SUZANNE PRESTON BLIER: Bocio are quite well-known objects in the Dahomey culture. The term ‘bo’ means empowered, ‘cio’ means cadaver. So, if you’re looking at these sculptural works, it means empowered corpse.

They have the role more characteristically of a means of protection, a kind of scarecrow, in which any of the negative elements that might be coming one's way would latch onto this surrogate figure and protect the humans that had placed it in power.

ANGELIQUE KIDJO (NARRATOR): Suzanne Preston Blier, professor of African Art History at Harvard University.

SUZANNE PRESTON BLIER: One of the distinctive things about this particular bocio is it has two faces. Not only can this figure see in two directions a harm that might come one’s way, but the figure has four eyes—the ability to see both in this world and in another world. The ears are beautifully carved, but also relatively large. So in addition to seeing, they also can hear.

ANGELIQUE KIDJO: Bocio straddle the human and spirit realms. The way they are made and where they are placed help them to connect with both.

SUZANNE PRESTON BLIER: They’re often inserted into the ground and speak to the ancestors who are living in the ground, who have a direct role in contacting various deities within this larger pantheon. So, they’re speaking, on the one hand, to humans, those who are creating them; they’re speaking to the ancestors, the important figures in one’s own family who are now deceased; and also the broader spiritual world in which all of these figures play a part.

ANGELIQUE KIDJO: The expressions on the bocio's faces show complete calm and serenity.

SUZANNE PRESON BLIER: Whatever harm might be coming one’s way, you get a sense that nothing can impact them. It provides a model for how we as humans should be responding to trials, that we should imagine that the best way forward is to evoke the idea that we are calm, that nothing really is going to impact us negatively.