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Julien Gauthier

A Baule healer sculpture, collected in M'bahiakro region, Ivory Coast, seated , holding an infant upside down with its lips on the childs buttocks, seemingly performing a treatment. Signs of ritual use and age.

Such depictions within the Baule sculptural tradition of Côte d’Ivoire are extremely rare and are only documented in a few ethnographic sources. They do not belong to the standard iconographic repertoire of Baule maternity figures, which typically show the mother holding the child on her lap, nursing, or embracing it protectively.

A scene in which the mother blows air into the child’s anus is generally not understood as erotic. If ethnographically accurate, it is interpreted in a ritual, healing, or apotropaic context. In the oral traditions of the Akan and Baule, breath (nzum or nyawa) represents the life-giving principle, the seat of vital force or the soul. Blowing breath or air into a body orifice could, in certain ritual contexts, symbolize the “restoration” of life force, especially if a child was ill, unconscious, or had suffered a shock.

In West African medicinal and magical practice, the introduction of healing substances, smoke, or air into a child’s body openings is attested among Akan, Senufo, and Dan healers. The purpose is to strengthen the inner life or release a blockage of vital energy. Within a figurative artwork showing maternity, such a gesture may therefore symbolize a ritual act rather than an everyday scene.

Some collections and scholars, such as Alain-Michel Boyer and Susan Vogel, note atypical Baule maternities with unusual gestures between mother and child. However, a specific iconographic interpretation of the gesture you describe appears only in the ethnological-symbolic reading of “revitalization” or “return of life force.”

The depiction of a Baule maternity figure in which the mother blows air into the child's anus is not documented in the established academic literature on Baule art or ethnography. Baule maternity figures typically portray the mother holding or nursing her child, often with symbolic elements such as scarification and stylized features that reflect cultural ideals of beauty and fertility

While the Baule are known for their rich spiritual and ritual practices, including the belief in spirit spouses and the use of sculptures to communicate with the spiritual world, there is no evidence to suggest that the act of blowing air into a child's anus is a recognized ritual or symbolic gesture within Baule culture. Such a depiction would be highly atypical and not aligned with the known iconography of Baule maternity figures.

Baule healer sculptures, known in Côte d’Ivoire as asie usu or waka sran (“people of the bush” or “wooden persons”), occupy a central place in the Baule world of ritual mediation, divination, and healing. They are among the most conceptually sophisticated sculptural forms in West African art, embodying the Baule belief that human existence is interwoven with a vast network of spirits, ancestors, and invisible forces whose well-being determines that of the community. Created for diviners and healers—komien or komienbli—these sculptures serve as inhabited vessels through which nonhuman powers communicate, diagnose misfortune, and restore harmony between humans and the spiritual world.

The Baule cosmology divides reality into two interpenetrating domains: the human world and the blolo, the spirit world. When disorder, illness, or infertility arise, they are understood as the result of a disturbance in the relationship between these realms. The healer’s task is to identify and appease the spirit responsible, a process that often involves the creation or activation of a sculpture to serve as the spirit’s temporary home. The asie usu—literally “bush spirit”—represents a being from the untamed, fertile world beyond the village, where spiritual power resides. Once consecrated through ritual, offerings, and speech, the sculpture becomes the physical locus of that spirit, capable of granting knowledge, healing, or protection.

Formally, Baule healer sculptures are among the most refined and balanced of African sculptural traditions. They are carved with great care and sensitivity, reflecting an aesthetic ideal of moral and physical harmony that the Baule term blolo bla (inner beauty). Figures typically stand upright on a circular base, their proportions graceful and symmetrical. The head—considered the seat of destiny and thought—is slightly enlarged and carefully modeled, the features composed and introspective. Elaborate coiffures, scarification marks, and jewelry attest to social identity and aesthetic propriety, while the body’s polished surface, darkened with ritual patina, reveals continual care and libation. Despite their idealized serenity, these sculptures embody a profound spiritual intensity: the quiet gaze and poised stance suggest containment of potent forces, a moral and metaphysical balance essential to healing work.

In practice, the healer uses the sculpture as a communicative intermediary. During divination, the komien invokes the spirit housed in the figure, seeking to identify the cause of misfortune and the appropriate ritual remedy. The spirit may request specific offerings—libations, food, animal sacrifice—or additional objects for its shrine, such as beads, mirrors, or bells. The sculpture thus participates actively in diagnosis and therapy. Its placement in the healer’s workspace or shrine signifies a living relationship of reciprocity: the spirit offers insight and power, while the healer provides care and reverence. When not in use, the sculpture is covered or secluded, emphasizing its sacred and potentially volatile nature.

Although asie usu figures were primarily made for local ritual use, many entered Western collections in the early twentieth century. European collectors and modernist artists were drawn to their serenity, composure, and formal harmony, qualities that seemed to express an ideal of classical balance. In the process, however, their social and spiritual dimensions were often eclipsed. Recent scholarship has sought to restore the context of these sculptures, highlighting their active role in healing and divination. Far from being inert art objects, Baule healer sculptures are dynamic mediators, embodying a dialogue between human fragility and the invisible forces that shape existence. Through their form and function, they express the Baule conviction that beauty, restraint, and moral discipline are inseparable from spiritual power.

References

Bognolo, Daniela. Masques de la Côte d’Ivoire. Paris: Éditions du Musée Dapper, 1998.
Falgayrettes-Leveau, Christiane. Art de Côte d’Ivoire: Traditions et modernités. Paris: Musée Dapper, 1993.
Homberger, Lorenz. The Art of Côte d’Ivoire. Zurich: Museum Rietberg, 1990.
Vogel, Susan Mullin. Baule: African Art, Western Eyes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
Zahan, Dominique. The Religion, Spirituality, and Thought of Traditional Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
Vogel, Susan Mullin. Art/Artifact: African Art in Anthropology Collections. New York: Center for African Art, 1988.

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