https://woodsculpturevintage.com Tue, 06 Oct 2026 15:44:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1 https://woodsculpturevintage.com/vintage-african-carved-wood-man-eater-figure-hyena-folk-art-sculpture-559s/ https://woodsculpturevintage.com/vintage-african-carved-wood-man-eater-figure-hyena-folk-art-sculpture-559s/#comments Tue, 06 Oct 2026 03:42:08 +0000 https://woodsculpturevintage.com/vintage-african-carved-wood-man-eater-figure-hyena-folk-art-sculpture-559s/ Read more → ]]>















Today they gave me THIS GUY. I have several concerns. First of all, HE IS EATING A WHOLE PERSON. Not chewing on him. Not a friendly little nibble. That man’s entire top half is GONE. Anyway, the humans made me do research instead of letting me bark at a leaf. This is an unusual hand-carved solid wood figure, apparently depicting a large-bellied humanoid creature with an animal-like head, upright ears, deeply carved eyes and an enormous mouth swallowing a smaller human figure. The carving is unsigned and came to us without provenance. Its style appears consistent with 20th-century West African carving, particularly examples associated with the Mali/Côte d’Ivoire region. We found some very interesting similarities to Bamana/Malinke Korè imagery from Mali, including suruku (hyena) figures with human/animal characteristics. There are also traditions in this region involving powerful zoomorphic and supernatural figures. DOES THIS MEAN THIS IS DEFINITELY A BAMANA HYENA MAN EATING ANOTHER MAN? Apparently we’re not allowed to just announce things because they sound awesome. So we are not authenticating or representing this piece as Bamana, Malinke, Senufo, Korè, ceremonial, ritual, or any particular cultural attribution. Exact origin, maker, age and purpose remain unknown. What we CAN tell you is that this thing is wonderfully weird. The carving features long limbs, individually carved feet and toes, textured clothing on the unfortunate gentleman currently being consumed, carved facial details, a dramatically rounded belly, and contrasting smooth and heavily textured surfaces. The sculpture and integral base appear to be carved from solid wood. This is an older wooden carving and does have cracks/checking from age and drying of the wood. Cracking is visible in several areas, including the base and portions of the figure. There are also scratches, surface wear, finish variation, small marks and general age-related wear throughout. A small amount of orange-colored paint/residue is visible on the smaller figure’s clothing. The underside is unfinished and shows additional natural checking/cracking and wear. We have not repaired, refinished, sanded, oiled or otherwise restored it. Please inspect all photographs carefully for condition. Personally, I think the little guy should have run faster. Chaos In Training, Bando Larry Liquidations. Specialties: running, biting cardboard, poor impulse control, and apparently now West African art research.

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