Mossi doll. Part of over 50 years. Piece on base.
The term "biiga" means in Mooré, the language of Mossi, "child" in the sense of an "individual who did not reach physiological maturity" or "descending". Although called "child" (biiga) and treated as such by little girls, these figurines visually reproduce a woman on a small scale: a young girl by hair and abdominal scarifications, but also a wife by breast deformation, more precisely a mother. These figures are therefore as much a representation of the child as the image of the woman to come or even her future offspring. Although biiga are women, children give them a boy or girl first name, dress them, wash them, feed them, carry them on their backs, blow them on their elongated legs ... like a real baby. Sometimes offered by one of the parents, the biiga, then preserved preciously, is swept away by the young bride at her husband because considered a stimulant to pregnancy. If the pregnancy does not happen, the sterile wife will acquire another as a support for fertilizing forces. According to Suzanne Lallemand, the biiga- as a double protector of the baby- receives first aid: once the umbilical cord is cut, the toilet of the newborn passes after that of the wooden child, as well as the shea butter massage. The figurine is then lying near the mom before it is placed in her infant. As for the first drop of breast milk, it is reserved for the statuette before the child heads his mother. Later the statuette will be brought one last time on the back.