A Koma-Bulsa Seated Figure, "kronkronbua" Lot n° 26

Seated figure, "kronkronbua" Koma-Bulsa, Ghana Ohne Sockel / without base Terracotta. H 21 cm Provenance: Andreas Vontobel (1931-2011), Waltalingen. Thermoluminescence age determination: 800 years (+/- 25 %). kronkronbua = "children from earlier times". In the 1980s, the first figures of this style made of fired clay were found in the Upper West Region of Ghana, in the area now inhabited by the Koma (e.g. in Yikpabongo, Tantuosi, Wumobri) and the Bulsa (Builsa). Thermoluminescence age determinations dated the objects from the 13th to 18th century CE. Karl Ferdinand Schädler described the new discovery of this culture in 1987 as follows: "Some of them look as if they came from the Bandiagara gorges and were products of the Dogon. But these are only a few. Most of these terracottas from a culture of which nothing is known look more like they come from Somarzo or as if they had sprung from the fantasy world of Hieronymus Bosch: Heads whose braincases are pointed or hollowed out in the shape of a cup, with spectacle-like eyes or ears attached to the back of the head like two handles. Mouths that, separated from some face, unite with other mouths to form a new being that "speaks for itself"; conversely, faces that have also united with others and - equipped with arms and legs - now seem to come directly from the underworld. It seems pointless to puzzle over the world of thoughts and ideas from which these figures, heads and objects originated - whether they were formed as burial objects, ancestral or cult figures. Perhaps it is even reassuring to know that not every newly discovered secret in Africa can be solved immediately, that - at least for a while - a culture cannot be dissected like a corpse: Because neither oral traditions nor archaeological by-products provide any clues. Instead, we should perhaps content ourselves with admiring the ingenuity of the design on the one hand and the powerful, expressive expression inherent in these sculptures on the other. Judging by these two criteria and by the outward appearance of the objects, they appear to be different styles, if not different cultures, which either followed each other or - which also seems possible - were created completely independently one after the other in the same region. One of the styles shows a mannerist character: the deliberately displaced facial features, which often lend the figures, mostly seated figures with necklaces, dignity marks or upper arm knives, an uncanny, transcendental, sometimes even malignant expression - princes of another world. As with many of the apparently singularly designed heads, which usually end in a tapered neck, the heads of the figures are often hollowed out in the shape of a cup. The hands usually rest on the knees (occasionally quite unmotivated on one of the shoulders) and the genitals - the majority are male - are often oversized and clearly modeled. The individually sculpted heads are generally much larger than the figures; they are also usually coarser in execution and much more primal and direct in style. Another style, which is expressed above all in the heads of theriomorphic creatures, often shows a wide-open, apparently screaming mouth and is then reminiscent of Gothic gargoyles. The people of this culture must have paid particular attention to Janus-shaped heads and multi-headed creatures. The former, conceived as individual sculptures, sometimes take on a phallic character due to the conically tapered heads (they are also straight at the bottom, not conical like the "hollow heads" found stuck around the graves). The latter multi-headed creatures, like the Janus-shaped single heads, also have conically tapering pointed heads; the bodies of these, of which up to four figures can be found in one sculpture, are, however, very rudimentarily shaped as a rectangular block, with only hinted at limbs and genitals. What else will come to light from this area in northern Ghana, which is now inhabited by the Koma (also Komba, Konkomba, Bekpokpak etc.)? Was the settlement from which the finds originate also a trading center for goods - kola nuts from the coast, gold, salt, European goods, etc. - like Salaga at the end of the last century? - like Salaga at the end of the last century, which is on the way to the coast, or like Kong, Bondoukou and Begho in the west, which no longer exists today? The lively exchange of goods between the coast and the Niger Arc, which probably began around 1500, if not much earlier, when the Mossi states were invaded by cavalry armies from (today's) Ghan