As a result of the exile of the madebele, a tense and volatile relationship has governed their interaction with humans ever since. Outside the boundaries of the village, the natural landscape is overrun by these invisible bush spirits, who populate its waterways, mountains, and even the fields cultivated by Senufo farmers. Unknowing human beings continually disturb them inadvertently, provoking them to lash out in anger. Within Senufo society, diviners are delegated the role of intermediaries with the potentially hostile madebele. In order to effectively placate them, the diviners cultivate a relationship of mutual respect and seek to induce them to act as messengers from the spirit world. Diviners rely on artists to create the works required for communicating with the madebele and the artifacts that serve as antidotes to their clients' problems.

Most Senufo diviners receive their training as members of Sandogo, a powerful women's organization that unites female leaders from a community's various households. Sandogo is invested with the responsibility for maintaining good relationships with the spirit world and for overseeing important social contracts, including guidelines concerning descent. Only a select few of its members, however, are capable of becoming Sandobele (singular, Sando)—dedicating themselves to mastering the complex system of signs that must be interpreted by professional diviners. Divination may also become an individual's calling as a result of having committed an action that incites a bush spirit's wrath.

Sandobele are consulted by members of the community for many different reasons, from the desire to fulfill a wish to the need to determine the cause of an illness or a natural disaster. The divination technique used by Sandobele depends on close interaction with the madebele. Diviners make a special effort to attract the madebele by seducing them with a work environment of outstanding aesthetic appeal, the centerpiece of which is a pair of figurines (tugubele) representing an idealized image of them. The divination ritual is initiated when the diviner calls up the madebele, who reside within the figurines while being interrogated.

The particular features of the tugubele are determined by the madebele, who appear to the diviner in her dreams. She describes them to an artist, whose task is then to capture their essential qualities accurately in the form of the sculpted figurines; sometimes, details are communicated by the spirits through the artist's own dreams. This level of precision is highly valued by the madebele, and the intimacy of a diviner's relationship with her spiritual partners is measured by the number of idiosyncratic elements—such as coiffure designs and cicatrization markings—that are incorporated into these idealized portraits.

During the early years of a diviner's career, such works are made of copper alloy. Eventually, Sandobele aspire to acquire more costly and impressive wood versions featuring even finer detail. The most inexpensive, generic tugubele sold at market represent their subject with a minimum of specificity and are thus considered the least effective divinatory instruments. Sandobele who are able to commission flashier, more costly works generally retain the less refined ones as well. Many diviners also acquire miniature twin figurines (ngaabele) made of copper alloy, for their spiritual power to act as mediators and to effect great good or harm. Within Senufo cosmology, the importance of balancing gender is repeatedly emphasized. The offspring of the first human couple was a set of male and female twins; likewise, the madebele are conceived of as male and female pairs.

Tugubele display a broad range of formal possibilities and a high level of inventiveness, both of which are apparent in the group presented here. These delicate and refined miniatures were commissioned to delight the eye and convey the spirits' wisdom and guidance in resolving a variety of problems faced by members of Senufo communities.3 Such works forge the necessary collaboration between diviner and madebele, and their small scale reflects the intimate nature of that relationship. Despite the size of these objects, however, the artists who designed them invested them with the same qualities of elegance, balance, and proportion as the finest monumental works of Senufo sculpture. In doing so, they created works whose beauty appealed to the madebele, thus making them effective oracles.4

In some of these figurines, the human form has been reduced to a linear silhouette, while others are far more modeled, depicting figures shifting their weight in classical contrapposto stances or articulated with anatomical details such as nipples, umbilicus, shoulder blades, and buttocks. Despite the great sense of artistic license they embody, certain basic stylistic features provide a thread of continuity. Male and female figures are both invariably depicted with arms resting on their hips. This uniform posture affords a play of negative and positive space between the torso and the contour of the arms. Similarly, within the conventions of bilateral symmetry established for twin figures, the richness of creative solutions is extraordinary. The artists who make such figurines credit the high level of innovation to the bush spirits, inspiring them with images revealed in dreams (the diviners' and/or their own).

The madebele, while they are residing in the figurines, direct the course of tyeli, the divination technique practiced by Sandobele. During tyeli, the client is seated facing the diviner as she sifts through a set of disparate elements that she has collected, most of which constitute signs suggested by the spirits that guide her.5 She shakes these together in a bowl and casts them before the tugubele. Through the resulting configuration of objects, the madebele communicate their insights into the situation under investigation and, after ascertaining the cause of the problem, direct the Sando's hand to one of the objects. This object conveys a particular symbolic meaning that determines a specific course of action for the client to take to resolve his or her problem.

Problems discerned through divination and the measures recommended for their resolution are both referred to by the term yawiige, meaning "something that follows you." The action most commonly prescribed is to commission brass ornaments such as pendants, bracelets, anklets, and rings. These, like the tugubele figures, are of the highest possible aesthetic quality, designed to please the madebele, and their artistry and level of workmanship are directly related to their efficacy. In addition to redressing conflicts uncovered through divination, they will subsequently serve to protect the owner from all harm.

1. Veirman 1996, pp. 147–49.