Additional information
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Polychrome Baule Spirit Spouse 1950s
The Baule people of Cote D’Ivoire traditionally believed in a parallel world inhabited by the not yet born, the deceased and spiritual help-mates of the living known as spirit spouses. Carved figures representing spirit-spouses were kept by believers in their quarters to be ritually appeased and cared for in order to assist them in the trials of their daily lives. This tradition did not simply end but rather withered gradually as the Baule westernized. Clothed and painted Baule figures are often described as “colons”, a term which overlooks the figures’ traditional purpose and suggests they are transitional or somehow impure. They are neither. They were made because someone felt they were necessary and they served the same function as older carvings rendered without clothing. This spirit spouse sits firmly in her seat and stares fixedly ahead as is typical of the genre. She sports a wrist watch and western clothes- contemporary articles of dress representative of life in Cote D’Ivoire at the moment of independence. She is a modern woman, self possessed, not without wealth, and prepared to face the future. 16.5″ unmounted.
