A boli is a type of Bamana power object, an object charged with spiritual energy that can affect human life. Like this one resembling a bush cow or hippopotamus, they are typically made of wood wrapped in layers of cotton cloth and covered with sacrificial materials—including animal blood, plant extracts, and dirt—imbued with energy by a specialist in healing and divining.
A boli is commissioned and cared for by an organization like Kono or Komo that oversees the various spiritual rites of a community in order to harness spiritual energy for protective or therapeutic purposes.
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
Allen Wardwell, “Six New Acquisitions: Sculpture of the Bambara,” The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly, vol. 56, n. 1 (March 1962), pp. 2-5 (ill.).
Charles Long, Alpha, The Myths of Creation (New York: George Braziller, 1963), pl 3.
Allen Wardwell, Primitive Art in the Collections of the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 1965), pp. 5 (ill).
Art Institute of Chicago, 1996, Spiritual Expressions: Art for Private Contemplation and Public Ceremony, exh. brochure (ill.).
Kathleen Bickford and Cherise Smith, “Art of the Western Sudan,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, vol. 23, n. 2 (1997), pp. 115 (ill).
Constantine Petridis et al., Speaking of Objects: African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020), cat. no. 11, pp. 46-47 (ill.).
C. Granzotto et al. “Characterization of surface materials on African sculptures: new insights from a multi-analytical study including proteomics,” in Analyst, issue 10, 2021, 146, 3305-3316. [https://doi.org/10.1039/D1AN00228G]
Art Institute of Chicago, Spiritual Expressions: Art for Private Contemplation and Public Ceremony, Nov. 22, 1995–March 17, 1996, Gallery 142, no cat., brochure (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Critical Fabulation, Oct. 10, 2025-Jan. 4, 2026, no cat.
Harold and Mary X. Weinstein, Chicago, Ill., by 1961; given to the Art Institute, 1961.
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