African sculpture African Tribal Art Wooden Carved statue tribal wood Ancestor Figure-6531

29.6/8.8 CM
Works sculptures such as this were once combined in ancestral ensembles comprising four to seven figures wrapped in textiles fastened around their shoulders and lower body. Individual sculptures were named after the particular ancestors they evoked. It seems that the largest and most impressive of the works in sculptures particular group was invariably also the oldest, depicting a founding ancestor. That sculpture, it has been suggested, served as the model or prototype for the others, which represented successive generations of chiefs.