BoW-46 / Tsobii - Ga peoples, Ghana

Height: 7 in / 17.8 cm

ex Galerie Walu, Basel

Wood, pigment

The first time I encountered this type of figure was in Isn’t S/he a Doll? (p. 65), and I didn’t come across another example for quite some time after that. Ga tsobii figures share a superficial resemblance to akua’ba in their flatness and simplified human form, which is why I initially assumed they served a similar purpose. However, they are closer in function to Yoruba ibeji figures than to Akan fertility dolls. As noted in Isn’t S/he a Doll?, Margaret Field stated that tsobii are associated not with fertility in the abstract, but with loss and return, the death of a child and the desire for that child to come back. Her observations place these figures in contexts of mourning and continuity: carried on women’s backs, left with offerings near the birth goddess Na Afiye, or set alongside twin-related objects when one twin has died. I included this figure in the catalog both because tsobii are uncommon, and because their visual similarity to akua’ba can easily obscure a very different role - one rooted less in future fertility than in remembrance, replacement, and hope.

$1200 plus shipping