A Koma-Bulsa Janiform Figure Lot n° 25

Janus figure Koma-Bulsa, Ghana Mit Sockel / with base Terracotta. H 23 cm. Provenance: Gallery Walu, Zurich (before 1987). Thermoluminescence age determination: 600 years (+/- 20%). Karl Ferdinand Schädler described the new discovery of this culture in 1987 as follows: "Some of them look as if they came from the Bandiagara gorges and were products of the Dogon. But these are only a few. Most of these terracottas of a culture of which nothing is known look rather as if they came from Somarzo or as if they had sprung from the fantasy world of a Hieronymus Bosch: Heads whose braincases are pointed or which are hollowed out in the shape of a cup in reverse, with spectacle-like eyes or with ears, like two handles, attached to the back of the head. Mouths that, separated from any face, unite with other mouths to form a new "speaking for itself" being; conversely, faces that have also united with others and - provided with arms and legs - now seem to come directly from the underworld. It seems idle to puzzle over what world of thought and ideas these figures, heads, and objects sprang from-whether they were fashioned as funerary, ancestral, or cult figures. Perhaps it is even reassuring to know that not every newly discovered secret in Africa is also to be solved immediately, that - at least for some time - a culture cannot be dissected like a corpse: because neither oral traditions nor archaeological by-products give any clues. Instead, one should perhaps be content to admire, on the one hand, the ingenuity of the design and, on the other, the powerful expressive expression inherent in these sculptures. Judging by these two criteria and by the external appearance of the objects, it seems to be a matter of different styles, if not different cultures, which either followed each other or - which also seems possible - were created completely independently one after the other in the same area. One of the styles shows a mannerist character, the deliberately displaced facial features often giving the figures, mostly seated figures with necklaces, dignity marks or upper arm knives, an eerie, transcendental, sometimes malignant expression - princes of another world. As with many of the apparently singularly designed heads, which end in a usually pointed neck, the heads of the figures are also frequently hollowed out in the shape of a cup. The hands usually rest on the knees (occasionally quite unmotivatedly on one of the shoulders) and the genitals - the majority are male - are often oversized and clearly modeled. The individually worked heads are thereby usually much larger in design than the figures; they are usually also coarser in execution and much more primitive and direct in style. Another style, expressed mainly in the heads of theriomorphic creatures, often shows a mouth wide open, apparently screaming, and then reminiscent of Gothic gargoyles. A special attention must have been paid by the people of this culture to Janus-shaped heads and, moreover, to multi-headed beings. The former, conceived as single sculptures, sometimes take on a phallic character because of the tapered heads (they also run straight at the bottom, not conical like the "hollow heads" found pinned around tombs). The latter, multi-headed beings have, like the Janus-shaped single heads, likewise conically tapering pointed heads; the body of these, of which one can find up to four personalities reproduced in one sculpture, is however quite rudimentarily formed as a rectangular block, with only indicated limbs and genitals. What else will come to light from this area in northern Ghana, now inhabited by the Koma (also Komba, Konkomba, Bekpokpak, etc.)? Was the settlement from which the finds were made also a transshipment point for goods - kola nuts from the coast, gold, salt, European goods, etc. - like Salaga at the end of the last century, which is on the way to the coast, or like Kong, Bondoukou and Begho, which no longer exists, to the west? The brisk exchange of goods between the coast and the Niger Arc, which probably began around 1500 if not much earlier, when the Mossi states were founded by cavalry armies from (present-day) Ghana, may well have made its way across this area and formed the economic basis for this unusual culture. A culture that hopefully will reveal many more works of art to us - and hopefully will pose many more riddles to us!" From: Archaeological Finds from Komaland. Zurich: Galerie Walu (1987). Further reading: Schaedler, Karl-Ferdinand (1997). Earth and Ore. Munich: Panterra Verlag. CHF 300 / 600 EUR 300 / 600