A ''boli'' (plural: ''boliw'') is a fetish of the Bambara or

Malinké The Mandinka or Malinke are a West African ethnic group primarily found in southern Mali, The Gambia, southern Senegal and eastern Guinea. Numbering about 11 million, they are the largest subgroup of the Mandé peoples and one of the largest eth ...

Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...

Uses and customs

The ''boli'' can be

zoomorphic The word ''zoomorphism'' derives from and . In the context of art, zoomorphism could describe art that imagines humans as non-human animals. It can also be defined as art that portrays one species of animal like another species of animal or art ...

(mostly a buffalo or a zebu) or even sometimes

anthropomorphic Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics to ...

. The populations of Mali who practice the so-called ''bamanaya'' cult, that is to say who indulge in the sacrifices of animals on the ''boliw'' and who communicate with the afterlife through masked dancers say they are Bamana. In the Mandingo religions a ''boli'' is an object said "charged", that is to say that by its magic it is able to accomplish extraordinary things, such as to give death, predict the future, or take possession of someone. The boli, which can also be made up of human or animal placenta, clay, tissue, skin, etc., is itself the symbol of the placenta. It is considered a living being and contains within it a core that can be either a stone, a metal or any other material. This nucleus or "grain" symbolizes the vital energy. The more blood the ''boli'' will receive, the more it will be "charged" with ''nyama'' (vital force).

Theft of konos

In his book “L'Afrique fantôme” (The Phantom Africa), the anthropologist

Michel Leiris Julien Michel Leiris (; 20 April 1901, Paris – 30 September 1990, Saint-Hilaire, Essonne) was a French surrealist writer and ethnographer. Part of the Surrealist group in Paris, Leiris became a key member of the College of Sociology with Geor ...

recounts his adventure in the center of Africa, from west to east, between 1931 and 1933. A dozen scientists under the leadership of

Marcel Griaule Marcel Griaule (16 May 1898 – 23 February 1956) was a French author and anthropologist known for his studies of the Dogon people of West Africa, and for pioneering ethnographic field studies in France. He worked together with Germaine ...

make up this expedition named Dakar-Djibouti mission. Its objectives are ethnographic and linguistic and consist essentially of collecting, on behalf of the Trocadéro museum, objects of African culture before it is destroyed by colonialism. Leiris reveals in his notes the unethical methods used to appropriate the coveted objects. One of the episodes that became famous is the ''theft of konos''. Using pressure, manipulation, blackmail and threat of retaliation from the colonial administration, offering ridiculous compensation and sometimes committing night thefts, the ethnologists seize several konos from some Bambara villages, under the frightened and amazed eyes of the population. These thefts turn out to be highly sacrilegious gestures in the eyes of the Bambaras and in Leiris’s own words, constitute a “booty” and an “enormity”. He qualifies himself and his team as “demons or particularly powerful and daring bastards”. These konos would be successively exhibited at the Trocadéro museum, at the

Museum of Mankind Ethnography at the British Museum describes how ethnography has developed at the British Museum. Within the Department of Natural History and Curiosities The ethnographical collection was originally linked to the Department of Natural History an ...

, at the Neuchâtel ethnography museum, among “one hundred masterpieces of the Museum of Mankind” in a New York museum as well as at the

Quai Branly museum A wharf ( or wharfs), quay ( , also ), staith, or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbour or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more berths ( ...

References

Bibliography

* Graham Harvey, ''The Handbook of Contemporary Animism'', 2014, p.233. {{portal, Traditional African religion, Africa Bamana African art Magic items Religious objects Traditional African medicine