Ancestor Couple – Wood – Lobi – Burkina Faso

Great Lobi Bateba wooden couple. “Statuettes depicting a man and a woman making love (the man always positioned behind the woman), the thilbou khe mounkha, which are prescribed for single men so that they find a wife or to women to avoid sterility or wished to have a child.”

“Copulating couples or maternity figures are believed to enhance the fertility of women living in the household”

Lobi Figures are the enigmatic, brooding sculpture that protect the Lobi people of Burkina Faso. Most are frontal, symmetrical and timeless sentinels expressing the traditional beliefs of the Lobi. Several depart from the norm with animated gestures, asymmetry or a great degree of symbolic abstraction.
The figures were placed on family altars in the thilda, a small sacristy or room in each dwelling. Each figure was not a representation but an actual spirit, or tibil thil. It protected the family and home from illness and other misfortunes. The spirit could also be used for divination; it could demand offerings and additions of other figures. The accumulation of statues on a family altar gave social status and were passed on from father to son. Most were frontal and symmetrical, but some have unusually animated gestures.

Provenance: Manfred Schäfer, former gallery owner from Ulm, Germany. Including custom made stand.