Power Figure, Bocio

Power Figure, Bocio

Effigy, fetish, mixed media, sculpture

late 19th-early 20th Century

West Africa, Benin, Africa

Fon

Wood, glass, bone, iron, fiber

22 5/8 x 6 5/16 x 6 3/8 in. (57.5 x 16 x 16.2 cm)

1994.004.102

Bocio are power objects (bo) that represent deceased human beings (chio). A bocio is not a spirit, but a kind of decoy meant to trick death by acting as a substitute for a real person. Formerly, the Fon people of Dahomey (now Benin) placed bocio figures in tombs along with the deceased so that the dead person could not then claim another person's life. Essentially bocios are commissioned as a safeguard against misfortune, witchcraft, and death.

The core of this bocio is a standing female figure carved in wood, but several other objects have been affixed to it. Bottles are fastened to the front and the back of the figure, a metal disk is nailed into the head, and skulls of a reptile, a bird, and a small mammal are bound to it. The bottles are plugged and may have once contained potent substances prescribed by a diviner. The process of binding objects together is an important component of empowering the bocio figure. To further "energize" it, offerings -- which may include corn meal, blood, saliva, and urine -- are poured over it. Not only do the addition of these materials make the object more powerful, but this augmentation continually transforms the bocio's appearance as a work of art.

There are several types of bocio figures, including those associated with divination (Fa), and other types with royalty, with sorcery and anti-sorcery, and with the gods (vodun). All but the royal bocio retained their importance in the lives of Fon and Ewe people from Dahomey and present-day Togo. The dispersion of these peoples during the slave trade created a creolized version of bo in Haiti and later among Haitian ex-slaves in the United States. Their cloth dolls performed protective and "attack" functions similar to carved bocio figures, and like them, were closely associated with the dead and with cemeteries. In Haiti it was the manbo (mother of bo) priestess and the bokor (knowledgeable in bo) sorcerer who, along with the hungan, were responsible for their manufacture and for activating them ritually.

Ex coll. William S. Arnett

The Art of Collecting: Recent Acquisitions at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Michael C. Carlos Museum, November 8, 1997 - January 4, 1998|
Divine Intervention: African Art and Religion, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 5 - December 4, 2011

© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Bruce M. White, 2008.

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