一件木雕作品 - Fon - 贝宁 (没有保留价)

在现在的贝宁丰族仪式艺术，以及通常归为沃敦（在流散与大众语境中常被称为“伏都教”）的更广泛宗教形态中，由异质材料组成的集合雕塑——包括动物骨骼、纺织品、绳索、诸如挂锁之金属装置，以及雕刻木元素——并非仅仅作为无生命的表象，而是作为主动的仪式代理人在运作。文献中常以 bocio（来自丰语，常注解为“被赋予力量的人形”）来描述这些物件，它们通过系统性地积累、束缚与封存被认为在特定宇宙观框架中具有力量的物质，从而凝聚力量。一个雕刻的人头若在这样的集合中出现，就将作品置于一系列物象之中，这些物象显现人格、意图与关系性，而骨骼及其他有机残骸的加入则指向可见与不可见领域之间的互动。 Incl stand?（注：此处原文有“Incl stand.”，可能为排版错误，保留原文状态）

在丰/沃敦实践中，动物骨不仅是中性残迹或纯粹的象征性符号，它被理解为生命力的残留，是曾参与生命过程的材料，因此保留着锚定或导引力量的能力（在相关的约鲁巴宗教术语中可译为ase，尽管词汇等价随情境而异）。当被纳入仪式雕塑时，骨头可以作为通道，通往特定领域——祖先、冥界，或与某些神祗（vodun）相关——这取决于骨种、获取情形以及主持人之仪式专长。无论是通过骨头在集合体中的摆放、暴露还是束缚，骨头的突出往往 signaling 力效的增强：骨头可被安置为“发声”、穿透、或守护，其硬度与耐久性与布料和绳子的易变性形成对比。这种对比不仅是形式上的；它编码了一种包含与激活的逻辑，在该逻辑中僵硬的元素稳定并集中本来易变的能量。

textiles and strings—sometimes layered, knotted, or wound tightly around the figure—perform acts of binding that are both literal and performative. Wrapping is a means of enclosing charged substances (bo, medicines) within the body of the object, protecting them from dissipation while also marking the figure as sealed and operative. Knots can index specific invocations or constraints, each tie corresponding to a spoken formula or an intention fixed in material form. The padlock, a striking modern addition in many such sculptures, extends this logic of closure into a register of mechanical security. Its presence is not anachronistic but evidences the adaptive capacity of Vodun practice to incorporate industrial materials into established ritual grammars. Locked elements may signify the containment of dangerous forces, the fixing of a contract, or the prevention of unauthorized access—by humans or by spirits—to the contents and capacities of the figure.

The carved human head anchors the assemblage in a recognizable anthropomorphic schema, yet it should not be read as portraiture in a Western sense. Rather, it provides a locus for address and a surface upon which signs of activation—pigments, encrustations, attachments—can accumulate. Eyes, mouths, and cranial forms are often emphasized as points of exchange, where offerings are received and commands are issued. In some instances, the head mediates between the internalized substances (the bo concealed within wrappings or cavities) and the external world, articulating the figure’s agency in social and ritual contexts.

Scholarly accounts have long wrestled with the terminology applied to such objects. The colonial-era designation “fetish,” derived from the Portuguese feitiço, historically carried pejorative connotations that obscured indigenous epistemologies. Contemporary scholarship tends to retain the term critically, if at all, preferring emic categories such as bocio or more neutral descriptors like “power figure.” Nonetheless, the older vocabulary persists in museum catalogues and art historical discourse, necessitating a careful parsing of its implications. Within a Fon/Vodun framework, the efficacy of these sculptures is not attributed to irrational belief but to a coherent system of material-semiotic operations in which substances, forms, and actions are calibrated to produce effects in the world.

The accent of bones within these assemblages thus participates in a broader poetics of aggregation and intensification. Bones, fabrics, cords, metal locks, and carved wood are not arbitrarily combined; they are selected and arranged through ritual knowledge that understands how different materials attract, hold, and direct forces. The resulting object is processual, often accruing additional layers over time as it is fed, repaired, or reactivated. Its surface may appear dense, even opaque, to an 外部 viewer, yet for practitioners it remains legible as a record of interventions and a map of capacities.

Placed within museum contexts, such a sculpture invites a double reading. On one hand, it can be approached formally, as an assemblage that juxtaposes textures—smooth wood, brittle bone, soft cloth, cold metal—and orchestrates them into a compelling visual structure. On the other, and more critically, it must be understood as an active participant in a living religious system, whose meanings are not exhausted by display. The padlock does not merely signify closure; it enacts it. The knots do not simply decorate; they bind. The bones do not allude abstractly to death; they mobilize the residues of life. To attend to these dimensions is to recognize the sculpture not as a static artifact but as a node within ongoing practices of making, binding, and activating the forces that constitute the social and spiritual worlds of Fon/Vodun communities.

References

Blier, Suzanne Preston. African Vodun: Art, Psychology, and Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Davis, Wade. The Serpent and the Rainbow. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985.

Drewal, Henry John. Sacred Waters: Arts for Mami Wata and Other Divinities in Africa and the Diaspora. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.

Farris Thompson, Robert. Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. New York: Vintage Books, 1984.

Maupoil, Bernard. La Géomancie à l’ancienne Côte des Esclaves. Paris: Institut d’Ethnologie, 1943.

Rush, Dana. “Efficacy and the Object: Yoruba and Fon Power Figures.” African Arts 33, no. 2 (2000): 36–49.

CAB45212