Pair of Bateba Figures - Lobi People, Burkina Faso
Pair of Bateba Figures - Lobi People, Burkina Faso
Pair of Bateba Figures - Lobi People, Burkina Faso 1
Pair of Bateba Figures - Lobi People, Burkina Faso 2
Pair of Bateba Figures - Lobi People, Burkina Faso 3

Pair of Bateba Figures - Lobi People, Burkina Faso

$395.00
The 250,000 Lobi are divided among Ghana, Ivory Coast & Burkina Faso. Each household leader or Cuor is subordinate to a thila, an invisible protective spirit who communicates through the intermediary of diviners. It is the thila who dictates taboos & who requires the creation of a new wooden figure for the village or household shrine. Lobi sculpture was only discovered in the 1950's. The Lobi do not use masks but create figures called bateba & heads sculpted on top of a post planted in the ground. These figures, are beings that are somewhere between spirits & people & may represent the dead or bush spirits. Heads surround the shrines of sacred huts & the bateba belongs to the thila & carries out their orders to defend the territory against evil & to protect their owners from harm.

These figures are sold as a pair.

Male figure (left) dimensions: 10" height x 3" width x 3" depth

Female figure (right) dimensions: 9 1/2" height x 2" width x 2 1/2" depth

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