A male Baule sculpture holding a stylized goatee in his hands; greyish patina traces of sacrifications

800 - 1.000,- Euro

Height: 41 cm
Weight: 360 g

The other world man or woman is a solitary individual linked to only one human being. I have written that the Baule never use the words "hunsband" (wun) or "wife" (yi) in relation to the Other-World person. He or she is always referred to as the Other-World man or Other-World woman; in other words, the association is a dyadic sexual relationship, rather than the polyvalent marriage relationship that links two families in a web of mutual obligations.. There is an actuality to this relationship that situates it in the immediacy of lived experiences. Unlike the preexistance reality of the nature world, the blolo is a world that is revealed suddenly and experienced authentically: the palpable passion of a male/female relationship. The living partner admits to being "desired", in fact " demanded," by an invisible, sexual being."

Philip Ravenhill, The Self and the Other, Personhood and Images anmong the Baule, Cote d´Ívoire, Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1994:37

Photo: Ravenhill

Woman with her husband and the figure of her Orther-World man.
Toumodi region, Ivory Coast, 1981.