A Mossi fertility dolls, also called ‘Biga’, from the region Kaya, Burkina Faso, block-shaped feet leading to sturdy slightly bent legs, prominent buttocks, a tapering torso with triangular pendulous breasts, squared shoulders terminating in arms carved beside the body, the elongated cylindrical neck supporting a flat disc-shaped head featuring a clearly recognizable face on its short side, the hairstyle with side plaits is sketched in recessed chip-carved patterns; shiny reddish usage patina, traces of age, partly eroded on the abdomen.

"Dolls served on two levels. The first, as is true for dolls the world over, are toys for girls, which, while playthings, are also obvious pedagogic tools. A doll may also serve an adult as a surrogate baby for a childless, would-be mother. Caring for the doll as she would her won baby, feeding it, carrying it in a cloth wrap when going to market, she believes that a sympathetic magic will occur. If the woman conceives and a baby is born, the doll receives the first drops of milk from the mother. The doll is then carefully tucked away, a cherished object to be passed along to the next generation."

Lit. Christopher D. Roy/Thomas G.B. Wheelock: Land of the Flying Masks. Art and Culture in Burkina Faso. The Thomas G. B. Wheelock Collection, München 2007, p. 449.

300 - 400,- Euro

Height: 39 cm
Weight: 700 g