Bamileke Stool with One Row of Linked or Dancing Figures

A whole company links arms to hold up one seat. Nobody appears to mind the work.

This stool with one row of linked or dancing figures is Bamileke, from Cameroon, Central Africa, carved from wood in the 20th century. Among the Bamileke, carved stools were objects of rank, associated with chiefs and titled men, and figures around the base could speak to the people who stood behind them. Here tall-haired figures in short skirts stand arm in arm between upright posts, wrapped around an open drum. The broad, dished top is marked by fine radiating lines. Twenty-two inches high and thirty-six across.

Rank has always rested on other people, and here it says so.