FEATURE 114 whereas the mother (fi g. 8), with arms pulling her child to a close embrace beneath her large full breasts, is a more closed, contained form maintaining stability and balance. The mother holds only her child, as if it were an extension of her womb. The identity and nature of these sculptured couples are contested. Perhaps they materialize unseen deities, whose names may not be said,13 or, at the least, they may be embodiments of the supernatural force nyama, essential to the fertility and productivity of crops and people, and thus to prosperity. This latter interpretation is implicit in Sarah Brett-Smith’s thesis that Bamana sculpture is about marshaling spiritual powers toward yielding the most vital need of the people, which is children.14 The Bamana parallel between the explicitly female smelting furnace that gives birth to iron and a mother in parturition is notably present in several other parts of Africa.15 The transformative mysteries of new life in childbirth and a useful and equally transformative new substance in the “birth” of bloom, or smelted iron, both reinforce the deeply cultural process of childbirth to many African peoples. The virtually universal ascription of “mother” to the African earth helps to account for this parallel.16 Notably, it is blacksmiths who create—give birth to—Gwan and other sculptures. ANCIENT MOTHER AMONG THE SENUFO Some Senufo groups in Côte d’Ivoire have a prominent deity, Ancient Mother, credited with founding much that is central to segments17 of Senufo culture (fi gs. 10, 12, and 13). As the fi rst mother, she is the founder of matrilinearity and the patron of women. She also heads certain powerful male-dominated initiatory and educational institutions, the governing bodies of Senufo life.18 The sacred grove, located outside the village, is Ancient Mother’s compound (fi g. 11). She has a counterpart male creator deity, who is less prominent in both life and art. Ancient Mother embodies a cluster of overt and covert ideas, just as the initiation over which she presides imparts both practical and esoteric learning to novices, her children, over a period of twenty years. She is said to absorb these
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