husmodell, modell, hus

The largest and most decorated house to the left (1907.50.1), closest to the life-size model of the village Sundi Mongo, is from the mission station Kingoyi of Manianga District of Bas-Congo Province in DRC. The collector was Missionary Per Olof Wirén. The people living in this area were predominantly Bwende. Although the model was probably collected for the Stockholm Missionary Exhibition in 1907, it seems not to have been part of that display, nor part of the permanent display at the then Ethnographic Museum, judging by the photographs.
Although the model was probably collected for the Stockholm Missionary Exhibition in 1907, it seems not to have been part of that display, nor part of the permanent display at the then Ethnographic Museum judging by the photographs.
The origin of the other houses  are not corroborated (they were not given numbers in the Museum series but simply marked nos 4 and 8), but Dr Lotten Gustafsson-Reinius, who curated the 2006 reconstruction of the Missionary exhibition, holds that they were collected for the 1907 exhibition by missionary Axel Johan Vilhelm Hammar (1873-1967). He was also stationed in the Manianga area at Nganda (1903-06) and later founded Madzia station in the French Congo (1909). This means that the houses are most likely also of Bwende origin.
(From Michael Barrett, FD).

Hammar has written extensively on the Bwende. In one of his texts there is a section on houses and house construction in which he describes the common use of out houses for animal husbandry. "Goat-, sheep-, and pig houses are built by poles that are dug into the ground and tied together. The roof is an ordinary grass roof. The out houses are very small, so that their inhabitants barely can fit in them. They are usually situated merely a few meters from the residential house." p. 158 
 
And on p. 162: "All the domestic animals generally need to acquire their own food, as best as they can. To protect them from wild animals, apart from the previously mentioned out houses, dog kennel-like, 1.5 metres high and 1.5 meters long houses are built for them"
 
in Hammar, J, "Babwende, beskrifning öfver deras lefnadsförhållanden, religion, seder och bruk m.m." [Babwende: Description of their Living Conditions, Religion, Customs etc"] In Etnografiska bidrag af svenska missionärer i Afrika [Ethnograhic Contributions by Swedish Missionaries in Africa], Nordenskiöld, Erland (ed.), P. Palmquists Aktiebolag, Stockholm, 1907.