Scrofulous Sogolon 97 They said to Sankarang Madiba Konte, “Now is there another Sukulung?” He answered, “There is, but she is ugly. She is my daughter.”46 Such descriptions of Sogolon seem consistent with some of the stigmata on the three sculptures noted above, especially the hunched, or gibbous, back; the protuberant eyes running with tears (shown as snakes); and the obvious ugliness of the first two. Admittedly, ugliness is hardly a relevant criterion for identifying Sogolon47 because there are so many figures afflicted by disease or physical deformities in the corpus of works from the IND. Yet, if we look at the various stories, proverbs, and myths in West African oral traditions in general, and in Mande traditions in particular, we see that, far from being arbitrary, ugliness is significant, sometimes paradoxical, and almost always related to extraordinary beings. Hideousness is often directly linked to sorcery and various versions of the epic tell us that Sunjata’s mother had significant magic powers. This form of sorcery is not to be seen negatively as the doings of fundamentally malevolent people, but as supernatural magical powers that FIG. 12 (above): Female can be activated torso with snakes. IND region, Mali. 11th–14th century. Terracotta with ochre/red slip. H: 24.1 cm. Ex Jerry Vogel. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia. Acquired through the Fred and Rita Richman Special Initiative Endowment Fund for African Art, inv. 2011.159. © High Museum of Art, Atlanta. Photo: Mike Jensen. FIG. 13 (right): CT scans of figure 12, opaque 3D views from two angles. © Dr. Marc Ghysels, Brussels.
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