African Arts Gallery

Ex-French collection African tribal art .
Statue depicting a young woman breastfeeding her child. The keloid scars, strings of pearls, and sophisticated hairstyle indicate her status. These statues were kept on the bo osu altar where sacrifices were made to the spirits. Chipped grainy patina.
Two types of statues are produced by the baoulé in the ritual context: The Waka-Sona statues, "being of wood" in Baoulé, evoke an assié oussou, being of the earth. They are part of a type of statue intended to be used as a medium tool by the komien diviners, the latter being selected by the asye usu spirits in order to communicate revelations from the beyond. 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 cults and masks they borrowed. During the 18th century, united under a single banner, these Akan people were, according to legend, guided by Queen Aba Pokou to the region of gold mines in the east of Côte d'Ivoire to settle there. .
Ref. : "Baule" Susan M. Vogel