African Arts Gallery

This figure "Waka -Sona", "être of wood in baoulé", re-encloses bright red residual inlays alternating with a blackish patina mixed with an inked powder. The piece was carved from exceptionally dense wood. Both hands of perosnnage rest on the swollen abdomen. This gesture of life refers to parentage. Two types of Waka-Sona statues are produced by the baoulé in the ritual setting: those that evoke an assiè oussou, being of the earth, and which are part of a set of statues intended to be used as a medium tool by the Komian soothsayers, the latter being selected by the asye usu spirits in order to communicate the revelations of the afterlife. The second type of statues are the spouses of the afterlife, male, blolo bian or feminine, the bia blolo . Some 60 ethnic groups populate Côte d'Ivoire, including the Baoulé in the centre, Akans from Ghana, a people of the savannah, hunting and farming, as well as the Gouro from whom they borrowed the cults and masks. The basic unit is lineage, under the responsibility of an elder, whose functions are political and religious.