A MobaTchitcheri sculpture of Northern Ghana

In Moba communities of northeastern Ghana and northwestern Togo, diviners influence and direct the commissioning, design, and ritual treatment of sculptural forms created for several different kinds of domestic shrines.1 Both the scale and the relatively abstract form of this particular work suggest that it was probably owned by an extended family or clan. It was associated with their origins and played a vital role in assuring their collective  well-being.

In Moba society, when ancestral offerings fail to provide an individual with desired relief, an earth oracle with an established reputation is consulted.2 In advising individuals, families, or clans, Moba diviners prescribe tchitcheri 
figures to fortify their clients and improve their lives. Such works increase the efficacy of the ritual actions performed at shrines by calling forth positive ancestral influences. They are protective and promote health and prosperity on a range of different levels. When a particular problem disrupted an individual's life, diviners often recommended the addition of a figurative work to that person's private altar. Similarly, problems of broader concern, such as diseased livestock, poor harvests, or infertility, often led diviners to prescribe that a larger work 
be commissioned for a family shrine.

Challenging an account by Leo Frobenius from the turn of the century, which suggested that the owner of such a work carved it him- or herself, Christine Mullen Kreamer determined that it was invariably made by a specialist. 
Although in Moba society, wood carving is a skill that all may acquire, tchitcheri may be fashioned only by ndividuals whose fathers are diviners. Carving tchitcheri is considered a delicate and highly dangerous operation, 
and diviners give their sons special protection needed for the creation of such ritually charged objects. Those who transgress this sanction are thought to risk blindness or insanity.. source Met Museum

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Height: 94 cm
Weight: 38 kg