Bamana Bambara Boli Fetish Figure Antiqu African Statue

"Many boliw seem to depict animals such as hippopotami or cows, and some are shaped like human beings. Sometimes, however, it is impossible to suggest what they might be. This fits with the Mande principle that very powerful things are opaque to general human understanding, and only the initiated will understand them. For others, the lack of understanding is ominous, and the murky ambiguity articulated in the shapes serves as a warning to stay away or risk great personal danger. Only skilled professionals are capable of engaging the powers contained in these instruments. Some Mande feel they are devices to be used for the good of association members and the community. Others find them loathsome and fearsome, with too much power that dominates the members of the associations. Still others consider them to be just one more element in their social and spiritual landscapes, sometimes to be used, sometimes to be treated with caution. Placement of these objects is not entirely clear. When the ci wara (Chi Wara) association used them, they were kept in baskets, and association officials danced with them on their heads during meetings." Continuation from above notes as noted in Africa: The Art of a Continent.

Bambara Bamana Tribal History
"The 2,500,000 Bamana people, also called Bambara, form the largest ethnic group within Mali and occupy the central part of the country, in an area of the savannah. They live principally from agriculture, with some subsidiary cattle rearing in the northern part of their territory. The Bambara people are predominantly animists, although recently the Muslim faith has been spreading among them. The Bambara kingdom was founded in the 17th century and reached its pinnacle between 1760 and 1787 during the reign of N'golo Diarra. N'golo Diarra is credited with conquering the Peul people and in turn claimed the cities of Djenne and Timbuktu. However, during the 19th century, the kingdom began to decline and ultimately fell to the French when they arrived in 1892. For the most part, Bambara society is structured around six male societies, known as the Dyow. The stylistic variations in Bambara art are extreme - sculptures, masks, and headdresses display either stylized or realistic features, and either weathered or encrusted patinas. Until quite recently, the function of Bambara pieces was shrouded in mystery, but in the last twenty years field studies have revealed that certain types of figures and headdresses were associated with a number of the societies that structure Bamana life," according to Bacquart. "Among the Bamana and Maninka, initiation societies, called jow, were and sometimes still are of profound social and political significance. Some of them like the Ntomo, Kore, or their local equivalents, impose rites of passage: in the villages where they exist, every boy has to accomplish their rituals in order to accede to adulthood. Other socities such as the Komo, the Nama and the Ci-wara are "power associations" in which men participate in order to gain power and protect their dependents." For many of those interested in the African art, the Bamana have come to be seen as a classic example of "traditional" Sudanic civilization, a conservative inward-looking society of farmers and artists largely unaffected by the forces which shape Malian history. A most remarkable society of people living in the middle Niger Valley that somehow resisted the full thrust of Islamic religious renewal, the holy wars of the nineteenth century, and subsequent French imperialism and colonization - they appear almost heroic in surviving those raging events while remaining faithful to an artistic tradition based upon ancient precepts and values. See Bamana: The Art of Existence in Mali for an exceptionally well detailed account of this culture.

Cat. # ofs4