Trophée du meilleur cultivateur

Best Farmer Trophy

The rural activity of the Senufo people of north Côte d’Ivoire, when it is ritualised (which it is not systematically) to glorify working the land and stimulate collective labour, can give rise to works by sculptors who are also farmers. One of the great honours for a young Senufo in traditional village society was to earn the title of sambali (master farmer) and brandish the trophy (tefalipitya) presented to him at the end of an agricultural competition in which he had proved his work capacity and speed and skill with the hoe. The trophy [1] was brandished by the farmer when he finished digging his furrows before the others and had enough time to do a short dance.

Girl (pitya) has the place of honour, seated on top of the staff. She epitomises the wife the trophy-holder deserves, the daughter a father would be delighted to give him in marriage and thereby seal a matrimonial alliance beneficial for the whole family.

The figure is a harmonious series of curves flowing from back to front: the wavy headdress with its crest descending to the twin arcs of the eyebrows; the oval mouth; the long, pointed breasts curving towards the mid-torso and separated by a triangle descending from the base of the neck; and the rounded thighs, whose vertical semicircles encompass the four circles of the traditional seat and whose horizontality echoes the scarifications on the woman’s buttocks.

But one must therefore not forget that this trophy is a staff, constructed like a column with several storeys, separated by openwork supports like bent legs, for holding the sovereign image of femininity on high.

[1] It was handed down from generation to generation.