Sacred figures such as this one were made by the Moba people who live in Togo on the west coast of Africa between Ghana and Benin. They are no longer made. According to oral tradition, they could only be carved by those whose fathers were shamans. The small ones were for private shrines in every household as a way of having direct access to the primal spiritual power of divinity. The larger ones stood in the heart of the family compound as a shrine to recent ancestors who needed to be consulted from time to time. The most elemental figures have no gender. The larger ones have female characteristics which means they are images of ancestral figures rather than the primal divinity. The faceless character of the most simple ones remind many of the so­ called "Goddess of Willendorf."

Indeed, it is generally accepted that all art began in Africa, because that is where the first humans lived. It is possible that both sculptures are from approximately the same era, not in terms of when they were fabricated but in terms of when the form was first conceived. In fact, the African work could be a good deal older as an iconic image, and might even have served as a prototype for the European image. This is only a theory, of course, but theories of this type are worth considering as we learn more about how and when our ancestors left Africa and populated the rest of the planet with their families, their art, and their ideas of spirituality. (FLG)