A female Attie sculpture, Ivory Coast, collected in the region of Akoupé, with numerous fetish nails and attachments of rows of small beads and cowrie shells; occre surface, traces of age and ritual use. Attié sculpture comes from the Attié (also called Akyé or Atyé) people, an Akan‑related ethnic group of southeastern Côte d’Ivoire, living in the lagoon region north of Abidjan around places like Akoupé, Adzopé, and Alepé. The Attié are culturally and geographically close to other lagoon peoples such as the Ebrié and Abouré, and share with them some artistic traditions, but they also have distinctive styles of their own. Attié wooden figures are often standing human forms carved in hardwood and finished with a smooth patina, sometimes darkened with age or surface treatments. Many represent ancestors, ideals of beauty, or spirits. They can embody quiet dignity and spiritual presence, with careful attention to the face, coiffure, and proportions of the body. Distinctive features may include large heads and eyes, bulbous limbs with rhythms of bulges and constrictions, elongated or encircled necks, and scarification marked by small wooden pegs rather than incised lines. Attié figures often functioned as abodes for spirits, connected to divination or ritual performance. In some contexts they were associated with diviners, serving as the dwelling place of a spirit that could possess the diviner during ceremonies; the figures’ presence enhanced and supported ritual dances and trance states. Many Attié sculptures are female figures, reflecting local aesthetics and values placed on feminine form and beauty. In Attié culture, as in neighboring groups, themes of ancestral reverence, moral elevation, and idealized human form figure strongly in the statuary. Ancestor figures in particular were believed to offer protection, cohesion, and guidance for families and communities. Compared with some neighboring traditions such as Baule statuary, Attié figures can share elegant and refined forms but often display more pronounced rounding of limbs and distinctive stylistic animations that set them apart within the lagoon artistic milieu. CAB33325