood (the only example of that particular stitch out of Oman that has been found so far).

Inventory number: Accession Number: 1962.1.14

Current location: The Textile Museum

Link to museum catalog or other data: https://collections-gwu.zetcom.net/en/collection/item/11243/

Some sources in which more information can be found:

LaGamma, Alisa, ed. Kongo: Power and Majesty. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016. ISBN 978-1-58839-575-7

Photographs:

Photos of this and several other examples of Kinzembe, Nkutu, or Zamba kya mfumu can be seen at Some of the fashion accessories used in the Kongo Kingdom – Raffia textiles

Please note that sharing to other venues will likely be intermittent. If you wish to receive these each week, please remember to follow the blog.
Patrons on Patreon receive early access previews, occasional extra details, and priority requests.

  1. https://collections-gwu.zetcom.net/en/collection/item/11243/ ↩︎
  2. The Brooklyn Museum uses the term nkutu for the Prestige Cape in their collection: https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/13009 as does the British Museum with the one in their collection: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1853-0713-1 ↩︎
  3. https://collections-gwu.zetcom.net/en/collection/item/11243/ ↩︎
  4. https://collections-gwu.zetcom.net/en/collection/item/11243/ ↩︎
  5. https://collections-gwu.zetcom.net/en/collection/item/11243/ ↩︎
  6. https://collections-gwu.zetcom.net/en/collection/item/11243/. This is not the only type of fiber in which we find this type of cape worked. ↩︎
  7. https://collections-gwu.zetcom.net/en/collection/item/11243/ ↩︎
  8. For example, the British Museum’s Af1853,0713.1 lists its technique as sprang: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1853-0713-1, but also provides clear and close photographs that show it is worked in exactly the same interlinking nalbinding stitch as this one in The Textile Museum. ↩︎