A female Senufo Rhythm pounder - called Débéle - from Boundiali region, Cote d'Ivoire. Signs of ritual use and age. This Déblé Senufo statue from Nafou village in the Boundiali region of Côte d’Ivoire embodies the spiritual and social principles central to Senufo cultural practice. Traditionally produced by a master carver under the guidance of elders or ritual specialists, such statues were integral to initiation rites, ancestral veneration, and protective ceremonies, serving as conduits between the living community and the spirit world. The creation of the figure was itself a sacred process, involving ritual invocations and offerings to awaken its spiritual presence. Functioning as both a moral guide and a protective emblem, the statue played a vital role in sustaining communal harmony, transmitting cultural knowledge, and embodying the enduring Senufo ideals of continuity, guidance, and the balance between human and ancestral realms. “These large-scale statue are a very rare work of art among the Senufo, institutional style of professional sculpture, yet on some special occasions large works of art were commissioned by the male Poro society and also by their female counter equivalent society, the Tyekpa society. In the case of the Poro society, large statues of pairs were placed on public display near wooden shrines or shelters where the chosen society’s initiators gathered to celebrate and organize special events and funerals. The Poro society would commission statues such as this one to be carried and used in ritual processions or placed on the ground to serve as a focus point for the ceremonial dancers. These statues might have also functioned as a large fetish figure or shrine-powered object to which ritual sacrifices were made on the statue. This type of sculpture was used in various ritual functions that would have taken place right before or after a Poro elder member died. The statue would have been carried by initiators of the Poro society who would visit the home of the deceased where sometimes the statue may have been placed beside the corpse of the deceased and covered in a shroud and shown to the public. The statue would then be carried in the funeral procession and accompanied the deceased to their burial place. There it was swung and pounded on the ground around the grave in a rhythmic manner in synchronized time to the music of the Poro society orchestra. When the ceremony was complete and before nightfall, the grave was covered with soil as one of the Poro society’s members would perform the final gesture with the statue, leaping onto the grave and pounding the soil seven times. This pounding is to ensure that the spirit of the deceased person didn’t linger in the vicinity of the village compound.” Source: Brauer Museum of Art. CAB29379