Janus figure ·  Cameroon, Mambila · ID: 3035881

Description

wood, greyish-brown patina, back to back, nearly identical formed, carved in typical Mambila fashion: a heart-shaped deepened face with projecting eyes, coiffure with wooden pegs, angled arms and zigzag-legs, slightly dam., minor missing parts (hand, coiffure), cracks, rep. (both arms on one side), paint rubbed off, block-like base;
much of Mambila art is associated with the seasonal cycles of planting and harvesting and the cult of ancestors whose material abode is the guarded shrine of every family compound. Ancestor figures as receptacles for ancestral spirits controlled the welfare of the living, who depended on the good will of the ancestors for health, fertility, good harvest, luck in hunting and fishing and success in trade - in short their material well being. In some areas such small janus figures were instrumental in establishing the innocence or guilt of someone accused of a breach of the social norm.

Comparing literature

Northern, Tamara, Expressions of Cameroon art, Michigan 1986, p. 27 Northern, Tamara, The Art of Cameroon, Washington D.C. 1984, p. 190