The image above is subject to copyright.
Copyrights for Photographic Reproduction
Les feuillets numérisés des registres d'inventaires historiques sont soumise à un copyright.
Droits de reproduction photographique
Copie dactylographiée en 13 volumes de l'Inventaire original MEG manuscrit
Registres_inventaire_dactylographie/1187.pdf
Registre d'inventaire original - non indexé
Registres_inventaire_original/Registre_09_023085_024546.pdf
Deprived of their costumes, adornments, torchlight and rhythmic movements, the "masks" are no longer what they were when they danced in their original context; in the museum they become mere fragments. But they escape from their dry ethnic classification to conjure up some of the great cults of sub-Saharan Africa which have existed alongside Islam since the eleventh century.
Consulting the mouse oracle is not the most widespread Baule divination practice. But it is also found in Guro and Yaure cultural areas. The diviner takes a pottery jar with a round base in which a hole has been drilled, places it on a bark or wooden base and covers it with a piece of tortoiseshell or a small clay bowl. A leather sheath sewn around the recipient holds the two pieces together. Two rodents locked in this double-bottomed box go from one part to the other to eat the seeds and so disturb sticks laid on a metal plate. The diviner interprets the new arrangement of the sticks and gives a sibylline answer to the question he has been asked.
© 2021 Musée d'ethnographie, Genève
