African Arts Gallery

Sometimes called "colon", this statuette forms the incarnation of a spiritual husband, sculpted according to the indications of the diviner. In "African art, Western eyes" Susan Vogel reports that a figure of this type (p.255), idealized spouse, is represented dressed in a city outfit because the spouse is supposed to have a job in town. The earthly spouse, through the cult rendered to this spiritual double, expects to have his resources, his favors and his protection unfailingly. Two types of statues are produced by the Baoulé in the ritual context: The Waka-Sona statues, "being of wood" in Baoulé, evoke a assié oussou, being of the earth. They are part of a type of statues intended to be used as a medium tool by the komiefoué soothsayers, the latter being selected by the asye usu spirits ("genies of the earth") in order to communicate the revelations of the hereafter. The second type of statues are the spouses of the beyond, masculine, the Blolo bian or feminine, the blolo bia. About sixty ethnic groups populate Côte d'Ivoire, including the Baoulé, in the center, Akans from Ghana, people of the savannah, practicing hunting and agriculture just like the Gouro from whom they borrowed the cults and masks.