This wooden shutter was designed to adorn the aperture to a granary. Its imagery also conveys a meaningful message. A long lizard, its limbs symmetrically spread, extends across the panel, creating six small spaces where abstracted human and animal figures stand as guardians. One figure covers its face, perhaps in gesture of respect or modesty. Related representations are also depicted on Dogon stools, staffs, and wooden containers, linking all these objects through shared symbols of protection, renewal, and communal responsibility. Far more than an architectural element, this panel reflects the belief that ancestors, nature, and community work together to safeguard the harvest and uphold tradition.
Sandro Capo Chichi, Research Associate, Arts of Africa, 2025
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The Met's collection of art of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands, and North, Central, and South America comprises more than eleven thousand works of art of varied materials and types, representing diverse cultural traditions from as early as 3000 B.C.E. to the present.
