Anthropomorphic figure "jagana"
Morton Dimondstein, Los Angeles, USA
Dave DeRoche, San Francisco, USA
Description
wood, kaolin, base
At the end of 1968, the first Mumuye works appeared in France. Especially their “jagana” figures, which show a high degree of abstraction, represented a sensation on the art market. The fascination that emanates from them has been preserved to this day.
Mumuye figures have different names depending on their region and function: “jagana” (“child of medicine”), “lagana” (“medicinal wood”), “sukp(w)a”, “janari”, “lapa”, etc.
Strybol reports that these figures were kept in special effigy huts (“jagalagana”). Such huts belonged to a person with an important function, i.e., a religious leader, a healer, a blacksmith, a rainmaker or a master of thunder or, more generally, a custodian of a cult seeking to preserve or restore balance in the society and among individuals.
Depending on the owners function, the figures can then be used to enhance prestige, to fend off evil, to cure all sorts of diseases, to predict the future, to spread the rain or to guard the family enclosure.
Strybol himself could observe how a Kudu diviner from around Sunkani took two “jagana” statuettes out of his effigy hut and laid them on the ground during a ritual to predict the future.