Biteki (Teke power figure)
Carved standing male figures of the Teke people whose efficacy resided in a packed magical charge (*bonga*) bound to the abdomen, activated by a ritual specialist.
Biteki (singular teke or nteke) are the central sculptural form of the Teke people of the Republic of Congo and western DR Congo. Each figure is carved from wood as an upright male form with a characteristically narrow face bearing dense vertical striations and a projecting pointed beard, but the operative element is the bonga — a composite mass of mineral pigments, resins, plant and animal materials — wrapped and lashed around the figure's lower torso. It is the bonga, assembled and activated by an nga (ritual specialist), that confers the object's power; the carving is its necessary vessel rather than its source.
The function of biteki encompassed protection of individuals and lineage groups, healing, juridical oath-taking, and the mediation of ancestral force. Robert Hottot's early twentieth-century field documentation remains foundational for understanding their original deployment context. On the contemporary market, many examples circulate with the bonga absent through decay or deliberate removal; such stripped figures retain their carved form but are incomplete objects and should be assessed accordingly. The term 'fetish', still encountered in older catalogue entries, is both technically imprecise and editorially discouraged in serious art-historical usage.