Spirit Spouse
Fowler Museum of Cultural History
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Spirit Spouse, Baule
“Suggest the kind of urban sophistication sought by some Baule people around the twentieth Century.” [1] This particular spirit spouse may have been commissioned by someone seeking employment. Her presence in household shrine suggests that there may be underlying marital problems. A functionalist explanation for such helping and healing shrines sees the spirit figures as scapegoats whose tangible presence facilitates change or recovery, because they help the client to externalize his or her desires or problems
[1]Monica Blackmun Visona, Robin Poynor , and Herbert m. Cole, A History Of Art In Africa, Second Edition, (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Education Inc, 2008), 215.
“Suggest the kind of urban sophistication sought by some Baule people around the twentieth Century.” [1] This particular spirit spouse may have been commissioned by someone seeking employment. Her presence in household shrine suggests that there may be underlying marital problems. A functionalist explanation for such helping and healing shrines sees the spirit figures as scapegoats whose tangible presence facilitates change or recovery, because they help the client to externalize his or her desires or problems
[1]Monica Blackmun Visona, Robin Poynor , and Herbert m. Cole, A History Of Art In Africa, Second Edition, (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Education Inc, 2008), 215.