Prestige Stool: Figures
Not on view
Elaborate ceremonial stools of this kind were owned by the hogon, the supreme religious and political leader in each Dogon community. The design and elaboration of such works draw inspiration from Dogon cosmology. It has been proposed that the very structure of the dual disks of the seat and base may echo the arrangement of heaven and earth. Some sources have identified the four figurative supports as protagonists from the Dogon account of Creation. According to this reading of the imagery, the following characters are visually evoked: a set of twins, direct descendants of Nommo, the first living being; a crocodile, Nommo’s saurian messenger; and two figures framed by two snakes that recall the origins of mortality.
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