Figure: Mother and Child

Although this mother and child appear to serve as the caryatid support of a stool, such sculptures from Nigeria's Benue Valley were designed to be held aloft as the focal point around which dances were choreographed. In a closely related regional tradition, Afo maternity shrine figures were similarly the focus of annual ceremonies. On such occasions, gifts and other sacrifices ere directed toward them by women who hoped to conceive.

Credit: Gift of Paul and Ruth W. Tishman, 1996