THE SCULPTORS OF THE KOKO DISTRICT

A veritable craft village in the city where thousands of masks, statues and sculpted objects with a utilitarian or purely decorative purpose can be found. They are sold by Dioula merchants in all the major cities of the continent. This part of Korhogo is full of small shops and other galleries-workshops exhibiting reproductions and personal works of the artists. Most often masks, statuettes, canes, large hornbills, doors, seats and more or less faithful copies of traditional models are generally carved from teak - a white wood that sculptors dye black to give it an ebony appearance - or from cheese tree, whose light gray wood is easy to work. There are also antiques and artificially aged sculptures. The sculptors will gladly answer your questions, proud to show you their wonders and the symbolism of the masks and sculptures represented. Thus the hornbill, fetish animal of the Senufo culture and sculpture, symbol of wisdom, protection, happiness and fertility; the warthog mask celebrating the glorious hunter; the twin mask that comes out to celebrate the birth of twins, the reconciliation of two villages in palaver or the marriage of young people from different villages; the Mammy Watta mask surmounted by snakes (in the Senufo pantheon, the snake, particularly the python, is a totem animal considered to be a messenger of the afterlife) used by young initiates; the large liturgical and ceremonial masks such as the Wassolo, whose body can reach several meters in length and is decorated with motifs corresponding to the coat of arms of one or another of the Poro's sacred enclosures; and the Kpélié, a small anthropomorphic mask recognizable by the simplicity of its face with half-closed eyes, its rounded forehead, its long straight nose and its small mouth hemmed in with thin lips.
The 600 or so sculptors in the city are grouped together under the UASN (Union of Artisan Sculptors of the North). In addition to the shortage of tourists in recent years, they must now face the scarcity of wood, deforestation that makes it increasingly difficult to supply. Don't hesitate to bargain of course but also to take this into account. Another curiosity of the Koko district: the House of the fetishists, with its walls of banco decorated with salamanders in relief. Built in 1901, it contains many fetishes.