Dogon Standing Female Star Gazer Figure

Narrow shoulders, long reach, and a shadow that does half the talking.

This standing female star gazer figure is a 20th century work of the Dogon peoples of Mali, West Africa, in hand-forged copper and iron. Male and female forged figures were placed on Dogon family altars, possibly echoing the paired ancestors of Dogon creation accounts, as set down by French ethnographers whose work is still debated. A tiny head sits on arms that slope outward like a tent. The body is a single dark, roughened line that splits into two thin legs near the floor. A rough bell-shaped base carries it. Seventy-four and a half inches high.

Its shadow is about the only thing it is generous with.