Ca. first half 20thC. Excellent with original patina and no wood losses. No cracks. Heavy, carved from one massive piece of reddish mahogany-type hard wood, with a raised headrest. Senufo, Ivory Coast. Purchased Galerie 62, Paris 1985. Ex-Nooter coll.

From the net: This is a ceremonial bed used for funerals by the Senufo people of the Ivory Coast of Africa. The complexity of the Senufo funeral rites derives both from the importance of the event and from the danger incurred by the whole group. The spirit of the dead man roams around the village and lingers in the spots he used to frequent. If this force is allowed to roam freely around, it could bring back the original chaos. It is therefore essential that it should be captured. The initiates alone have the power and energy to overcome the dead man’s spirit.The Tyolobele blow on great horns made out of a single piece of wood. These are the nanaa, and they evoke the roar of a lion. The Poro dignitaries beat on thin, high-pitched drums called tyepingdaana. They are accompanied by the laladyogo, an enigmatic character muffled up in a cotton cloth which reveals only the eyes. On his head he wears a large plaited straw hat decorated with the white and black feathers of a fishing eagle.The strange procession follows the tracks of the dead mans soul through the village and up to the bed on which his body lies. One of the kponyungo masqueradors then takes a small armpit drum, jumps up on the bed and stands astride the corpse, all the time beating a rapid beat on the instrument with his fingers. He is assisted by an initiate who shakes iron bells to the same rhythm. The function of this ritual is to stress, with the help of the music, the power of the Poro society, and also to chase the dead man’s soul right away from the village and the cultivated fields and into the region of the dead. From this very bed.

please enlarge pictures and see item description

13.5 x 80 x 21 in