A Bamana Maternity of Dokamissa (initiation society of the women and mythical figure of the Bamana people, probably similar like Jo and Gwan), heavy, hard bumbu wood.

The value of children in women´s lives is expressed in a song sung by Bamana women after genital mutilation (Luneau 1974:539):

"The child you bear
The child you bear
Is an ornament
Even if you have placed gold
On the ears of your wife
A woman´s ornament is
The child she bears."

"If you are not afraid of females, Master
If you are not afraid of females
You´re not afraid of anything."

collected in the Tamani region, Dodougoubani village, 90 km from Segou, on the other side of the Niger. The patina of this sculpture was created by the same procedue Kate Ezra is describing in the exhibition catalogue of the National Museum of African Art "A Human Ideal in African Art", Washington 1986,
"The respective leaders of Jo and Gwan - the initiation societies of the Bougouni area, where Kate Ezra made her researches - remove the sculptures from the house and arrange them in a row in front of it. Women bring hot water and soap, and the sculptures are washed and rubbed with oil.

Everyone has soap in hand. The calabashes of oil are set doen. When you have finished washing it you anoit it. Thus it is done; each washes it with hope, saying I have come this year with worries about the child affair.Interview with the chief of Birani village , Oct. 8, 1978

The clean sculptures, glistening with oil, are then adored with loincloths, headties, and beads, contributed by women. The suface of the next sculpture is completly different, because of the different form of sacrification.

Height: 64 cm

sold