Fetish figure - Mahafaly - Madagascar - Vazimba

MF16, Vazimba Fetish Figure, pregnant woman with bat ears. Height 46 cm, diameter 14 cm, 1800 g, exact origin unknown, produced around 1970.
The carvers in the Betioky region make ritual figures from driftwood of large rivers on a family commission, including grave stelae like the famous AloAlo. This is a figure from a strange artistic niche that does not exist elsewhere in Madagascar. The already extraordinary ancestor cult here is complemented by fetish figures to convey social norms.
This forward-bending figure probably suffers from pregnancy; it may also symbolize the possession by evil forces in a figurative sense. The large ears point to a personality trait of people who like to listen and then spread rumors. Archaisms in the southern societies suffer greatly from yellow feelings, envy, malice, and jealousy. Perhaps this Vazimba warns of it or reveals a real personality with this profile.
Hardwood, Kampfer, gray oxidized, cracks, wood growths incorporated for appearance.
Vazimba were the original inhabitants of Madagascar, ethnologically not clearly proven. These very small, pygmy-like beings are said to have lived nomadically there before Madagascar was settled. According to folk myths, the incoming settlers from the Indo-Pacific region hunted and displaced them. Some ethnic groups are said to have mixed with them; sometimes you really see in the races very small people with relatively shapeless heads. Perhaps in the narrative world of the Neuland-Madagascars a kind of trauma is anchored that led to the mystification of this ethnicity. The Vazimba occupy in Madagascar the role of our fairies, dwarfs, and goblins. There are countless, mostly eerie stories and legends about Vazimba. In the southern Tulear region, this is also depicted in a few workshops in a figurative way and these “monsters” are sold as a deterrent example or to teach children rules and taboos. Over these taboos (Fady) the carved Vazimba presides spiritually."}】= cannot be