ClassificationsAfrican Art

Power Figure, Bocio

Place CreatedBenin, Africa

CultureFon

Datelate 19th-early 20th Century

MediumWood, glass, bone, iron, fiber

Credit LineEx coll. William S. Arnett

Dimensions22 5/8 x 6 5/16 x 6 3/8 in. (57.5 x 16 x 16.2 cm)

Object number1994.004.102

Label TextBocio are power objects (bo) that represent deceased human beings (chio). A bocio is not a spirit, but a kind of decoy meant to trick death by acting as a substitute for a real person. Formerly, the Fon people of Dahomey (now Benin) placed bocio figures in tombs along with the deceased so that the dead person could not then claim another person's life. Essentially bocios are commissioned as a safeguard against misfortune, witchcraft, and death.

The core of this bocio is a standing female figure carved in wood, but several other objects have been affixed to it. Bottles are fastened to the front and the back of the figure, a metal disk is nailed into the head, and skulls of a reptile, a bird, and a small mammal are bound to it. The bottles are plugged and may have once contained potent substances prescribed by a diviner. The process of binding objects together is an important component of empowering the bocio figure. To further "energize" it, offerings -- which may include corn meal, blood, saliva, and urine -- are poured over it. Not only do the addition of these materials make the object more powerful, but this augmentation continually transforms the bocio's appearance as a work of art.

There are several types of bocio figures, including those associated with divination (Fa), and other types with royalty, with sorcery and anti-sorcery, and with the gods (vodun). All but the royal bocio retained their importance in the lives of Fon and Ewe people from Dahomey and present-day Togo. The dispersion of these peoples during the slave trade created a creolized version of bo in Haiti and later among Haitian ex-slaves in the United States. Their cloth dolls performed protective and "attack" functions similar to carved bocio figures, and like them, were closely associated with the dead and with cemeteries. In Haiti it was the manbo (mother of bo) priestess and the bokor (knowledgeable in bo) sorcerer who, along with the hungan, were responsible for their manufacture and for activating them ritually.
Exhibition HistoryThe Art of Collecting: Recent Acquisitions at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Michael C. Carlos Museum, November 8, 1997 - January 4, 1998
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, September 2000 - Spring 2001
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, July 19, 2003 - March 13, 2007
Divine Intervention: African Art and Religion, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 5 - December 4, 2011
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, January 15, 2019 - January 12, 2022
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, May 17, 2022 - Present

ProvenanceEx coll. William S. Arnett (1939-2020), Atlanta, Georgia.

Status

On view

Collections