The Holly Keko Style 119 NOTES 1. The sacred place where for generation after generation, the cult of the ancestors is led by the doyen of the lineage. 2. An eighteen-month time period during which, every seven years, the initiation ceremonies of the joro ritual are held. 3. Former Teebo name for the area southwest of Gaoua, with abundant stands of Afzelia africana, large trees called khuu or kuo by the Teese. 4. Excerpt from a far more complex and intricate account transmitted by the Kou oral tradition within the framework of the joro, which tells of the origin of their lineage and its association with the founding of the village of Holly. The testimony was obtained between 1984 and 1988 in the course of my research and during interviews with Ontore Kambou and other Holly village elders. For the complete transcript, see D. Bognolo, 1993, pp. 446–457. (“La fi gure de l’ancêtre : mémoire et sacralisation,” in Michèle Fiéloux, Jacques Lombard, and Jeanne- Marie Kambou-Ferrand (eds.), Images d’Afrique et Sciences sociales : les pays lobi, birifor et dagara (actes du colloque de Ouagadougou, 10–15 December 1990), Paris, Karthala and ORSTOM, 1993, pp. 446–457). 5. For additional information on buthiba objects associated with these kinds of practices, see D. Bognolo, 2007, pp. 17–22. 6. The Teebo community remains dispersed in small village units that derive from distinct and older territorial groups. See also D. Bognolo, 2007, pp. 180–183. 7. For more information on this sculptor, see D. Bognolo, 2007, pp. 61–62, and 2014, pp. 184–187. 8. Now called the Musée des Civilisations du Sud-Ouest. 9. A Muslim conqueror whose ambition was to create a great West African empire while opposing colonial domination. His sofas (armed troops) conducted raids in Lobi territory for an extended period of time. Traditional oral accounts associate the fi nal fall of Samori (captured by the French on September 29, 1898) and the subsequent transit of the fl eeing sofas with the end of the period of struggles and ongoing insecurity that the people of the Lobi region had endured. 10. Among the Teese, the practice of sculpture was passed from father to son. The style is thus perpetuated by the lineage of its founder, independent of the changes of residence that may occur among descendants. 11. My inquiries in Keko revealed that the date of Magnuor Pale’s death was associated with turnof the-century (1900) celebrations organized by the French colonials. 12. For more information on the transmission of the status of thiteldara kotin, see D. Bognolo, 1997, pp. 123–133. 13. According to my interlocutors, Magnuor also produced buthiba for the Kou. These statues were used by healers in their practices. 14. The sons of Bangite affi rmed that no one from their area had maintained relations with the sons of Gnokithe (Bagara, 1989). 15. Together with Madeleine Père, I was in charge of collecting objects for the future museum, as well as of organizing the inaugural exhibition. 16. Each iteration of the joro is also the time at which the identities of newly formed units, resulting from the fragmentation of lineage groups, are “sacralized.” 17. Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie auction, November 30, 2010, Sotheby’s, Paris, lot 132. 18. For additional information on Hinataa and the buthiba associated with his cult, see D. Bognolo, 2007, pp. 17–19 and plates 32 and 57. 19. The cult of Hinataa can only be performed in conjunction with a series of initiation rituals involving a number of phases that span a period of several years. 20. See P. Meyer, 1981, p. 63, ill. 15. 21. “Disempowered and de-sacralized by the death of their owner, the fi ve statues on this plate were found about twenty years ago in the middle of the bush, where they had been abandoned by the members of the family in mourning.” B. Holas, 1969, p. 163. 22. Arts de la Côte d’Ivoire. Les trésors du musée d’Abidjan exhibition, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Vevey, Switzerland, 1969, p. 63; and P. Meyer, 1981, p. 62, ill. 12. The same statue, acquired from Pace Primitive Gallery by Myron Kunin in 1998, was offered at auction by Sotheby’s New York on November 11, 2014, lot 13. 23. For more information on the followers of Milkuur and the sculpted objects associated with their role in the former system of vengeance in Lobi society, see D. Bognolo, 2007, pp. 36–41. 24. See U. Klever, 1975, p. 240, and R. Lehuard, Arts d’Afrique noire, 26, 1978, p. 19. 25. Auction 55, Afrika Ozeanien, Galerie Wolfgang Ketterer, Munich, 1982, lot 118, and F. de Ricqlès, Arts primitifs, auction catalog, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 6, 1999, lot 222. Images of the same statue, which has since been in the Xavier Ruffi n Collection, were published more recently in G. Massa and J.-Cl. Laurent, 2001, p. 114, ill. 78, and on the back cover. 26. H. Focillon, 2013, p. 11. FIG. 24 (left): Statue in the Holly Keko style attributed to Magnuor Pale. Eroded hardwood, shiny patina. H: 77 cm. Ex Lady Hardwicke. Xavier Ruffi n Collection. Photo: Thierry Lheureux. FIG. 25 (below): Man wearing a vegetal fi ber wig. Reproduced from Henri Labouret, Les Tribus du rameau lobi, 1931, pl. XIII-8.
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