Standing female figure

Description

wood, greyish brown patina, encrusted in some areas, rising from a cylindrical base with patterns in deep relief, the fine carved hands not resting aside the navel as usual but above, a striking broad and strong neck, elaborate coiffure, slightly dam. (nose, mouth), missing parts (lobes, base), cracks, paint rubbed off, on pedestal;
presumably representing a “blolo bla” figure, the female statuette of a “wife from the other world”. But it might have been thought as an “asis usu” bush spirit as well. Unless collected in situ, the actual function of a figure cannot reliably be determined.