Mossi Biiga or Doll / Fertility Figure

A girl carries a doll as she would a child. In Mossi country, that is practice, and it is also hope.

This biiga, carved in wood in the 20th century by the Mossi of Burkina Faso, is a doll associated with fertility. A young woman might keep hers in hope of a healthy pregnancy. The form is wonderfully economical: a straight cylindrical body on a disc-shaped base, a long neck, a rounded crest of a head scored with crosshatched lines. Two pendant breasts project from the chest.

Dark brown, smooth, lighter where hands wore it. Just under a foot tall.

Spare. Rather tender.