Bamana Power Figure for the Jo Society, Koulikoro Region, Mali

Samba Kamissoko, Bamako
Charles and Kent Davis, New Orleans, acquired from the above in 1974
Private American Collection, acquired from the above on December 9, 1993

New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Shapes of Power, Belief and Celebration: African Art from New Orleans Collection, March 11 - April 16, 1989; additional venues:
University Art Museum, University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette, June 3 - July 23, 1989
Meadows Museum of Art at Centenary College, Shrevport, September 10 - November 12, 1989
Museum of African Art, New York, Bamana: The Art of Existence in Mali, September 19 - July 28, 2002; additional venue:
The Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, February 28 - May 11, 2003

William A. Fagaly, Shapes of Power, Belief and Celebration: African Art from New Orleans Collection, New Orleans, 1989, p. 31, cat. 15
Jean-Paul Colleyn (ed.), Bamana: The Art of Existence in Mali, New York, 2001, p. 138, cat. 128

The jo society was a regional organization similar to the poro found in southern Mali among the Bamana and Senufo people. According to Ezra (in Colleyn 2001: 131-132 and 137), in "the villages where Jo exist[ed], membership is mandatory for all the young men of the families that practice it (as opposed to the families that practice another initiation association, such as Komo). Jo differs from other Bamana associations in that young women are also initiated, although their rituals are shorter and less demanding. [...] Initiation into Jo takes place every seven years. [... The associated] art forms - sculptures, masks, costumes - that are seen every seven years in the context of Jo initiation [...] incorporate the physical characteristics that are considered attractive and visually pleasing in a young Bamana woman [... and] seem to express fundamental concerns for marriage and the family, values that will ensure the maintenance and continuity of the society into the next generation."

The offered lot is the only Bamana sculpture known to incorporate the Jo-related iconography of a young beautiful woman's head into a power object. The staff which the head surmounts is embeddedto into a fiber basket containing potent substances. Such a magical sculpture was presumably created for use by a diviner. Blending sensitivity and power, the great sculptural quality of the head and the uniqueness of the assemblage make the offered lot a masterpiece of Bamana art.