African Ladies Head-Carrying Statue, African Statues, African Exotic Ladies Tribal Ornament Statue

Exotic African Ladies Head-Carrying Statue

These uniquely hand crafted and painted resin black African Ladies Head-Carrying Statue make an excellent complement to any house. This handmade statue will have paint uneven, and scratch. It’s normal and don’t influence the whole beautiful vivid complex. For anyone that appreciates and/or admires the African culture. For millennia, things have been carried on the head. The ancients knew well that a weight correctly balanced on the head is better distributed, and less tired than having to carry it on the arm. Then came modernity, animals, tows, carts, and gradually the custom of loading amphorae, cups, crates and baskets of various sizes and weights began to fade. This use was a peasant reality found at any latitutine and longitude, and still occurs today thanks to some irreducible elderly woman in who knows what country. So much so that there is an old saying, quite widespread throughout Southern Italy: to transport, the mule or the woman.

And basically, it was just like that. Although it is possible to find many images like the one you see, of women carrying amphorae, baskets, tables, furniture, pianos and so on, one figure seems to have disappeared from the collective memory, despite being widely diffused: the Objjera, that is the woman who carried the oil. Strangely, there are no images of these women, despite the fact that oil was a commodity of primary importance. A wealth. And there are no testimonies of these figures, even though they were present throughout the Region. Before the arrival of supermarkets or cars, there was the object to supply you with oil, with a service that has nothing to envy to modern home deliveries. If it weren’t for the incredible sacrifice these women had to make. There are also several traditional dances of West African cultures that include balancing an object on the head as a skillful feat.

Ritual dancing among worshippers of the thunder deity, Shango, sometimes balance a container of fire on their heads while dancing. The Egbado Yoruba have dances that include balancing “delicate terracotta figures” on the head while the arms and torso are moving. This tradition continued among Africans taken to America during the Atlantic slave trade. African-Americans in the 19th century had a popular type of dance competition called “set the floor“, “set de flo’“, during which individual dancers would take turns dancing. Competing dancers would try to perform complicated steps given to them by a caller (usually a fiddler), without stepping outside the bounds of a circle drawn on the ground. To add to the challenge, some dancers would compete while balancing a glass full of water on top of their heads, trying not to spill the water while they danced. African Exotic Ladies Tribal Ornament Statue measures: 8.6 inches / 22 cm x 2.5 inches / 6.5 cm x 1.6 inches / 4 cm.