This figure demonstrates the sculptor's keen sense of observation and attention to anatomy and clothing. The Africans called Europeans mindele, or "those in cloth," because they wore unnecessary cloths. The sculptor depicted his subject with a haughty facial expression and hair hanging in straight locks beneath his hat.

The whistle is carved in the form of a human bust. The hole bored through the neck suggests the whistle was probably a pendant on a fiber cord necklace. A musician played it by blowing across the opening opposite the head and modulating the tone by opening and closing the hold in the side extensions.

The handle of this knife (sape) is carved in the form of a woman's head with the distinctive Mangbetu royal women's hairstyle. Creating the hairstyle involved wrapping a woman's elongated forehead—which had been reshaped in infancy—with string and drawing her long hair around a basketry frame to create a halo effect.