komaland - komaland

These sculptures were generally placed in mounds, often as part of ritual or funerary contexts. Many have been excavated alongside funerary offerings and ceramic vessels, suggesting that their function was linked to ancestral or protective rites.
Some scholars interpret them as substitute figures—serving as representations of deceased persons, ancestral spirits, or ritual intermediaries. Others consider them votive offerings to local deities or spiritual forces.
Because Komaland was located at a cultural crossroads between the states of the Sahel savannah and the forest belt societies of the south, its art reflects an unusual synthesis of formal austerity and symbolic density.

Provenance: Galerie Majestic, Paris