Ewe Pseudo Vessel with Snake Motif

It looks like a pot, and it does not behave like one.

This pseudo vessel with snake motif is Ewe, from Togo in West Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is terra cotta. Among the Ewe and their neighbors, snakes hold a respected place in Vodun belief, and clay forms like this are often associated with shrines, though the meaning of a given piece is seldom recorded. A snake wraps the rounded body like a thick belt, then climbs behind to raise its head from the top on a long neck, mouth a narrow slit. Traces of pale residue and gray rest on the clay. Twelve and three quarter inches high.

It holds nothing, and its point lies elsewhere.