English: Most seats in sub-Saharan Africa are low stools with round or rectangular tops, carved from a single block of wood. As early as the sixteenth century, Portuguese traders and explorers introduced chairs with backs, leather seats, and decorative brass tacks, giving them as presents to chiefs, who used them as thrones. Chokwe artists soon began to produce similar chairs, adapting the style to preexisting sculptural conventions. Here, a cikungu mask, a symbol of chieftaincy, is represented on the back of the chair. Figures on the rungs and splats depict scenes of daily and ceremonial life.