Support Post

CultureDogon peoples

Date1875-1925

MediumWood

DimensionsOverall: 55 inches (139.7 cm)

Credit LineGift of Lester Wunderman

Object number75-61

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

African Art

Terms

Gallery Label

This post was once part of a togu na, a cool, shaded shelter in which Dogon men could visit and discuss community matters. The carved imagery on togu na support posts displays important, fundamental concepts, such as male-female interdependence and female fertility, represented here by abstract breast forms. Two footprints beneath three ancestral figures represent the first earthly steps of the creator-being Nommo, the master of water and rain, fertility and life. Two masks depict the rabbit, a mythological trickster-hero in Dogon mythology, whose powers may either protect or endanger humans.

Provenance

Djibrella Maiga, by December 18, 1973;

Acquired from Maiga by Lester Wunderman (1920-2019), New York, NY, no. 208, December 18, 1973-November 1975 [1];

His gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1975.

NOTES:

[1] In a letter to Laurence Sickman, Director, December 12, 1975, NAMA curatorial files, Lester Wunderman described his acquisition of the support post: “It was collected for me personally by a member of one of the official families of Mali and was delivered to me in this country by a Mali government official of ambassadorial rank in December of 1973 in recognition of the work my foundation and I have been doing to help the people of Mali with their agriculture and the problems caused by the severe drought in the Sahel area.” Djibrella Maiga is also identified as the object’s source in the Lester Wunderman Papers, Rubenstein Library, Duke University, Box 8: Pieces no longer part of the Wunderman collection (photograph album), 1977, copies in NAMA curatorial file.

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