Dimensions off base: 51 x 7.2 cm
Dimensions with base: 55 x 10.5 cm
Origin: Mali
Culture: Dogon
Presumed period: Middle of the twentieth century or earlier
Material: Wood
Total weight: 1308 g
Provenance: Old private collection
Condition: Significant cracks to report due to the age of the piece.
Beautiful patina due to use


The statue represents a man standing, with an elongated silhouette. The trunk and the arms are disproportionately elongated, the latter being kept along the body. The hands are symbolically treated by a half inclined disc in perfect union with the lower body. The character is camped on small legs half-flexed with wide feet resting on a circular base. The body is characterized by a slightly protruding torso, small shoulders and a rectangular navel worked in relief. The neck is long and cylindrical and hosts a face in a rectangle. The rectangular eyes frame a long, thin, hook-shaped nose and overhang a small mouth with half-open lips. The skull is strongly elongated and has at its center a protruding ridge extending to the nose. Small, imperceptible, rectangular ears on the front are placed behind the skull.


The Dogon are a people found in Mali, their settlement area stretching from the Niger River loop to the plateau and the cliffs of Bandiagara. The origin of this population would go back to the 14th century which occupied then the Mende, a region located in the center of the current Mali. The isolated nature of their habitat has allowed the hatching and the preservation of a great cultural richness. Dogon mythology consecrates Amma as the only god. He created the land and made it his wife. An anthill, clitoris of the earth, stood as a rival of the male sex, and Amma had to slaughter it. An only son was born, Yurugu or the Pale Fox. The excised land was more docile to her husband and gave birth to the Nommo, both male and female, ideal couple, master of water and speech. Like many African peoples, the Dogons practice animism and ancestor worship. Thus, the Omolo marks a concern for fidelity to the law of the ancients, legitimate foundation of the society erected into law. This law manages the social relations, establishes the rules of devolution of the inheritance marital norms, the forms of solidarity, the prohibitions, the ideal social behaviors with social hierarchy, the system of control of the cults and rites.