Dogon Wood Divination Statue

She keeps her hands on her knees and her counsel to herself.

This divination statue is Dogon work from Sangha Village in the Mopti Region of Mali, West Africa, carved from wood in the early 20th century. Among the Dogon, carved figures were kept on family and community altars, and divination was one way of seeking guidance from ancestors and spirits, though scholars still debate what individual figures meant. A tall ringed coiffure crowns a slim neck. Long arms drop from rounded shoulders to bent knees. Fine incised patterning runs down the torso, and the surface looks dry and pale in places. Twenty-three and a half inches high.

Whatever she knows, she has kept.