Figure
Unknown Artist
possibly early 1400s
Medium
soapstone
Dimensions
{"overall":{"height":0.238,"width":0.112,"depth":0.125}}
Classification
Sculpture
Department
African Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Lucile Munro in memory of her husband Thomas Munro, Curator of Education from 1931 to 1967
Accession Number
1976.29
About this artwork
The most varied group of soapstone figures and heads has been found in the homelands of the Kissi. Calling them pomda ("images of the dead"), the Kissi placed them in ancestral shrines, offering them the last seeds at sowing times and the first fruits of the harvest. However, the sculptures are believed to have been made centuries ago by the ancestors of the Kissi, the so-called Sapi people.