A Mambila male sculpture, standing on its thick triangular feet, short zigzag legs protruding stomach, curved folded arms, the left hand coming up to touch his chin, the head is placed on the shoulders the mouth is opened and the inside is colored in red, a thin black nose, two coffee bean eyes, the face is colored in white, the small pointed ears in red, the hair is coiffed with a spiked hairdo made out of nails which have been hammered into the head; the sculpture is covered with thick encrusted dark patina, some aged cracks.

"Such figures are commonly described as ancestor figures, a description which is challenged. The gesture of the left hand or both hands to chin in Mambila sculpture is characteristic of tadep figures connected with a healing association called Suaga. The ritual paraphernalia were kept in granary-like storehouses adorned with painted screens (baltu).  Two types of carved anthropomorphic figure were displayed in front of the storehouse: kike made from raffia palm pith, and tadep carved from wood. Both types were often made as a male-female pair and usually painted with black, red and white pigments. The style of the former is generally more
abstracted than that of the latter. Larger tadep were also kept inside the storehouses. Although the Suaga complex remains central to the religious system of the Mambila, most figures and masks have been removed owing to their popularity among Western art collectors."

Source: Keith Nicklin - Africa The Art of a Continent.


Further reading: Mambilla: Art and material culture by Nancy Beth A Schwart.

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Height: 40 cm
Weight: 1,32 kg