Collections: African Art

Figure of a Seated Musician. Mali. Dogon artist, 18th century(?). Wood, metal, 22 x 7 x 4 1/4 in. (55.8 x 17.7 x 10.8 cm). Brooklyn Musuem, Frank L. Babbott Fund, 61.2

This figure is portrayed playing a koro, or four-stringed "harp-lute." The instrument is made, owned, and played only by healers, diviners, and priests of Yapilu, a cult concerned with rites for women who have died in pregnancy or childbirth. The neck to which the strings would be attached has been broken on this figure, but the type of instrument being played is still evident.

Dogon mythology, extraordinarily rich and complex, is frequently represented in sculpture. According to myth, the harp-lute was created when the seventh of the original beings (Nommo) descended to earth. The Seventh Nommo brought speech, music, and weaving to earth, and these all became organizing principles for the world. Speech and music are also associated with fertility and specifically with the germination of crops. Germination, in turn, is linked to resurrection and rebirth, since the Nommo was sacrificed to the sky and then reborn on earth.

The harp-lute is therefore connected to fertility, funerary, and purification rites. The musician's role is to create personal and societal order through the germinating action of his music; when the harpist plays, his instrument serves to organize the world and re-establish societal harmony.