Dogon (Dogo, Habbé, Kado, Kibisi, Tombo), Mali & Burkina Faso

Kneeling male figure.  The 250,000 Dogon settled in the bend of the Niger River on a plateau surrounded by the 200-kilometers-long Bandiagara cliffs, which overhang a plain. At first hunters, they now cultivate their staple diet millet, and also sorghum, and wheat on the cliff tops, which they have had to convert due to the scarcity of water sources. Encompassing several totemic clans, the Dogon village is under the authority of a council of elders. Most Dogon sculpture is created by blacksmiths, who work in wood as well as metal. The kneeling figure (male or female) is a motif often found among Dogon figurative sculpture and may be representative of a long history of trade in ideas and subjects among the varied inhabitants of the region reaching from Mopti and Djenne to the Bandiagara escarpment. This item is a good example of such a kneeling figure.  

Material:  wood

Size: H. 18”, W. 5”, D. 6”