The Lobi are divided among Ghana, Ivory Coast & Burkina Faso.
Each household leader is subordinate to a 'thila', an invisible protective spirit who communicates through the intermediary of diviners. It is the thila who dictates taboos and who requires the creation of a new wooden figure for the village or house- hold shrine.
Lobi sculpture was only discovered in the 1950's. The Lobi do not use masks but create figures called bateba. These figures, are beings that are somewhere between spirits & people & may represent the dead or bush spirits. The bateba belongs to the thila & carries out their orders to defend the territory against evil & to protect their owners from harm.
Height: 10"
Width: 8 ¼"
Depth: 4".
It is 10 ¾" tall on its 4" square base.
