African Statues | African Wood Carvings

Part of the Akan group, the Akye number about 55,000. Standing and seated statues with bulbous arms and legs produced by the Akye show strong Baule influence, but they are very marked by their distinctive style.
PRICE: $424.99

These Ambete statues are thought to have a connection with the ancestor’s cult – they were either used as reliquaries or placed alongside ancestor bones in a basket. Heads and busts were probably positioned on poles and placed in front of the chief’s house. They may have had an apotropaic and emblematic purpose. Instead, statues are provided with a dorsal, rectangular cavity, or the body itself may be in the shape of a reliquary chest. In this case, generally the head alone is sculpted in the round, the arms and lower extremities only roughly carved out.
PRICE: $184.99

The Kota actually comprise of a number of groups of people who have common cultural traits. The Kota have subgroups such as the Shamaye, Hongwe, Obamba, Mindumu and Shake who all stayed together through the migrations faced over the past few centuries. The normally live in villages that comprise of two or more clans. The clans are made up of several lineages or family groups that trace their lineage from a common ancestor.
PRICE: $454.99

This Baule sculpture represents a "blolo bian" or spirit husband (blolo bla being spirit wife). In Baule culture, the otherworld, (known to them as blolo), exists in contrast to the world of physical reality, existing in parallel to the lived world and is considered to be the world of the dead. Though, it must be noted that the blolo is more than a place for the 'departed', it is also a place of origin for the spirits of the newborn.
PRICE: $569.99

This Baule sculpture represents a "blolo bian" or spirit husband (blolo bla being spirit wife). In Baule culture, the otherworld, (known to them as blolo), exists in contrast to the world of physical reality, existing in parallel to the lived world and is considered to be the world of the dead. Though, it must be noted that the blolo is more than a place for the 'departed', it is also a place of origin for the spirits of the newborn.
PRICE: $239.99

Classically carved figures such as this mother and child among the Baule are known generally as waka sran, meaning a 'person of wood'. Some maternity sculptures were owned by diviners known as Komien, who could tell the future, cure illnesses as well as solving local community problems.
PRICE: $464.99

According to Dogon lore, the seventh nommo to descend from the heavens was the blacksmith, bringing with him the ancestors of the human beings, animals, grain and technology. The blacksmith robbed the heavenly workshops of a piece of sun in the form of live coals and incandescent iron and then dashed down the rainbow with his prize, his descent proceeding along a spiral path.
PRICE: $349.99

Exquisite Dogon altar figure representing a Kanaga masquerader. The kanaga is one of the most widespread masks, representing a bird known as kommolo tebu. Its origin is traced back to a mythical hunter who, having killed one of these birds, fabricated the first kanaga mask.
PRICE: $394.99

In Dogon mother and child figures, as in this figure, is reference to the ‘mother’ representing one of the original founding primordial beings who gave us birth (Nummo among the Dogon) or she could represent a lineage mother or simply represent the concept of life and fertility.
PRICE: $349.99

This particular figure is influenced by the Niongom people who occupied the southern part of the cliffs during the 10th century and carved elongated statues with arrow shaped noses, lozenge eyes and arms hangin at their sides. The form of Niongom carvings also characteristically followed the shape of the wood. It is thought that they were placed on altars which, when later abandoned, were left untouched. With the passing of time, the figures gained a weathered patina.
PRICE: $159.99

The 400,000 Dogon live 180 miles south of Timbuktu on the cliffs of Bandiagara, which dominate the plains for over 150 miles. They speak approximately 120 dialects, many of which are not mutually comprehensible. At first hunters, now on their small fields they cultivate millet, sorghum, wheat, and onion. The millet is stored in high quadrangular granaries around which they build their houses. Because of the difficult approach to these regions and the aridity of the climate, the Dogon have been isolated and hence were able to conserve their ancient religious habits and ways of making the necessary implements, their carvings.
PRICE: $179.99

African Fang figures like these, carved by the Fang tribe were called Bieri (similar to the figures used in the same way), and served as guardians of the enshrined relics of important ancestors. Sitting on top of the containers, they were also consulted for aid and protection. This is a superb piece.
PRICE: $319.99

It is one of the more familiar stories in African cultural history. In what is now central Ghana, at some time in the distant past, a young Asante woman named Akua (Wednesday born) was having trouble conceiving a child (ba). To solve the problem she consulted a local priest, who divined that Akua should commission a woodcarving of a little child. The priest instructed her to treat the carving as if it were a living infant. She was to carry it as all young children are carried, on her back, tucked into her wrapper with just the head appearing above the cloth.She was told to feed the figure, bathe it, sleep with it, and give it gifts—such as waist beads and beaded earrings and necklaces.
PRICE: $134.99

The theme of maternity goes along with the Fante ideas of fecundity and the continuity of the matrilineage among the Fante. Symbolically, the female figure represents the queen mother which is vouched to perpetuate the matrilineage clan. Such figures were kept in family shrines dedicated to divinities devoted to the fertility and fecundity.In Fante culture, naturalistically carved figures representing either a spirit of a local shrine, an ancestor of a matrilineage or the ‘Queen Mother’ of a local chiefdom are often shown seated in local shrines indicating their rank, prestige and royal presence.
PRICE: $294.99

This is a beautiful Gan fetish figure statue with great petina. Old Gan fethishes are very rare. The Gan people are from the same group as the Lobi people.
PRICE: $99.99

The Hemba ancestors figures or Singiti as they were known, characteristically have short legs, elongated torsos, hands resting on the navels and have an enlarged head with a backward swept coiffure. They were kept by the Fumu Mwalo and conferred power on him. During ritual ceremonies he communicated with these figures by recalling significant and heroic events in the ancestor's life.
PRICE: $69.99

Originally the Kongo kingdom comprised of a number of seperate tribes (Villi, Yombe, Beembe, Bwende, Woyo etc) led by a kind, Ntotela, who was elected by a council of governors. The Ntotela controlled the nominations for official positions at court and in the provinces. The main economic resources of the empire were ivory, copper and the slave trade.
PRICE: $199.99

King Kongolo founded the Luba Empire in 1585 during the Upemba depression. The Kingdom saw rapid expansion, encompassing the upper left bank territories of the Lualaba River; this was achieved under the reign of Kalala Ilunga, King Kongolo’s successor and nephew. At the peak of the Luba Empire, there were about a million people paying tribute to its king. The empire was severely weakened towards the end of the 19th century due advancing Ovimbundu people from Angola as well as the raids from the East African Muslims slavers, and eventually the Belgian colonials took control, and the Luba Empire collapsed under their rule.
PRICE: $144.99

Faces of Hongwe reliquary figures are shovel-shaped. The Hongwe reliquary figures consist of three distinct sections, the oval, concave face cut off at the bottom that produces a shovel like form, the cylindrical neck, and the oval openwork base. These reliquary figures belong to the ancestor cult referred to as bwete, and surrmounted bundles or baskets that held relics of extraordinary ancestors.
PRICE: $419.99

Mambila Art centers upon an association called Suaga. The Suaga association is concerned with justice and supernatural cleansing within the community. Tadep figures are thought to embody ancestors who, according to Mambila beliefs, are responsible for the clan's wealth. Costumes, musical instruments, masks and figures used in Suaga ceremonies are stored in granary-like buildings in the homesteads of their clan.
PRICE: $239.99

Mambila Art centers upon an association called Suaga. The Suaga association is concerned with justice and supernatural cleansing within the community. Tadep figures are thought to embody ancestors who, according to Mambila beliefs, are responsible for the clan's wealth. Costumes, musical instruments, masks and figures used in Suaga ceremonies are stored in granary-like buildings in the homesteads of their clan.
PRICE: $319.99

The Namji tribe is famous for their wooden dolls carved with geometric features and adorned with multi-colored bead necklaces, cowrie shells, coins, metal strips, fiber and leather. The dolls held by young Namji girls to play and to ensure their fertility, are considered among the finest and the most beautiful dolls in Africa. They are carved from solid hardwood. The doll would have a name, be fed, be talked to and be carried strapped to the back everywhere the child would go. The most popular place to carry ones' doll is strapped to the back the way real infants are toted around. This was the young girls' first baby. This was her responsibility. This doll helped prepare the young Namji woman for her role as mother in her future life.
PRICE: $199.99

While the Dengese do not use masks, their artists have produced many great statues. These fine religious statues may be portraits of ancestors or funeral effigies. most of these statues have no lower extremities; the bodies are covered with scarifications, and figures wear bracelets and have hairdos that resemble those worn by notables, or totshi: a kind of finely braided bonnet topped with a small, wooden cylinder covered with fiber.
PRICE: $194.99

The Songye made power figures, Nkisi (singular) and Mankishi (plural), to combat witchcraft and sorcery. They were benign and were believed to bring good, promote fertility and success, vanquish enemies and protect from evil. Large ones were owned by and served the community; small ones were for individual families.
PRICE: $289.99

Teke artists carved figures predominantly surrounded by fetish material, known as bilongo. These figures protect and assist the Teke and if a fetish figure successfully demonstrates its power, its owner may detach its bilongo, break it into several pieces and insert fragments into other figures. He will then sell the new figures to neighboring families, leaving the original statue with an emaciated body.
PRICE: $99.99