Tribal Art

This sculpture collected in Guinea Conakry embodies a young warrior, armed with a knife and carrying the head of an enemy. This rare work with menacing gestures has characteristic features of the productions of the Dan of Côte d'Ivoire and those established in Nimba County in Liberia, adjacent to the Guinean border, which probably influenced the statuary of some clans. The braided hair gathered in three thick back-to-back shells, the jewels in the ears, the facial and body scarifications, the mouth with protruding lips revealing the dentition, form aesthetic constants. The Dan also once had a reputation as warriors and cannibals. The position in which the character was depicted is also unusual: sitting, legs apart, his nudity asked by a textile sex cover of vegetable fibers.
Smooth, matte, abrasions and desication cracks.
Gifts of women, food, festive ceremonies and honorable status once rewarded sculptors to whom this talent was bestowed during a dream. The latter was the means of communication of Du , an invisible spiritual power, with men. The rare statuary played a prestigious role with its holder. These are mainly effigies of wives, lm , wooden human beings. These are not incarnations of spirits or effigies of ancestors, but prestigious figures representing living people, often commissioned by the chiefs, whose statues will bear the names. They are placed in miniature boxes built for this purpose. For the Dan of Côte d'Ivoire, also called Yacouba, two distinct universes are opposed: that of the village, composed of its inhabitants, its animals, and that of the forest, its vegetation and the animals and spirits that populate it. For these spirits to establish themselves, a specific area of the forest is designated and still preserved outside the dan villages. Sacrifices are also required in order to communicate through these spirits.