Dreams and Reverie: Images of Otherworld Mates Among the Baule, West Africa

The Baule people of the Cote d'Ivoire believe that each person has a mate of the opposite sex in the blolo or otherworld, an ideal place from which newborns arrive and to which the dead return. In Dreams and Reverie, Philip Ravenhill examines the fascinating figurative art created by the Baule to represent their otherworld mates, discussing as well the psychological and existential meanings behind the images.
The existence of the otherworld person is usually first encountered by young adults who face a specific problem, such as infertility or the failure to marry. A figure is carved to represent the otherworld partner and to receive offerings on his or her behalf.
Ravenhill analyzes Baule figurative art within the context of three culturally defined processes - the creation and consecration of the figures; the interaction between the owner, the figure, and the spirit represented; and the ongoing male-female dialogue in which the art finds a place. He argues that the art is best appreciated not at a cultural level but through the specificity and power of individual objects within their original context.

Philip Ravenhill is chief curator at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution.