Baoule Waka sona statuette - Lot 63

Baoule Waka sona statuette Inverted doubles" in African Baule sculptures This sculpture, featuring a seated woman with an offering bowl on her lap, is treated with great finesse. She is adorned with very fine necklaces of colored beads. Beautiful black satin patina. Matified ritual anointing residue. Piece cracked by time 43 x 11 cm Some sixty ethnic groups populate Côte d'Ivoire, including the Baoulé, in the center, Akans from Ghana, people of the savannah, practicing hunting and agriculture like the Gouro whose ritual cults and sculpted masks they have borrowed. Two types of statues are produced by the Baoulé, Baulé, for ritual purposes: Waka-Sona statues, "wooden being" in Baoulé, evoke an assié oussou, earth being. They are part of a type of statue designed to be used as a medium by Komien diviners, who are selected by the asye usu spirits to communicate revelations from the beyond. The second type of statues are the "spouses" of the afterlife, male, the Blolo bian or female, the blolo bia , who are akin to a quest for fulfillment by seeking homage to one's idealized sexual opposite.