Seated Bateba Figure - Lobi, Burkina Faso (JL14)

The 250,000 Lobi are divided among Ghana, Ivory Coast & Burkina Faso. Each household leader is subordinate to a 'thila', an invisible protective spirit who communicates through the intermediary of diviners. It is the thila who dictates taboos and who requires the creation of a new wooden figure for the village or house- hold shrine.

Lobi sculpture was only discovered in the 1950's.The Lobi do not use masks but create figures called bateba & heads sculpted on top of a post planted in the ground. These figures, are beings that are somewhere between spirits & people & may represent the dead or bush spirits. Heads surround the shrines of sacred huts & the bateba belongs to the thila & carries out their orders to defend the territory against evil & to protect their owners from harm.

Dimensions: 9" H x 10" W x 7 1/2" D

Ex. Phil Lobred Collection