African Arts Gallery

Belgian collection of African tribal art. Property of the soothsayer komienfoué, often involved in the divinatory practices of the Mbra, this ancient, crudely sketched sculpture embodies a assié oussou, a "genius of nature" in Baoulé statuary.
Desiccation cracks. Ritual flaked patina.
Around sixty ethnic groups populate Ivory Coast, including the Baoulé, in the center, Akans from Ghana, a people of the savannah, practicing hunting and agriculture just like the Gouro from whose religions and masks they borrowed. Two types of statues are produced by the Baoulé in the ritual context: The Waka-Sona statues, "being of wood" in Baoulé, evoke a sassié oussou, being of the earth. They are part of a type of statue intended to be used as a medium tool by Komian diviners, the latter being selected by the spirits asye usu in order to communicate the revelations of the au- of the. The second type of statues are the spouses of the afterlife, male, the Blolo bian or female, the blolo bia.