Terracotta fertility figurines of prehistoric Eurasian design

from modern East Africa

Lloyd D. Graham

Abstract: This paper investigates two types of terracotta figurine, both from East
African1* cultures, which are unusual in their resemblance to ceramic statuettes from pre-
Indo-European south-eastern Europe (Old Europe) and the Ancient Near East (6th-1st
millennium BCE).2 The first type consists of a “phallic female” style of fertility doll from
the Samburu or Turkana peoples of northern Kenya, in which an obviously phallic body-
shape is given unmistakably female attributes such as breasts (“Gudza doll,” left panel
above and Section 1). The result resembles the well-known Amlash idols from Iran of the
early 1st millennium BCE. The second type consists of figurines that look like Neolithic
to Iron Age fertility statuettes of Eurasian provenance and includes an Astarte-like bird-
headed goddess nursing an infant (right panel above, and Section 2). These were made by
Beta Israel (Falasha) women from the Gondar region of Ethiopia. In recent years, most of
this Jewish community has relocated to Israel. Many surprises are encountered in
unravelling the origins, creation, use and appreciation of these two groups of curious and
challenging artifacts. Ranging from Australopithecus to Zimbabwe, from Baba Yaga to
Beta Israel and from Yemen to semen, the over-arching narrative could equally well have
been titled The Sex-Lives of Statuettes.

* Throughout the paper, endnotes that merely provide bibliographic details are given by black superscript
numerals; those that include additional information or qualifying comments are given by dark red
superscript numerals.
 Disclaimer

The structure of this paper is predicated in part on the now-disparaged idiom of the Palaeolithic/
Neolithic Goddess championed by Prof. Marija Gimbutas (University of California). I have left
the article in its original form because (a) the paper requires a large-scale framework – such as
Gimbutas’ vision – for cohesion, and (b) its specific observations about the modern East African
figurines remain pertinent even in the absence of the Goddess concept.

In his introductory chapter to The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines, Richard Lesure
observes at the outset that, by 2017, “The [Great Goddess] construct has been repeatedly and
thoroughly discredited.” He goes on to provide a rigorous framework that enables comparative
studies within the figurine corpus to be conducted objectively. The outcome of preliminary tests
of this methodology “hint at a grand history of figurine-making that differs in form from the
Goddess thesis.” He continues: “The larger point here is that application of the framework site
by site across the Near East yields patterns at large scales. There is a basis for grand history.
Indeed, there is a need for grand history.”

Lesure concludes: “Among Neolithic figurines of the ancient Near East (and beyond) there is
systematic patterning at a very large scale – at the scale, indeed, at which the Goddess construct
was formulated. Interpreters who perpetuate the Goddess construct do so because they sense
those larger coherences. [...] She will only fade away for good when we devise an alternative
grand history that accounts for large-scale coherences. That task is far beyond the capacities of
any single scholar.” He then calls for “research at that scale, open to lively comparison, in which
multiple investigators can incrementally contribute to the creation of a new synthesis.”

Until the rudiments of such a replacement “grand history” have been developed, I have elected to
retain the Goddess in this paper in a caretaker role. She has, however, been served her notice –
so caveat lector.
___

Disclaimer added from v.08 onward (Dec 2019).

Quotations from Richard G. Lesure (2017) “Comparative Perspectives in the Interpretation of Prehistoric
Figurines,” In: The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines, ed. Timothy Insoll, Oxford University Press,
Oxford, p.37-60 (at p.37 & 57).

1
 Contents

Disclaimer ……………………………………………………………………………… 1
1 Terracotta “Gudza dolls” from the Samburu/Turkana (Kenya) …………………. 3
1.1 Lake Turkana – the cradle of human civilization …………………………………….... 3
1.2 Peoples of the modern Lake Turkana region ………………………………………….. 6
1.2.1 The Samburu ………………………………………………………………................ 6
1.2.2 The Turkana …………………………………………………………………............ 7
1.2.3 Relationship between the Samburu and Turkana ……………………………………. 7
1.3 Fertility dolls from the Samburu and Turkana ………………………………………… 8
1.4 Dispersal of the phallic female template from the Ancient Near East? ……………… 12
1.4.1 Amlash figurines ……………………….………………………………………….. 12
1.4.2 The Lemba as possible agents of transmission? ……………………….…………... 14
1.5 Ubiquity of this ancient visual gender-paradox ……………………………………… 16
1.5.1 Near-global reach ……………………….…………………………………………. 16
1.5.2 Lemba migration vs. Bantu expansion …………….………………………………. 17
1.6 Prehistoric expressions of the phallic female template ………………………………. 19
1.6.1 Eurasia ……………………….…………………………………………………….. 19
1.6.2 Africa …………………….………………………………………………………… 20
1.6.3 Grouping by body shape ………………….……………………………………….. 22
1.7 The phallic female template in modern Africa ………………………………………. 22
1.7.1 Introduction and West Africa …………………………………………………….... 22
1.7.2 East Africa ……………….………………………………………………………… 23
1.7.3 Southern Africa …………………………….……………………………………… 25
1.7.4 Less direct examples ………………………………………………………………. 27
1.8 Features of the Gudza dolls and their symbolism ……………………………………. 28
1.8.1 Legs, neck and head ……………………………………………………………….. 28
1.8.2 Multiplicity, breasts and navel …………………………………………………….. 29
1.8.3 Hairstyle ……………………………………………………….…………………… 29
1.8.4 Colors – red, white and black ……………………………………………………… 31
1.8.4.1 Red ……………………………………………………………………………… 32
1.8.4.2 White ……………………………………………………………………………. 33
1.9 Holistic interpretations of phallic female figurines ………………………………….. 34
1.9.1 The Great Goddess ………………………………………………………………… 34
1.9.2 A scientific postscript ……………………………………………………………… 35
1.9.3 Lemba/Venda interpretation ……………………………………………………….. 35
1.10 Conclusion to Section 1 – Gudza dolls ………………………………………………. 37
2 Bird-headed goddess, Beta Israel/Falasha people (Ethiopia) ……………………. 38
2.1 Claimed and actual provenance ……………………………………………………… 40
2.1.1 The bird-goddess figurine …………………………………………………………. 40
2.1.2 Qemant or Beta Israel? …………………………………………………………….. 41
2.2 Ancient opportunities for diffusion of the bird-goddess cult to Ethiopia ……………. 42
2.3 A more recent introduction of the goddess to Ethiopia ……………………………… 44
2.3.1 Wolleka …………………………………………………………………………….. 44
2.3.2 A seductive misconception ………………………………………………………… 44
2.4 Different ways of viewing this discovery ……………………………………………. 46
2.5 Aesthetics of the neo-Neolithic ………………………………………………………. 48
2.5.1 The Beta Israel bird-goddess ………………………………………………………. 48
2.5.2 Beta Israel pillar figurine …………………………………………………………... 49
2.6 Conclusion to Section 2 - Beta Israel bird-goddess ………………………………….. 53
3 Concluding remarks ……………………………………………………………....... 54
Endnotes & References …………………………………………………………….. 55

2
1. Terracotta “Gudza dolls” from the Samburu/Turkana (Kenya)
Sculptural expression is less prominent in East African societies than in West African
ones, and much less is known about East African sculpture in the Western world.3 Dolls
in particular may be of uncertain tribal origin, especially types that are no longer
produced.4 In addition, objects made for ritual use are often subject to cultural restrictions
and issues of secrecy when outsiders enquire about them.5,6 In Africa, dolls are seldom
without cultural significance. As well as playmates for children, they may be supernatural
agents of spiritual forces, symbols of female fertility and future offspring, tokens of
commitment given to a woman by a prospective husband, or avatars of deceased children
(especially twins) who must be fed, bathed and spoken to as if alive.7

It is the fertility aspect that will concern us most in this paper. As we shall see,
African fertility dolls not merely symbolize children but also often resort further to
sympathetic magic by emulating the shape of the male genitalia. In addition, they are
believed by many African cultures to represent a fertility goddess who – provided the
household believes in her power – will ensure the conception and safe delivery of a
healthy child.8 The magical use of dolls to promote fertility extends from west to east
across sub-Saharan Africa and includes the southern reaches of the continent (Map 1).9
The fertility dolls that form the subject of this part of the paper (Section 1) come from
Kenya and are attributed variously to the Samburu or Turkana peoples. We will therefore
begin by looking at the Lake Turkana region, where these people live (Map 2; Section
1.1), and briefly examine Samburu and Turkana culture (Section 1.2) before considering
the dolls themselves (Section 1.3).

1.1 Lake Turkana – the cradle of human civilization

This region (Map 2) is considered to be the world’s most important repository of
evidence of human origins.10 Around two to three million years ago, Lake Turkana was
larger and the area more fertile, making it a centre for early hominins, i.e. members of the
human clade after the split from chimpanzees. The numerous anthropological digs led by
members of the Leakey family have led to many important paleoanthropological
discoveries in the region. For example, in 1972 a skull from 2 million years ago, now
assigned as Homo rudolfensis (after Lake Rudolf, the old name for Lake Turkana), was
found by in the Koobi Fora area east of the lake (Map 2).11 In 1984, the Turkana Boy – a
nearly complete skeleton of a young Homo ergaster or Homo erectus male from 1.5
million years ago – was discovered in the Nariokotome region west of the lake (Map 2).12
At Lomekwi, a site slightly further south, a ca. 3.5 million-year-old hominin skull was
discovered in 1999; it has been assigned as Kenyanthropus platyops.13 At the southern
end of the lake, Kanapoi has yielded fossils of Australopithecus anamensis, a hominin of
around 4 million years ago.14

Since Section 2 of this paper is concerned with Ethiopia, we should note in passing
that other key paleoanthropological finds have emerged in the more northerly reaches of
the East African Rift Valley. For example, in 1974 a team co-directed by Mary Leakey
discovered near Hadar, Ethiopia (Map 2), the skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis
female, whom they named Lucy. This hominin lived around 3.2 million years ago.15

3
Map 1. Overview – Europe, the Near East and Africa. Countries or regions most relevant to the paper
are shown in colored fill, most other countries mentioned in the text are named. Regions and cities of the
ancient world that are mentioned in the text (Old Europe, Mycenae, Syro-Hittite empire, Babylon, Amlash,
Indus Valley) are shown alongside modern political boundaries and locations relevant to the narrative. Old
Europe (approximated by the red circle) is Marija Gimbutas’ term for pre-Indo-European Neolithic Europe
and Asia Minor (Anatolia), ca. 7000-3000 BCE;16 geographically, it is centred on the Balkans (peach-
colored fill). In Africa, a simplified schematic of the Bantu expansion from west to east and then to the
south is shown by arrows with brown outlines: early (starting ca. 1500 BCE), green fill; middle phase, pink
fill; late (reaching South Africa 300-500 CE), unfilled arrows.17

4
Map 2. The Horn of Africa and western Yemen. The map shows relevant details of Kenya and Ethiopia,
the countries central to Sections 1 and 2, respectively, along with adjacent territories. The range (or, in the
case of the Beta Israel/Falasha, the former range) of the indigenous culture groups most relevant to the
paper are shown as areas of colored fill. Paleoanthropological sites mentioned in Section 1.1 are shown in
red (asterisks); Neolithic sites in the Turkana basin are shown in purple.

Returning to the Turkana basin, but moving forward some thousands of millennia, we
find figurative artifacts made by the anatomically modern humans of the Neolithic. For
example, crude ceramic animal figurines (cattle, leopard, hippopotamus)18 are known
from a burial site associated with pottery of the Nderit tradition (Savannah Pastoral
Neolithic, 3rd millennium BCE) at Jarigole Pillar in east Turkana, Kenya (Map 2).19
Anthropomorphic ceramic figurines do not appear to have been recovered.

5
1.2 Peoples of the modern Lake Turkana region
1.2.1 The Samburu
The Samburu are a Nilotic people of north-central Kenya (Map 2) that are closely related
to, but distinct from, the more southerly Maasai, with whom they share a language.20
They also have strong historical ties to the Rendille, whose range is immediately to their
north.21 The Samburu are semi-nomadic pastoralists who mainly herd cattle but who also
keep sheep, goats and (to a small extent) camels; the animals provide milk, blood and
meat. They have occupied their country to the southeast of Lake Turkana for the last 300-
400 years.22 The word Samburu comes from samburr, the traditional leather bag for
carrying food, as befits their nomadic lifestyle.23 Both men and women wear colourful
bead-based adornments in line with their societal status (Fig. 1.1a). Samburu men look
after the cattle while the women look after the portable huts (which consist of plastered
mud and grass mats on a pole frame), milk the cows, gather firewood and collect water.
Pottery is the domain of women, but traditionally is relatively uncommon.24

Fig. 1.1 Samburu and Turkana women. (a) Samburu woman. Photo: Jean Crousillac and Jean-Marc
Sainclair, Manta Productions, reproduced here under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
Unported Licence; image available online.25 (b) Turkana woman. Photo: Joyce Njuguna/Department for
International Development (UK), reproduced here under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0
Generic Licence; image available online.26

6
 In prayers to their Supreme Being (Nkai), the Samburu ask for life, protection, cattle,
and children.27 The major life events (birth, initiation, marriage, and death) are
accompanied by complex and important rituals, which include circumcision both of
males (at initiation) and of females (in the marriage ceremony).28 An age-grade system
operates for males, such that boys graduate sequentially into warriors (moran), junior
elders and senior elders.29 For a time, post-pubescent girls are permitted sexual relations
with a moran from their clan but must forsake their young lover when the girl’s marriage
is arranged to a man outside her clan.30 A man may acquire several wives over time,
provided his wealth permits. As intimated above, the Samburu place a high value on
children, and many rituals and ceremonies are designed to increase fertility; to be
childless is a great disgrace.31 Sons are prized above daughters.32

1.2.2 The Turkana

The Turkana are a Nilotic people of northwestern Kenya who today are mainly semi-
nomadic pastoralists in the Lake Turkana basin (Map 2). As might be expected, their
lifestyle and customs have much in common with the Samburu immediately to their south,
including the conspicuous use of bead-based ornaments (Fig. 1.1b).33 Cattle, goats,
camels, and donkeys are their primary herd stock, with food again consisting of milk,
blood and meat. While noted by outsiders for raising camels, the oral traditions of the
Turkana themselves designate them as “the people of the grey bull,” after the Zebu,
whose domestication played an important role in their history.34 In Turkana society,
livestock functions not only as source of food but also as a form of currency used for
bride-prices and dowries. Livestock wealth will determine the number of wives each man
can secure and support. Turkana women attend to domestic activities and are noted for
their skill at basket-weaving. As with the Samburu, potters are rare; clay pots break too
easily in life on the move.35

A Turkana person becomes blessed through proper relationships with the Supreme
Being (Akuj) and the ancestors, through effective protection from evil, and through
correct participation in the community. Traditional religious specialists or diviners
(ngimurok) are active in almost every village and town.36 Community rituals are overseen
by the male and female elders of the clan. The most important are the birth rituals, male
and female initiation rituals, marriage rituals, annual blessing sacrifices, and death rituals.
The Turkana are unusual among east African pastoralists in not practicing circumcision.37
As with the Samburu, there is a strong emphasis on childbearing; childless married
women (ataran) are considered only marginally above children in status, and are unable
to participate completely in adult female society.

1.2.3 Relationship between the Samburu and Turkana

The two peoples have a complex and intertwined history. Initial brief contacts between
the two tribes in the early 19th century CE were apparently not unfriendly, but by the end
of that century the Turkana reputation for plundering cattle at the expense of the Samburu
was well established.38 Despite this, a 1927 British report records that “On this [east]
side the [southern] Turkana have the Samburu, with whom they have been on the best of

7
terms for a number of years, and with whom considerable inter-marriage has taken
place.”39 Nowadays, however, the activities of Turkana cattle raiders (ngingoroko) and
reciprocal attacks by Samburu warriors – with modern firepower employed by both sides
– have returned as a major source of conflict.40 Intertribal raiding is now a persistent
threat, punctuated by short periods of extreme violence.41

1.3 Fertility dolls from the Samburu and Turkana

The subject of this part of the paper (Section 1) is a type of fired clay or terracotta doll
from Kenya, attributed variously to the Samburu42 or Turkana43 peoples (Section 1.2) and
believed to be called Gudza dolls.44 They often appear for sale as pairs. While most
specimens have short legs (Fig.1.2-1.6), others are more abstract and simply terminate in

Fig. 1.2 A pair of Gudza dolls, viewed from the front. Left 16 cm high, right 19.5 cm
high. Author’s collection.

a flat base (Fig. 1.7). There seems to be no specific reference to these dolls in the ethno-
graphic literature. While it has therefore not been possible to verify the term “Gudza,” it
will be used in this paper as a convenient descriptor for these dolls, and especially as a
way of distinguishing them from Samburu/Turkana dolls of other types. The distinguish-
ing feature of Gudza dolls is that they conform to a design template known as

8
 Fig. 1.3 The Gudza dolls of Fig. 1.2, viewed from (a) side, (b) rear.

Fig. 1.4 A second pair of Gudza dolls, viewed from the front. Left 13.5 cm
high, right 14.5 cm high. Author’s collection.

9
 Fig. 1.5 The Gudza dolls of Fig. 1.4, viewed from the side.

Fig. 1.6 Another pair of Turkana “Gudza” fertility dolls, 12 cm high, Kenya. (a) Front, (b) side/rear.
Images © Tribal Art Finder Gallery,45 by kind permission of Piet Lepelaar. Image available online.46

10
 Fig. 1.7 A minimalist form of Gudza doll without legs, 10.5 cm high, offered by the vendor
alongside a version that did have legs (not shown). (a) Front, (b) side. Author’s collection.

the “phallic female,” in that they have distinctively female attributes such as protruding
breasts and wide hips/bases, yet the combined shape of their reddened heads and long
cylindrical torsos is strongly phallic. Indeed, the short thick legs of specimens that have
lower limbs (e.g., Figs. 1.2, 1.4 & 1.6) could be taken as a transformation of male
testicles.
Fig. 1.8a shows a Samburu unfired clay doll of a better-known type; this type of doll
is usually identified as Turkana rather than Samburu, and is also played with by girls in
other groups such as the Maasai. Little is known about clay dolls like this one.47,48 Ngide,
the name of several types of Turkana doll, means “child,” which indicates the doll's
significance as a wish for fertility. Another type of ngide is shown in Fig. 1.8b. As soon
as a girl matures, her father carves her a wooden female doll.49 Sometimes referred as an
ikideet, it often shows obvious signs of pregnancy. These dolls vary greatly in
sophistication, but all are adorned with some of the girl’s own beads and a piece of
leather from her cloak; the girl will clothe, play and sleep with it.50 One of the best-
known types of Turkana ngide is shown in Fig. 1.8c. This type of doll is made by the
young woman’s mother from large nuts that mimic the shape of male genitalia and is
decorated using beads from the husband’s (or lover’s) best friend; it then becomes a
surrogate son to the couple.51 Turkana dolls of this type, which may be called ikidet or
ikoku (“child”), vary greatly in craftsmanship and design.52,53 Some are heavily beaded

11
 Fig 1.8 Standard Samburu and Turkana ngide dolls. (a) Samburu ngide; a standing female figure of
unbaked grey clay, 15 cm high, Kenya, acquired 1986. Image © Brooklyn Children’s Museum, New
York, object 86.5.2a, reproduced here under the Museum’s Acceptable Terms at the Art Museum Image
Consortium. Image available online.54 (b) Turkana ngide; wood, wool, hide, bone, glass and plastic in
the form of a stylised human being with a beadwork apron, woollen hair and a small container of bone,
15 cm high, Kenya, acquired 1979. British Museum Af1979,01.4790, © The Trustees of the British
Museum, reproduced here under the Standard Terms of Use. Image available online. 55 (c) Turkana
carved female wooden doll with plant fibre hair and beadwork body ornaments, 49 cm high, Kenya,
acquired 2003. British Museum Af2003,07.3, © The Trustees of the British Museum, reproduced here
under the Standard Terms of Use. Image available online.56

with extravagant ornamentation,57 including tiny metal earrings or lip plugs such as those
worn by the women. Others may be simply a bit of plaited sisal and fish vertebrae
attached to a forked stick or a cluster of palm nuts.

1.4 Dispersal of the phallic female template from the Ancient Near East?

1.4.1 Amlash figurines

As we noted in Section 1.3, the Gudza dolls with legs (Fig. 1.2, 1.4 & 1.6) embody
gender ambiguity: they have breasts and wide pelvises consistent with female identity,
but the shape of their coiffured heads and armless torsos is strongly phallic and –
accordingly – their short bulky legs could correspond to testicles. Persian “Amlash idols,”
which are well known from the Near Eastern antiquities trade, are built to the same
design (Figs. 1.9 & 1.10). These figurines come from near the village of Amlash in Gilan,
a province in northwestern Iran on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea (Map 1), and
mostly date from the early 1st millennium BCE.58 Like the Gudza dolls, their arms and

12
 Fig. 1.9 Amlash female figurine. Terracotta, northern Iran, 22 cm high, early 1st
millennium BCE. Image © Bonhams, London; reproduced here by kind permission of
the auction house and the current owner. Image available online.59

facial details are minimal or absent; the emphasis is instead on the elongated cylindrical
torso with bulbous head and high hair ornament, the clearly defined breasts and navel,
and the wide hips with heavy squat legs. One must therefore consider the possibility that
the Gudza dolls are somehow descended from these much earlier phallic female figurines
from northwestern Iran.

Section 2.2 (ahead) details two possible methods by which a prehistoric goddess
template could have diffused from the Middle East into Ethiopia, one around 3000 BCE,
the other around 800 BCE. Such designs could have included Amlash-style figures.
Ethiopia was even considered by Herodotus (5th century BCE) and others to be part of the
Persian Empire, although it is more likely just to have exchanged gifts with its
Achaemenid rulers.60 Moreover, the Ethiopic civilization gained territories in southern
Arabia but lost them to the Persians near the end of the 6th century CE; it is possible that
some cultural heritage from northern Iran was transferred to the Horn of Africa during
this late contact. Once it had crossed the Red Sea into Ethiopia, nothing more than
diffusion across the Ethiopian-Kenyan border would be required to account for the
presence of the template in north-west Kenya. Alternatively, Arabic trade with the east
coast of Africa by sea (as evidenced after the time of Muhammad by the spread of Islam
to this coast) would have afforded a direct route from south Arabia to east Kenya.61

13
 Fig. 1.10 Amlash female figurines. Northern Iran, 9th-8th centuries BCE, ex coll. Dr. Hans Winkler,
Germany, acquired before 1970. (a) Item 3107, 17 cm, and (b) item 3108, 15 cm, from Galerie
Günter Puhze, Freiburg, Germany, available online.62 Images © Galerie Günter Puhze GmbH,
reproduced here by kind permission of the gallery.

1.4.2 The Lemba as possible agents of transmission?

Interestingly, as we will see below (Section 1.9.3), one of the most technical and specific
interpretations of the Gudza doll template comes from the Lemba, a people from south-
east Africa who identify as Jewish and claim Near Eastern ancestry. A major version of
their oral history describes a group of men travelling by sea (dated provisionally by
scholars to around 1000 CE)63 from southern Arabia to Ethiopia, where some remained
and gave rise to the Beta Israel community of that country (of whom we will hear much
more in Section 2).64 Other descendants are said to have travelled further south along the
coast of East Africa, giving rise to communities in Kenya and Tanzania and inland as far
as Malawi (Map 1).65 It is claimed that the southerly migration continued through
Mozambique, with the Lemba ultimately settling inland in the Limpopo province of
South Africa, near the border with Zimbabwe (Maps 1 & 3).66 A sea journey from
southern Arabia to East Africa, followed by southerly travel down the coast and inland
migration are consistent with scholarly findings about the origins of the Lemba.67

Recent genetic analyses have confirmed that Lemba ancestry does include a Semitic
contribution from Near Eastern males,68 with some features favouring a Jewish heritage69
and others a non-Jewish one.70 In support of the former, the Buba – the priestly clan of
the Lemba71 – carries extraordinarily high rates of the Cohen Modal Haplotype (CMH), a
set of Y-chromosome markers distinctive of the Jewish hereditary priests (kohanim).72

14
Map 3. Southern Africa. Archaeological sites mentioned in Section 1are shown as coloured discs with
matching labels. Major cities are shown by filled black discs, with villages mentioned in Section 1.7.3
shown as unfilled black circles. The current heartland of the Venda in South Africa (“Vendaland”) is shown
as a light red-brown colored area.

15
On the other hand, the CMH – which is a subgroup of Y-chromosome haplotype J – is
not unique to Jewish populations,73 and Lemba Y-chromosomes from haplogroup T
(which are carried by ~18% of Lemba males) generally belong to a different subtype to
their Jewish counterparts.74 Moreover, many Lemba clan titles appear to be derived from
Arabic names,75 the timing of Lemba circumcision matches Islamic better than Jewish
practice,76 and female Lemba dress resembles that of Muslim women.77

The Hadhramaut valley (Map 1), which in Yemen cuts through the south Arabian
desert known as the Empty Quarter, has been identified as the most likely origin of the
Lemba.78 While its population currently consists of Muslim Arabs, there used to be a
substantial Jewish presence in this area. For a time in 4th- to early 6th centuries CE,
Judaism was actually the official religion of the Himyarite kingdom of southern Arabia,79
and Jewish communities remained alongside the Muslim population of the Hadhramaut
until the foundation of the modern state of Israel.80 The Lemba’s founder group may have
consisted of Hadhrami exiles who counted both Jews and Muslims among their number.

Today, the Lemba are considered ritual experts in southern Africa,81 and Lemba
women make phallic female dolls for the Venda (Section 1.7.3), into whose society they
are integrated. If the fertility doll template must somehow have travelled from the Near
East to Kenya, then could the Lemba migration provide another option?

1.5 Ubiquity of this ancient visual gender-paradox

1.5.1 Near-global reach

It turns out, however, that it is unnecessary to propose the geographically and temporally
convoluted transmissions considered in the previous subsection; further research reveals
that the phallic female template has found local expression on at least three continents in
different millennia. In addition to Iran in the 8-9th centuries BCE (Section 1.4.1), we find
less well known examples such as Fig. 1.11c from Hungary of the 6th millennium BCE, a
Valdivian ceramic phallic female from Ecuador of the 3rd-millennium BCE,82 a Hongshan
jade “penis-Venus” from Neolithic north-eastern China,83 and a clay figurine of ca.1000
CE from Schroda in Limpopo Province, a site in South Africa on the border with
Zimbabwe (Maps1 & 3). A clay doll of traditional design, with testicle-like legs and an
armless columnar body adorned with breasts, is reported to come from Caraya in Brazil.84

At Schroda (Map 3), examples of the phallic female template (Fig. 1.12) – classified by
Edwin Hanisch as type H3,85 which (for Zimbabwean figurines) equates to Roger
Summers’ Class 186 and is encompassed by Edward Matenga’s Category 1 Sub-class 1b87
– were found in all excavations and test trenches. Their abundance suggests that they
were common household items, and thus most probably fertility dolls.88 One Schroda
example resembles figurines discovered at the adjacent but slightly later site called
Bambandyanalo89 or K2 (Map 3),90 which in turn was the immediate precursor to
Mapungubwe (11-13th century CE; Map 3), the first capital of what would become the

16
 Fig. 1.11 Line drawings of European phallic female figurines from the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras.
(a) “Venus de la grotte du Placard,” phallic figurine with female genitalia, 15 cm high, reindeer antler,
Charente, France, Magdalenian 1-II (20,000-15,000 BCE).91 A modern wooden Baule (Ivory Coast)
slingshot uses the same design concept.92 (b) Phallic figurine with breasts, mammoth tusk, Dolní
Věstonice, Brno, Czech Republic, ca. 26,000 BCE. 93 (c) Goddess with phallic upper body and
testicle-like legs, Körös Valley, south-east Hungary, Starčevo culture (ca. 5600-5300 BCE). Locks of
her hair are painted red, while chevrons in her back are encrusted with white pigment.94 Last panel ©
Univ. California Press, reproduced here by kind permission of the publisher.

Zimbabwe civilization. Mid-way between these Limpopo archaeological sites and Kenya,
the source of the Gudza dolls, male and female phallic dolls made from clay were
collected from the Kisi people (Lake Malawi, Tanzania; Map 3) in 1898-9 CE (Fig. 1.13).
As we shall see in Section 1.7, less direct parallels to the Gudza dolls – executed both in
clay and wood – are found in many parts of modern Africa.

From its wide distribution over time and place, one can presume either that the design
concept underpinning the Gudza dolls is so ancient that it spread with early human
migrations,95 flourishing from time to time in favourable niches, or that it has such innate
appeal to the human imagination that it has been reinvented independently by different
cultures.96

1.5.2 Lemba migration vs. Bantu expansion

One cannot help noticing that the archaeological finds at Schroda date to the same era as
the Lemba forefathers’ arrival in Africa from the Near East and that the final settlement
of the Lemba concentrated upon the area around Schroda (Section 1.4.2), nor can one
overlook the claimed settlement of Lemba predecessors in Tanzania and Kenya, both of
which stand out as recent sources of phallic female ceramic dolls. Ultimately, however,
these tenuous connections must be ascribed to coincidence or romantic imagination.
There is no evidential support for the idea that the phallic female design travelled into
Africa with the forefathers of the Lemba, and neither the Judaism nor Islam of ca. 1000

17
 Fig. 1.12 Phallic female figurine from Schroda, type H3. Image of find TSR 1/1 4C1.1.2. 97
(a) Front, (b) rear. Images © DITSONG: National Museum of Cultural History, Pretoria, South
Africa, reproduced here by kind permission. Due to ancient breakage and loss, one leg of this
figurine is missing and the other is truncated.

CE are likely carriers for a fertility idol template of ca. 700-900 BCE from northern Iran.
Rather than postulating a southerly migration of the template from the Near East through
the Arabian peninsula and Horn of Africa to the south-east of that continent, or even a
diffusion from Persia to south-east Africa as part of the Indian Ocean trade network,98,99
it makes more sense to suggest that the phallic female template had one of its several
independent origins/emergences in western Africa before 1500 BCE and then travelled
widely through the continent as part of the Bantu expansion (Map 1).100

Marilee Wood suggests that the phallic female template has a pan-Eastern Bantu
distribution, which would carry it as far north as central Kenya, and thus to the southern
end of the Samburu’s range.101 The Bantu arrived in Kenya from West Africa about 500
BCE (Map 1), and Bantu speakers currently account for >90% of Kenya’s African
population.102 The East Bantu expansion reached the Limpopo area of South Africa by
350-450 CE (Map 1),103 in plenty of time to account for the H3-type Schroda figurines of
ca. 1000 CE (Fig. 1.12). It is not unreasonable to expect that a fertility token like this
might travel as part of an expansion closely linked with developments in farming,104
which seeks to manipulate and optimize the fecundity of Mother Earth.105,106 Similar
logic underpins the tendency of Mossi (Burkina Faso) and Lobi (Ivory Coast) farmers to
plant phallic head-poles in their fields as a way of ensuring their fertility.107

18
 Fig. 1.13 Dolls made out of clay by the Kisi people (Lake Malawi). All of the figures appear to
have umbilical hernias,108 some of extreme length (discussed in text). (a) Female figure with tattoos
or scarification. (b) Male figure with clumps of hair. (c) Dual-gender figure (it has breasts, a skirt,
wide hips and pronounced buttocks, but it also has male genitalia and was originally classed as
male). (d) Female figure with pubic covering. These sketches date from close to the time of
collection.109 Modern photographs of the same objects appear in a recent publication.110

1.6 Prehistoric expressions of the phallic female template

1.6.1 Eurasia

The sculptural embodiment of androgyny as a phallic female seems to date back to

Paleolithic times.111 Some examples are shown in Fig. 1.11a,b; other candidates for this
category include “l’Ebauche de Poupée” and “La Filette” from Brassempouy, France, ca.
25 000 BCE (Upper Paleolithic).112

Some clay figurines from the early Neolithic Levant (7th millennium BCE, Sha’ar
Hagolan, Israel) have been interpreted as intentional admixtures of gender signifiers, with
male sexual imagery (phallic heads, sometimes with protruding cheeks as testicles) being
subsumed into the overall female appearance (breasts, wide hips, steatopygic buttocks).
Other researchers contest the dual-gender interpretation and see many of these figures
simply as female.113 There is no room for such doubt with other Levantine Neolithic
artifacts, though, such as a clay figurine from Byblos (Lebanon) that possesses both
breasts and an erect penis.114 Returning to the simple phallic female template, a 7th-
millennium BCE basalt figurine from Çatal Höyük in Anatolia (Turkey) has female
anatomy inscribed on an unmistakably phallic body-shape.115 A 6th- millennium BCE
sandstone figurine from Domuztepe (Turkey; Late Halaf period) may be interpreted
either as a phallus with scrotum or as a seated female figurine.116

19
 Throughout the Neolithic, the head of the Great Goddess was phallus-shaped, with a
long cylindrical neck.117 Sometimes the facial features were provided (Fig. 1.11c),
whereas in other cases – such as Hamangia figurines (Bulgaria, Romania) – the head was
no more than a blank cylindrical pillar.118 Some of the latter, and of the conceptually
related figurines from Nea Nikomedia (northern Greece), wear a head-dress or cap.119 A
second type of figurine from Old Europe consists of cylindrical clay stands with flattened
bases, some incised with human facial features near the top; a sub-group adorned with
female breasts approximates quite closely the design of the more minimal Gudza dolls
(Fig. 1.7). Many such female figurines from the East Balkans have a narrow central canal
that runs the length of the body, seemingly to mimic the male urethra.120,121 A
Chalcolithic phallic female figurine from Cyprus is actually depicted in the process of
giving birth,122 thereby emphasizing its connection to human fertility and reproduction.

Diminished vestiges of the phallic female goddess can be found in folklore whose
roots lie in Old Europe. For example, the Slavic witch Baba Yaga – a demonized
transformation of the ancient goddess of death and regeneration – is sometimes described
as “pestle-headed.”123 As might be expected, the pestle is nowadays more commonly
portrayed as the witch’s external possession. It is paired with the fiery mortar in which
she travels, which in turn symbolizes the womb of rebirth.124

Motherhood and child-rearing is clearly the focus of the Gudza doll presented in the
“maternity” configuration (left-hand doll in Figs. 1.4 & 1.5). It is worth remarking that
prehistoric maternity or goddess-with-child figurines from Europe and the Near East
typically have the infant being carried in the woman’s left arm (for Bronze Age examples
from Cyprus, see Bolger;125 for other instances, see ahead to Figs. 2.3 and 2.5), whereas
the Gudza doll carries the child in her right arm.

1.6.2 Africa

Among the Iron Age sites of southern Africa (Map 3), Schroda (South Africa) is classed
as a Zhizo site (Bantu-speaking early farming community), while K2 (South Africa) and
Mapungubwe (Zimbabwe) are type sites for the Leopard’s Kopje culture (Bantu-speaking
later farming communities).126 Phallic female figurines from South Africa were
introduced and discussed in Section 1.5.1; their occurrence at both Schroda and K2 seems
to represent a point of continuity in material culture between the Zhizo and the Leopard’s
Kopje people that succeeded them, whose ceramics are otherwise very different in
style.127 In defining the H3 category of female figurines, Hanisch noted the lack of facial
features, elongated torso, distinct breasts and prominent navel, and speculated that the
shoulder-level protrusions represented arms.128 He did not use the adjective “phallic” to
describe these figurines himself, but referred to an article by Marilee Woods, who did.129

Other phallic female figurines were recovered by Roger Summers from various sites
in Zimbabwe, and his national survey of such finds (which included finds at K2 and two
other sites just inside South Africa) was published in the 1950s.130 He notes the
backwards arch of the upper body in such figurines.131 The torso and upper parts of the
Gudza dolls are also inclined backwards, a feature that underpins their balance when

20
standing (Figs. 1.3a & 1.5). Summers’ survey revealed that finds of phallic female
figurines were concentrated in the south-west of the country, especially around Bulawayo
(Map 3); they were usually found in domestic contexts, although one or two were
discovered in graves.132 His catalogue includes 18 specimens from K2 (Leopard’s Kopje
II; 10th-11th centuries CE).133,134 The phallic female figurines from Khami (Map 3)
substantially pre-date the 15-17th century CE ruins at that site.135

Summers’ survey indicates that no canonical phallic female figurines (his Class 1,
similar to Schroda H3) had been discovered at Mapungubwe (Leopard’s Kopje III; 11-
13th century CE), nor were any recorded from Great Zimbabwe (11-15th century CE), the
capital that succeeded it and that now forms the greatest stone-built ruin in sub-Saharan
Africa (Map 3). However, he observed that some of the many phallic stands from the
latter site were adorned with breasts, and that one even had a protrusion that might
represent a child strapped to its back in a baby-sling.136,137 Accordingly, even unadorned
phallic stands from the same site,138 most of which were found in ritual caches,139 may
have been interpreted as stylized female figures.140

In later decades, Garlake and Matenga recorded finds in Zimbabwe of numerous

armless phallic female figurines. In 1993, Matenga’s comprehensive national survey
(which includes items catalogued earlier by Summers) lists 33 armless human figurines
with legs – his Category 1 Sub-class 1b – drawn from no less than 17 sites, which in turn
span the local Coronation (post-6th century CE), Mambo (10-11th century), Gumanye
(11th-12th century), and Woolandale (mainly 12th -13th century) sub-cultures.141 Of these
finds, 14 figurines were female, all with protuberant breasts, while 18 were sexless; both
of these sub-types had de-emphasized heads, a lack of facial features, and a trunk that
tapered towards the neck.142 With female specimens, the phallic nature of the torso and
head, along with the resemblance of buttocks to testicles, was recognized as a visual
pun.143 An incomplete Woolandale phallic female, originally reported by K.R. Robinson,
has been dated to the mid-11th century CE.144

Matenga makes a convincing connection between the shape of the phallic female
figurines and that of indigenous furnaces used for iron smelting,145 a process of “magical
transformation” likened across Africa to human gestation.146 From this perspective, the
blacksmiths’ glowing crucibles constitute real-world embodiments of Baba Yaga’s fiery
mortar (Section 1.6.1). More prosaically, Garlake observed that the use of phallic female
figurines outlived the use of their animal counterparts and persisted into the mid-second
millennium CE.147 Summers concluded from their prevalence in domestic contexts that
they were probably personal fertility tokens, and not part of formal initiation ceremonies
or of rituals for collective productivity.148 We have already noted (Section 1.5.1) that the
H3 figurines at Schroda show a similarly broad distribution, suggesting an identical
purpose.

Jean-Marie Dederen of the University of Venda, South Africa (Map 3), summarizes
the foregoing by noting that, for southern Africa, “the stylized torso/H3 clay image was a
common figurine type. Its use was remarkably widespread and persisted for a number of
centuries. It belonged to, if not constituted, a figurine tradition. It was, truly, an icon.”

21
1.6.3 Grouping by body shape

Overall, prehistoric embodiments of the phallic female template can be grouped into
three anatomical categories: figurines with a long columnar neck (e.g., Figs.1.9 & 1.10);
those with a long cylindrical torso, usually tapering towards the head (Schroda H3; Fig.
1.12); or those with both features (Fig. 1.11b,c). The best match for the Gudza dolls is the
second category.

Another anatomical feature worthy of discussion is leg length. In the Middle

Kingdom of Egypt (19th- 20th centuries BCE), figures of nude women in wood or
(especially) blue-glazed ceramics were “often made with the legs cut off at the knees and
the stumps rounded off,” perhaps as a magical means of curtailing the artifacts’
movements in the event that they came to life.149 The same is true of Babylonian figures
(Map 1) of the same era.150 This feature seems not to be a new development so much as a
continuation of the trend towards much shortened legs evident as far back in time as the
Venus figurines of the Eurasian Neolithic. One might be forgiven for wondering if some
of the original motivation for this fetish lies in apotemnophilia – the autoerotic desire to
be an amputee – whose most popular form (in modern times, at least) involves the
amputation of a leg above the knee.151 It is more likely, however, that it merely represents
the lack of interest in parts of the female anatomy not directly related to fecundity.

Although the H3 template of phallic female figurines from the South African Iron
Age (Schroda, K2) has been described as possessing “V-shaped stumpy legs,”152 Hanisch
(who created the category) actually characterises it in terms of a very elongated torso
with two full-length legs.153 The legs of Matenga’s Zimbabwean counterparts are
described as being either “long cylinders without knees, or tapering stumps;” 154 the
former sometimes have feet, but never toes. Note that both legs of the figurine
photographed in Fig. 1.12 are truncated due to breakage and loss of the lower extremities;
the only intact H3 figurine from Schroda published to date has legs similar in length to its
torso.155 The legs of the Gudza dolls, like those of the Amlash idols, seem to be
intermediate in length between those of the Neolithic Starčevo goddess (Fig. 1.11c) and
those of intact Schroda H3 figurines. Leg length in modern African figurines will be
discussed further in Section 1.8.1.

1.7 The phallic female template in modern Africa

1.7.1 Introduction and West Africa

Moving from the ancient world to modern Africa, it has been observed that “all over
Africa, dolls are phallic in form.”156 Certainly, African fertility dolls often mimic the
shape of the male genitalia. We have already seen a sphere-based design in the Turkana
ikidet of Fig. 1.8c, but cylinder-based types are probably more common. Esther Dagan
writes that “Cylindrical dolls […] often unite male and female symbols and in many
cases are suggestive of phalluses. The dolls of the Mossi, Zaramu, Fante, Asante, Lega,
Zulu and Tabwa groups belong to the latter category.”157 The grouping should ideally be

22
 Fig. 1.14 Nungu (ritual object) of the Chaga people (Tanzania). (a) Sketch of a female
nungu, late 19th century CE, 15 cm high, collected by Paul Bornemisza – an Austro-
Hungarian Baron – and now in the Museum of Ethnography, Budapest. It recently formed
part of a major exhibition in the USA.158 The oval indentation in the chest seems to mimic
an access hole without actually being functional. (b) Sketch of caterpillar-like nungu in the
Museum of Ethnography, Budapest, again collected by Bornemisza.159 The access hole in
the thorax is presumably for introducing magical substances; sometimes such holes are
positioned where the navel would be.

extended to include dolls from additional African countries such as Ghana160 and Niger
(Map 1).161

1.7.2 East Africa

In East Africa, we have already mentioned (Section 1.5.1) the clay male and female
phallic dolls made at the end of the 19th century by the Kisi people of Lake Malawi (Map
3; also called Lake Nyasa) in Tanzania, the country immediately south of Kenya. These
terracotta artifacts162 were ostensibly made for children to play with,163,164 but this seems
unlikely given their large size (18-28 cm high)165,166 and the many delicate appendages
projecting from their trunks (Fig. 1.13).167 All of the figures appear to have umbilical
hernias,168 some of such length that they resemble phalluses; either way, the focus of the
figurines seems to be on reproduction and childbirth. The dolls’ pointed heads are bent
backwards and – like the terracotta Samburu figurines – there is minimal facial detail,
often just a pair of pin-holes for eyes.169 Sometimes Kisi-style figurines are assigned to
the Pare people (Tanzania).

Ceramic figurines similar to the Kisi ones, but in which the pairs of bodily
appendages may be multiplied along the torso to the extent that the figure resembles a
caterpillar (Fig. 1.14a,b), are attributed to the Chaga (Tanzania, near the border with
Kenya).170,171 Such nungu (sacred vessels/figurines) were actually made by the Chaga’s
neighbors, the Kahe, and were – from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century CE –

23
very important in Chaga ritual. The nungu were used for oracular judgment and to curse
wrong-doers,172,173 and were the most secret and closely guarded of all the Chaga chief’s
ritual belongings.174,175 The nodules or other extraordinary body parts of
anthropomorphic nungu indicate their supernatural or non-human nature. Despite the
sexually explicit details of some female nungu (Fig. 1.14a), the phallic shape of others
(Fig. 1.14b), and the apparent polymastism of both, such figures are not reported to have
an association with fertility.

In 1926, the sociologist Hans Cory began to amass a collection of Bantu clay
figurines from East Africa that eventually grew to over 2000 items; many related to the
male and female initiation rites of indigenous groups in Tanzania, and accordingly were
treated with the utmost secrecy within the tribes of origin.176 By the early 1950s, Corey’s
collection – reduced by breakage and curatorial focus, and now housed on the southern
shore of Lake Victoria (Map 2) – still contained some 850-900 specimens.177 As the use
of figurines for initiation rituals had largely been abandoned by this time, Corey felt able
(indeed, compelled) to publish.178 His book, African Figurines, contains photographs of
163 statuettes used in the puberty rituals of the Shambaa, Zigua and Nguu peoples
(Tanzania), along with their (typically euphemistic) songs, helpfully accompanied by the
real meaning and instructional intent of each figurine-verse combination.179

Many of Cory’s exhibit/aphorism dyads are highly sexual in nature. For example, the
mudunge or mlonye is an embellished clay pole 80 cm in height whose verse is “The male
and female organs are shedding tears;” relatives of newly-circumcised Nguu boys dance
indecently around this phallic stand, which has a vulva for its head180 and whose globular
protrusions appear to include breasts.181 The imaginative genius with which boundaries
are transgressed in the repertoire of figurine/verse pairings is remarkable: a quadruped
symbolizing a penis doubles as a pregnant woman caught out by labor pains while alone
on a journey,182 a gnarled phallic stand that resembles a nodular Chaga nungu represents
a growing human fetus,183 a three-legged animal represents a man hunting by night for
girls,184,185 a tree-trunk figurine is actually labia and a clitoris,186 and so on. Given the
diversity of sexually unorthodox fantasy figurines in the published selection, the absence
of a Gudza-like doll is actually rather surprising. One may actually be present, albeit in
an unusual context. The figurine in question, whose verse relates to the penis, depicts a
couple in coitus;187 the composition is such that the woman – a stiff armless creature with
small conical breasts – could be mistaken for a huge phallic projection emerging from the
groin of the male (Fig. l.15a).

We shall encounter again the pairing of demonstration figurines with didactic verses
when we consider the initiation rituals of southern African groups (Sections 1.7.3 &
1.9.3). As in Tanzania,188 the southern figurines are usually made from unfired clay and
destroyed in water after use.189 Despite the distances involved, there are telling overlaps
in the content: for example, the cautionary figurine of the girl who became pregnant just
before or during the initiation process (Fig.l.15b),190,191 reference to the penis as a
“medicated rod” or medicine-horn for treating girls (e.g., Fig.l.15a),192,193 talking up the
family advantages of an ugly spouse,194,195 and so on. The continuity might extend not
just over distance196 but also back in time.197 For example, one must wonder if the large

24
 Fig. 1.15 Tanzanian initiation figures from the early-mid 20th century CE. (a) Clay figurine from the
female initiation rite of the Pare people (Tanzania). The corresponding aphorism is “Here is a doctor
who heals; he has a horn of medicine called semkokere.” Semkokere is a nickname for the penis, and
the learning is that – although initially alarming – this snake does not kill.198 The woman could be
mistaken for a huge phallic projection emerging from the groin of the male. (b) Another clay figurine
from the Pare female initiation ritual; it shows a girl who became pregnant before the initiation
process. “She deserves to be thrown into the bush.”199

(91 cm high) and archaic wood-carving of a bird with a long neck, which was fixed to a
pole and shown to Shambaa boys (Tanzania) at the most important and secret ceremony
of the initiation rite,200 might not be in some way be related to the carved soapstone birds
– also with long necks – that were found perched on 1 metre-long poles in the ruins of
Great Zimbabwe,201 or even the long-necked clay birds on stands that were found at
Schroda (Section 1.6.2).202 While the involvement of figurines in initiation rituals in
Tanzania had largely been abandoned by the1950s, their use in the remote rural villages
of South Africa has continued to the present day.203

1.7.3 Southern Africa

It is interesting that the name “Gudza,” which is used to identify the Samburu/ Turkana
phallic female dolls (Section 1.3), seems to have more prospective counterparts in
southern Africa than in Kenya. For example, Gudza (Map 3) is a placename in
Mashonaland, NE Zimbabwe, while Ngudza (Map 3) is a village the Limpopo Province
of South Africa, the region that contains Schroda, K2 and Mapungubwe (Sections 1.5.1
& 1.6.2). The latter lies in the heartland of the Venda, a group whose interpretation of
phallic female dolls is central to this paper (Section 1.9.3). In Zimbabwe, gudza is the
name for a plant-derived fabric made from the boiled bark of muunze trees (Mountain
Acacia).204

Clay figurines that closely resemble the Kenyan Gudza dolls are found in a number of
southern African cultures, and some of these may be direct descendents of the Schroda
H3 exemplars.205 For example, a South Sotho (Lesotho, Map 3) clay doll collected before
1923 has shortened heavy legs, distinct buttocks and breasts, and a phallic head which
extends from the torso without neck or shoulders.206 Some pre-1918 clay figurines of

25
Fig. 1.16 Sketched outlines of various southern African phallic female clay figurines. (a) Archaeological
terracotta figure, side view, Woolandale subculture (Leopard’s Kopje II-III, but mainly 12th-13th century
CE), from Bulawayo, 26 cm high, Roger Summers, excavated ca. 1957; deposited in the (then) National
Museum of South Rhodesia, Bulawayo.207,208 (b) Zulu udoli (“dolly”), front view, 18 cm high, acquired
1918; American Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian 303,759. (c) Venda figurine, front/side view,
fired and painted, 20 cm high; National Cultural History Museum, South Africa, object ET 1990/209.209
Created by a Lemba woman, Phophi Malingana, and collected in 1982 by Kees van der Waal.210 (d)
Terracotta doll, made in 1960s, Subia people (Caprivi, Namibia);211 rear view.212

Zulu provenance fit the same description (Fig. 1.16b).213 Tonga (Batonka) clay figurines
(Zambia, Zimbabwe) are phallus-shaped female dolls with detailed facial features and
very short legs.214 The Subia people of southern Africa (Caprivi strip, Namibia; Map 3)
make elongated terracotta female figurines with short or vestigial legs and no arms (Fig.
1.16d).

The Venda (South Africa, Zimbabwe) make fired-clay mwana (“child”) dolls that
resemble the armless short-legged figurines of phallic shape (e.g. Fig. 1.16a) found at
archaeological digs at Great Zimbabwe and at Bulawayo or Khami (Map 3), Khami being
the capital of the larger of two successor states that arose after Great Zimbabwe was
abandoned in ca. 1450 CE. This makes sense because groups who contributed to the
modern Venda used to inhabit these sites and also the Schroda/Mapungubwe area
discussed earlier (Section 1.5.1).215,216 Indeed, their current heartland (“Vendaland,” Map
3) – which has already been mentioned in this subsection – is still near the latter. Despite
the nominal status of the dolls as children, the figurines emphasize adult female and male

26
 Fig. 1.17 Wooden mwana hiti sculptures, Bambola people, Tanzania, 20th
century CE. (a) 8 cm and (b) 13 cm high. Photo credits: Raccolte
Extraeuropee del Castello Sforzesco, 217 accessions Passaré 272 & 271,
respectively, reproduced here under Creative Commons Attribution-Share
Alike 3.0 Unported Licence. Images available online.218

sexual features;219 for example, the head is always thought of as a penis.220 Images
of these dolls do not seem to be available, but a sketch of a fired-clay doll made by a
Lemba woman (Section 1.4.2) that may overlap with this category is shown in Fig. 1.16c.
This figurine resembles matano (“exhibit”) figures that the same sculptor made in the
past for the Venda female initiation ceremony, the domba.221 Both the matano and the
mwana have associated milayo, i.e. instructional aphorisms that prescribe correct social
relationships and prohibit inappropriate ones. Venda mwana and their milayo are
discussed in detail in Section 1.9.3.

1.7.4 Less direct examples

Other artifacts that – to a lesser extent – conform to the phallic female template, and thus
resemble the Gudza dolls, include the carved wooden mwana hiti (“wooden child”)
sculptures from the Zaramo people of Tanzania (Fig. 1.17). This surrogate child, which is
thought to be both male and female, is cared for by a girl during her ritual seclusion at
puberty.222 Somewhat similar wooden figures are carved by the Luba and Tabwa peoples,
who use the doll as a proxy for a deceased twin.223 The Tsonga people of southern Africa
also make a ritual doll called a nwana (“child”) which has a phallic shape but which
wears a woman’s skirt, a covering that encases the whole form in cloth and beads and
that may therefore emulate the vagina.224,225 ,226 Other obviously phallic representations,

27
again adorned almost completely with beads, are made by the South Sotho of Lesotho227
and the Chonyi of Kenya.228

It is interesting to note that West African musical flutes (e.g. ones from Burkina Faso,
Map 1) also often have shapes reminiscent of the phallic female template.229 The overlap
between female figurine and wind instrument may have prehistoric precedents. Since at
least the Upper Paleolithic, in Western Europe it seems that phalangeal bones have been
turned into whistles by perforating one side of the hollow shaft.230 In addition, phalangeal
bones and teeth were interpreted anthropomorphically and modified accordingly – often
as females – during the Upper Paleolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic eras.231 The
aperture in a perforated phalanx bone would be in the abdominal (womb/navel) region if
the bone were viewed as a figurine.232

Further to the naturally anthropomorphic shapes of bones, it is worth noting that

many Arctic peoples used to make phalangeal figurines for use as birthing amulets and
dolls.233 Similar practices are found in Africa; for example, bone fertility dolls are made
by the Peule of Senegal,234 the Balanta (Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and Gambia)235 and
groups in the Central African Republic (Map 1).236 Thus the deeply cleft head of the
wooden mwana hiti (Tanzania, discussed above) may mimic not just an elaborate
hairstyle, as it is commonly thought to do, or even a glans penis with an exaggerated
urethral aperture, but also the articular knobs (condyles) of a bone. A complementary
connection between bone morphology and the phallic female template is mentioned in
Section 1.8.1.

1.8 Features of the Gudza dolls and their symbolism

1.8.1 Legs, neck and head
African sculpture in general tends towards figures with elongated torsos and short legs.
This pattern has been explained by Alphonse Tiérou (Quenon people, Ivory Coast; Map 1)
as a codification of African ideas of beauty in conjunction with representations of
standard dance postures.237 Thus the muscularity and solidity of legs was more important
than their length, with bowed legs actually being preferred; moreover, the legs on
figurines are often bent at the knees because the subjects are dancing in this manner.238
Taken together, these result in a much shortened vertical distance from foot to hip
relative to the length of the torso, a distortion that probably also lends stability to the
statue. Echoing the truncated legs of fertility figurines from Middle Kingdom Egypt
(Section 1.6.3) , this pan-African paradigm is already primed for conversion to the phallic
female template; the stumpy legs are readily identified with the testicles, while the long
columnar torso correlates naturally with the phallus.

Shapes found naturally in raw materials may also have prompted early artisans
towards the phallic female design. Just as the slit or coffee-bean eyes on Neolithic clay
figurines may represent copies of earlier fetishes whose eyes were made from cowrie
shells,239,240 the phallic female with testicle-legs may perhaps emulate the shape of a
figure carved from a femur, where the large grooved knee joint forms the legs of the
figurine and part of the linear bone segment forms its torso.241 We have already

28
mentioned the augmentation of bones and teeth in Paleolithic and Neolithic Europe to
create human effigies (Section 1.7.4). Modified phalangeal bones often had nothing more
than a groove cut below the distal knob to delineate a head. Prehistoric figurines made in
other media, such as ivory and terracotta, replicated the shape of the bone and the
modifications made thereto, including the annular groove or furrow made to distinguish
the head from the body.242 Such a feature is present in the Gudza dolls, where it is
accentuated by a circular ridge immediately below the neck.

The faces of most of the Gudza dolls are left blank. The left-hand doll in Fig. 1.4 has
facial features; they are very similar to those on an early 20th-century CE clay figurine
depicting an uninitiated but pregnant girl of the Pare people (Tanzania), which was made
for cautionary use in the Pare female initiation ritual.243

1.8.2 Multiplicity, breasts and navel

The observation that the Gudza figurines are usually sold as pairs suggests that some of
their symbolic content may be directed, not towards a solo fertility goddess (Section 1.0)
but towards a real-world grouping. There is a widespread tradition in Africa of using
pairs of figurines to represent twins; we have seen above how one such figure is used by
the Luba and Tabwa of southern Africa to represent a deceased twin, and the ere ibeji
(“carved twins”) of the Yoruba in West Africa (mainly Nigeria, Map 1) serve exactly the
same purpose.244,245 As fertility tokens, the creation of Gudza dolls in pairs may convey
the wish to conceive twins.

The small size of the breasts adorning the Gudza dolls is consistent with
archaeological precedents246 and indicates that the figures represent adolescent girls or
young women;247 additional hints that the figures mainly represent unmarried girls are
discussed in Section 1.8.4.1. The creation of the dolls as pairs may therefore simply refer
to a plurality of individuals, such as a cohort of pubescent girls collectively undergoing
initiation rituals. From these ceremonies they graduate as women ready to bear children.

Bantu peoples always represent the navel on human figurines as convex, never
concave; for the Venda, this means that it can be associated with the budding breast of an
adolescent girl who has begun to menstruate.248 The navel is also considered by this
group to be the attachment point for the two snakes that reside in the womb, which are
believed to be responsible for fashioning the growing fetus.249 We have seen above that
the navels on the clay figurines of the Tanzanian Kisi (another Eastern Bantu group)
protrude to such a disproportionate extent that they take on a serpentine or phallic aspect
(Fig. 1.13). With the Gudza dolls, the protrusion of the navel is less extreme and – at
most – hints at the distension of the womb during pregnancy.250
1.8.3 Hairstyle
In her writing on ancient embodiments of the fertility-bestowing creatrix, Stella Richards
observes that “for up to 25 000 years, th[e] association between goddess and phallicised
bird has been close to the heart of human beliefs.”251 Coiffure was important to the bird-
goddess of Old Europe,252 of whom we shall hear much more in Section 2, and the more

29
 Fig. 1.18 Close-up photos showing the red-ochred hairstyles of three different Gudza dolls. The
corresponding dolls are (a,d) Fig. 1.2, left; (b,e) Fig. 1.2, right; (c,f) Fig. 1.7 (after removal of white
pigment, see Section 1.8.4 and Fig. 1.19a).

naturalistic depictions of her show a “lovely hairdo, and a turban or ribbon on her
head … [or] neatly combed hair or a bun. […] Meticulous detail is frequently given to
headgear of the bird-goddess, no matter how small the figurine.”253

The large central hair disc typical of the Gudza dolls (Fig. 1.18) is similar to the large
central chignon crowned by a loop on a Sesklo figurine (6th-7th millennium BCE).254
Likewise, the hair and protruding face of the Gudza doll holding a child (left-hand doll in
Fig. 1.4) are reminiscent of the coiffure and beaked face of a bird-headed goddess from
the same culture (ca. 6000 BCE).255 A Cucuteni bird/snake goddess from the 5th
millennium BCE has a knobbed hairstyle that is particularly similar to the distinctive
multi-disc coiffure of the Gudza dolls (Fig. 1.18).256 The high hair ornaments on Persian
Amlash figurines (1st millennium BCE) have already been noted (Section 1.4.1). For
Zimbabwean archaeological specimens, Matenga observed that 8 of his 33 armless

30
human figurines with legs, a category that included 14 phallic females (Section 1.6.2),
had some form of head-dress or hair-dressing.257 Reportedly, the Kisi figurine in Fig.
1.13b also originally had discrete clumps of hair baked from clay, representing a style
often worn in the area, but most of the clumps had fallen off before the sketch was
made.258
The presence or red and white pigments in the hair of the Gudza dolls will be dealt
with in the next subsection (Section 1.8.4).
1.8.4 Colors – red, white and black
In southern Africa, the colors red, white and black are part of a pervasive and complex
ritual code in which red (hot, impure) is the opposite of white (cool, pure) and both differ
from black (neutral, purifying).259 The system is widespread among Bantu peoples in
general and even extends to non-Bantu groups.260 Studying a people of the Congo (Map
1), Victor Turner suggests that the components of the basic color triad (red, white and
black) are most commonly associated with properties of the human body, and may be
considered as an important means of classifying human experience.261 Red is a symbol of
blood, white is a symbol of breast milk and semen, and black is related to feces and urine.
The three colors appear together in objects and events connected with initiation
ceremonies.

The three colors also appear together on the Gudza dolls. Red is provided by ochre
powder on the hair (Fig. 1.18) and by painted areas (breasts, navel, skirt); black is
provided by painted areas on the skirt (right-hand dolls in Figs. 1.2 & 1.4), pigment on
the hair-band (Fig. 1.18b,e), and/or by fire-blackening of the body (Figs. 1.2 & 1.7a);
while the white appears as ornamental dots painted on the skirts (Fig. 1.4 and right-hand
doll in Fig. 1.2) and/or as amorphous pigment daubed primarily onto the hair (Fig. 1.19).

This last feature is particularly interesting. The first Gudza doll to come to my
attention had white cement-like material lodged under the large top-disc of the coiffure
(Fig. 1.19a) and was sold with mention of a “repair on top,” which clearly referred to the
presence of the white material. My subsequent removal of the conspicuous white material
(Fig. 1.18f) in order to re-make the repair in a less unsightly manner revealed that there
was actually no underlying defect in the doll’s head. The white material was not excess
glue bulging from an inexpert repair but rather a white powdery pigment that had been
added deliberately to the finished coiffure, albeit for reasons that were not apparent.
Subsequently it became clear that almost all Gudza dolls share this feature; rather than
being an anomaly, a dab or two of white pigment on top of the red-ochred hairstyle forms
an intrinsic part of the figurines’ design.

It is possible that the mixture of white and red adorning the heads of the Gudza dolls
may have some symbolic connection with the libations of blood and millet gruel (red and
white, respectively) that are periodically poured over the heads of ritually important
figurines in other parts of Africa in order to feed them.262 However, a more likely
meaning of the white pigment is provided below (Section 1.8.4.2).

31
 Fig. 1.19 The Gudza dolls’ heads have been dipped in white pigment after the application of red ochre.
Each panel shows the head of a different doll. Views of heads are (a) rear side, (b) top front, (c) front,
(d) rear, (e) top rear, (f) rear, (g) rear, (h) rear. The corresponding dolls are (a) Fig. 1.7, before removal
of white pigment (see Section 1.8.4 and Fig. 1.18f); (b) Fig. 1.2 left; (d) Fig. 1.6b right; (e) Fig. 1.4
right; (f) Fig. 1.4 left; (g) Fig. 1.6b left.

1.8.4.1 Red

Red ochre symbolises life-blood and life-essence,263 blood of the earth,264 or menstrual
blood;265266 it “has been used for centuries in Africa as a ritual substance relating to birth,
death and other liminal states.”267 Turkana women smear red ochre with animal fat on
their faces and – allegedly – on their shaved heads.268 Other sources say that married
Turkana women cannot put red ochre on their heads; only virgin Turkana girls can rub
red ochre onto their heads and hair, which they do using coconut oil.269 Among the
Samburu it seems to be the men who routinely put red ochre in their hair,270 although
there is one report that girls paste ochre onto their shaven heads for dances,271 and this
practice seems to be customary for brides.272 In the closely related Maasai people, the
photographic evidence once again suggests that rubbing red ochre into the hair is mainly
or exclusively the domain of men.273

From the foregoing, we can conclude that the use of red ochre to highlight the
coiffure of the Gudza dolls does not accord with widespread real-life practice for Turkana
or Samburu women, except perhaps for girls who are still virgins.274 While this supports
the identification of the dolls as adolescent girls (Section 1.8.2), it is at odds with the fact
that one of the dolls is nursing an infant (Figs. 1.4, 1.5 & 1.20).

32
 Fig. 1.20 The Gudza dolls of Fig. 1.4, viewed from the rear.

1.8.4.2 White

The white pigment, clay or gesso (Section 1.8.4) is daubed primarily onto the hair of the
Gudza dolls (Fig. 1.19) but also spills somewhat haphazardly onto lower parts of the
figurines, e.g. shoulders, torso, back, and chest. A secondary deposit of this kind is
clearly seen in the left-hand figure of Fig. 1.4, where excess white pigment has lodged
between the fingers of the child’s hand. Given the phallic nature of the dolls, the location
where the bulk of the white pigment is applied and its tendency to spill randomly onto
other areas, the white material most likely symbolises semen. If so, this would argue for
the Gudza dolls having ritual significance and against them being merely tourist
souvenirs (Section 3).

White pigment, such as kaolin slurry,275 certainly can symbolize semen in

prehistoric276 and African cultures.277 For Bantu-speaking peoples (and even for some
non-Bantu speakers such as the Yoruba of Nigeria) white is associated with coolness,
especially semen, milk and the ancestral realm.278 Accordingly, in the Venda female
initiation ceremony or domba (Section 1.7.3), white tends to represent semen, mother’s
milk, purity or the ancestors.279 In the words of one informant, “white is for men who
produce seed.”280 In the supreme mulayo281 of the domba, a mixture of maize flour and
water was used to imitate semen following a simulated copulation between carved

33
figurines.282 The tassels adorning the phallic stem of the funnel-shaped Venda tahu begin
as a white bark and symbolize semen, although in the completed object they are red due
to rubbing with ochre.283

The white pigment smeared on the Gudza dolls’ heads may have additional
connotations. In the ceremonial lead-up to male initiation, the Samburu daub the right
side of the boy’s forehead, face and body with white clay.284 Maasai elders smear a
chalky white pigment called enturoto on the foreheads and faces of male initiates who
have just become junior elders in the olngesherr ceremony.285 The white pigment
symbolises protection and nonviolence.286 In the Congo, phemba is a term with pro-Bantu
roots that denotes ritually important white clay;287 the same word is used to denote
maternity figurines.288 In the Turkana basin of Kenya, there is a striking precedent at the
Jarigole Pillar Neolithic site (3rd millennium BCE; Section 1.1) for the application of
unfired white pigment – sometimes over fired red pigment – to the heads of ceramic
figurines, in this case model animals.289

1.9 Holistic interpretations of phallic female figurines

1.9.1 The Great Goddess

Is there a deeper psychological meaning to the shape of the Guza dolls, whether purely
penile (Fig. 1.7) or incorporating the testicles as well (Fig.1.2 & 1.3)? Part of the sales
description for the latter pair read “Both erotic and phallic, they have a definitive
feminine allure that is hard to describe.”290 Patricia Reis successfully articulates this
elusive appeal, contextualizing it in terms of Paleolithic and Neolithic goddess culture:
[T]he Great Goddess with a phallic aspect continued […] for at least 30,000 years […]
The image holds within it a concept of the possibility for self-fertilizing, for self-
renewal, and regeneration. It is not merely […] a feminized male [, n]or is it the
masculinized feminine. Rather, these are profound images of a religious nature that
demonstrate an ancient concept of female wholeness consisting of a fully developed
femaleness and a fully developed maleness. What does it mean for a woman to have
her own sense of an inner phallus? In the figurines it is not the outer phallus – the
probing, seeking, erection – so much as it is a sustaining, supportive inner core. In the
images from the paleolithic and neolithic eras, the phallic element tends to be in the
upper part of the body, the neck and the head providing an axis around which the rest
of the body is organized. […] She is an image that is complete – unto herself.291

Stella Richards makes a related point, asserting that “the multitude and astonishing
longevity of prehistoric images depicting a beautiful phallic female point to this person as
being our primordial archetype. In other words, this foxy babe rocks as our oldest and
most enduring image of divinity; as such she informs our deepest and probably widest
collective streams of consciousness.”292 Richards is at pains to point out that “only the
female androgyne can embody both complete sets of genitalia. Male androgynes [i.e.,
castrated male gods] gain breasts, but at the expense of both womb and phallus. As a
result, male androgynes are sterile whereas female androgynes are abundantly fertile, in
an orgy of self-pollination.” Displacing the female androgyne of prehistory (i.e., the
goddess whose figure is an embodied phallus), male androgynes (i.e., castrati such as the

34
“sorrowful gods” or “year gods”) have provided the dominant archetype of divinity in
literate cultures for the past 5000 years. In this way, Richards argues, the original
matriarchal consciousness of the earth as a place of pleasure and prolific abundance was
supplanted by a patriarchal mindset of “scarcity, struggle and sacrifice.”293 In the
Abrahamic religions, this expulsion from the Garden of Eden to a life of toil and
adversity (Genesis 3:14-19) resulted in a ritual focus on surrogate castration
(circumcision),294 dietary prohibition, blood sacrifice and collective atonement, and also
in a practical emphasis on military conquest as the key to survival.

1.9.2 A scientific postscript

Moving forward several millennia, modern genetics has revealed that a human zygote
with an XY genotype does not always develop into a male child. Mutations that impair
the function of the sex-determining gene Sry on the Y-chromosome typically result in
Swyer Syndrome.295 Here, the genetically male child appears externally to be a healthy
daughter and grows through childhood as a normal girl; however, in common with Stella
Richards’ male androgynes (Section 1.9.1), this outward female lacks ovaries and is
therefore infertile. The analogy extends no further; an XXY genotype (Klinefelter
Syndrome) results in a male with reduced or no fertility,296 rather than in a female
androgyne with heightened fertility or parthenogenic powers.

What is interesting, though, is the recent discovery that it only takes a small decrease
in the functionality of the Sry gene product to cause the sex reversal of Sweyer syndrome
during gestation.297 True for both mice and men, this fragility forms a striking contrast
with the robustness of other major developmental pathways. It may be that this sensitivity
engenders behavioral variability that broadens the spectrum of social competencies in
males, and that communities of social mammals with a diversity of gender styles possess
a survival advantage.298 Whatever the reason, it means that human males invariably
develop near the edge of sexual ambiguity. One can perhaps view the phallic female
template as hinting towards this unexpected biological truth.

1.9.3 Lemba/Venda interpretation

Without feeling any need to invoke an ancient self-fertilizing goddess, Jean-Marie

Dederen of the University of Venda (“Vendaland,” Map 3) makes a claim related to those
in Section 1.9.1; he believes that – at the extreme – the phallic female template redefines
manhood as a mere tool for the realisation of female identity. In his own words, “The
[Schroda H3] figurine stated tacitly what all women knew intuitively, and what men did
not like to discuss, or refused to admit openly, namely that the phallus does not beget
children, but the womb does: in the sphere of human procreation, female sexual potency
rules supreme.”299 However, this feminist vision is not all that the world of the Venda has
to offer in relation to our understanding of phallic female figurines.

In 1960, an eminent Lemba nanga or ritual specialist (Section 1.4.2) indicated his
familiarity with the type of clay figurines that had been excavated by Summers and were
on display in Bulawayo at the National Museum of Zimbabwe (then called Southern

35
Rhodesia). He interpreted the phallic female figurines in the collection in terms of Venda
mwana, which we met previously in Section 1.7.3. A mwana is a fired-clay “child” that a
mother makes for her young daughter; when the girl reaches puberty, her grandmother
teaches her the milayo (“laws”) of her mwana, i.e. short sayings that allude to the correct
relationship between husband and wife, especially in regard to having children.300 When
the girl marries, she takes her mwana with her to her husband’s house and requires him to
buy the privilege of seeing the doll – at the cost of an ox that is eaten by her parents –
before the marriage can be consummated. When she finally shows the mwana to her
husband, she asks him to recite its milayo, which of course he is unable to do. She then
tells him to take the mwana to the bride’s grandmother (or, if this is not possible, another
female elder of her family) for instruction. By agreeing to learn the laws the husband
consents to bind himself to the mwana, and thus by extension to his wife. He then returns
to his bride and, if he can recite the milayo to her satisfaction, she can no longer refuse
his sexual advances, other than to extract some small final gifts of bangles and clay pots.
The mwana is kept by the couple in their bedroom until their first child is born,
whereupon it is returned to the elder woman who taught the milayo, and ultimately re-
used for the wife’s younger sister or daughter.301

The milayo of the mwana include a detailed exposition of the doll’s symbolism, as
follows.302
(a) The head belongs to the father who conceived the bride, which is why
the doll’s head is phallic in form. The wife’s head is only on loan to her
husband, so all spiritual and ritual matters relating to her remain the domain
of her family of origin. For example, when the woman dies, she must be
buried by her father or another elder from his family, and not by her
husband.
(b) The legs and the body of the bride belong to her husband; having paid
for his bride with the ox, he now owns her labour and any children that she
produces (whether or not he is their biological father). The strict separation
between the ownership of the woman’s head and the rest of her body is
emphasized by the ridge or collar-like protrusion on the mwana between its
head and its chest.
(c) The breasts are the earth, providing nourishment to raise a family.
(d) The navel is a young menstruating girl; as we saw in Section 1.8.2, its
convex form can be associated with the budding breast of an adolescent girl.
(e) The legs of the mwana symbolize a mature woman who now has a lover;
this refers to the practice whereby Venda and Tsonga girls who have
reached puberty are permitted to take boyfriends for limited types of
foreplay. The short stumpy legs of the mwana form a chevron (inverted V-
shape) which symbolizes the female sexual organ.
(f) Pubic hair must be hidden by wearing the shedu, a pubic apron which
only the woman’s husband can remove.
(g) The buttocks are things of pleasure; they are considered highly erotic
and feature prominently in dance movements. They are the most decorated

36
 part of the body, often adorned with skirts of multicoloured beads or
colourful garlands. After the marriage is consummated, the groom makes
his bride a tshirivha, or soft goatskin skirt, which covers her buttocks and is
engraved with spiral designs as symbols of her procreative power.
(h) The knee is the first joint and belongs to the husband. Its conjunction of
hard bone and soft flesh symbolizes man and woman, respectively, in union.

The Venda are considered to have guarded their traditions and rituals more zealously
than other southern African groups and are thus likely to have best preserved ancient
indigenous customs.303 The concepts underlying the milayo of the mwana seem to extend
beyond the Venda to Shona-speaking groups as well.304 Indeed, the vulvar interpretation
of the chevron (point e above) and the decoration of the goatskin tshirivha, which covers
the buttocks, with spirals as symbols of procreative power (point g above), are of such
great antiquity as to have direct counterparts in Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic statuary
from Eurasia.305

It is clear that the Gudza dolls have many features in common with the Venda mwana.
They possess the distinctive and symbolically important ridge that divides the head from
the rest of the body (points a and b above). Their phallic torsos have breasts and convex
navels (points c and d); these are sometimes highlighted by red ochre (right-hand dolls in
Figs. 1.2 & 1.4), which may serve as a symbol of menstruation (point d, also Section
1.8.4.1). Like the mwana, the Gudza dolls have no arms (which are symbolically
irrelevant)306 and have short stumpy legs (point e). They wear decorated and brightly
coloured skirts which cover both the buttocks (point g) and the pubic area (point f).

1.10 Conclusion to Section 1 – Gudza dolls

The Gudza dolls conform to the phallic female style of fertility figurine, whose roots
stretch back to the Paleolithic era and whose psychological symbolism is still vibrant
today. The design may either have spread with early human migrations, flourishing from
time to time in favourable niches, or it may possess such innate appeal to the human
imagination that it has been invented independently in different eras by many different
cultures. It seems likely that the design had a local origin or emergence in western Africa
in the 2nd millennium BCE and then travelled widely through the continent as part of the
Bantu expansion. This scenario would explain why so many features of these Kenyan
dolls seem to be well explained by informants interpreting similar dolls in the spatially
distant Venda culture of southern Africa.

37
2. Bird-headed goddess, Beta Israel/Falasha people (Ethiopia)

The bird-headed goddess is an ancient and enduring motif found in Neolithic Old Europe
(ca. 7000-3000 BCE), pre-dynastic Egypt (ca. 3500-3400 BCE), the Indus Valley (ca.
3300–1300 BCE), Minoan-Mycenaean civilization (ca. 2000-1700 BCE), Syro-Hittite
culture (ca. 1200-700 BCE), and among other ancient peoples of the Mediterranean and
Near East (e.g., Figs. 2.1-2.5; see Map 1 for territories). In the antiquities trade, figurines
of this type (especially those of Syro-Hittite origin) are commonly known as “Astarte
figurines.” The figurine represents the fertility and life-sustaining aspects of the chthonic
Mother Goddess who encompasses the cycle of sexuality, birth, nurturing, death and
regeneration.307 Her avian head is consistent with the zoomorphic Mother Earth template
in which the upper and lower zones of the world are symbolised by birds and snakes/fish,
respectively.308 Marija Gimbutas coined the term “bird-goddess” for this widespread and
long-lived archetype.309 Rather surprisingly, there seems to be little or no evidence for a
diffusion of the bird-headed fertility goddess to sub-Saharan East Africa.310 Ethiopian
female fertility dolls with flat forward-facing ears, beaks and no mouths are not entirely
unprecedented,311 but the few published examples lack temporal and ethnographic
contexts.

Fig. 2.1 Terracotta Mother Goddess, fragment, 11 cm high, Indus Civilization

(Pakistan), 2500-2000 BCE, Mohenjo-Daro. British Museum 1939,0619.204, ©
The Trustees of the British Museum, reproduced here under the Standard Terms
of Use. Image available online.312

38
Fig. 2.2 Woman carrying a child in a crib, 16 cm high, Near East, Middle Bronze
Age (2000-1600 BC). Musée du Louvre AM 1459, © 2010 RMN / Franck Raux,
reproduced here under the Standard Terms of Use. Image available online.313

Fig. 2.3 Naked woman holding a child, 24 cm high, Late Bronze Age II (1400-1230
BC), Tyre region, Lebanon. Musée du Louvre AO 2407, © Photo RMN / Franck
Raux, reproduced here under the Standard Terms of Use. Image available online.314

39
 Fig. 2.4 (left photo) Terracotta figurine of a naked female of the “Astarte” type; bird-like face
with applied eyes, large ears pierced twice, 16 cm high, Late Cypriot (1450-1100 BCE). British
Museum 1898,1201.218, © The Trustees of the British Museum, reproduced here under the
Standard Terms of Use. Image available online. 315
Fig. 2.5 (right photo) Baked clay figurine wearing an elaborate headdress and holding a baby,
13 cm high, Neo-Hittite (8th century BCE), Carchemish, Anatolia. British Museum 1913,1108.104,
© The Trustees of the British Museum, reproduced here under the Standard Terms of Use. Image
available online.316

2.1 Claimed and actual provenance

2.1.1 The bird-goddess figurine

The figurine that is the focus of this section of the paper (Fig. 2.6, and see ahead to Fig.
2.10) was sold by an Israeli vendor as a Qemant fertility idol from Ethiopia that was
thought to date from the 1930s. The Qemant (Kemant) people are closely related – both
geographically and culturally – to the Falasha/Beta Israel people of the Ethiopian
highlands near Gondar (Map 2). The figurine is particularly interesting because it was
produced by an ethnic group from sub-Saharan Africa and yet clearly conforms to the
bird-goddess template of Neolithic Europe317 and the Ancient Near East (Figs. 2.1-2.5;
Map 1). Features that support this identification include the beak-like nose, the eyes that
look out at a 45° angle, the round face with large flat ears bearing perforation holes, the
elaborate coiffure, the protruding breasts, and the fact that she is carrying a child.318,319

40
Fig. 2.6 Terracotta bird-headed goddess with child, 15 cm high, Beta Israel people; the subject of Section
2 of this paper. (a) View of right side, (b) view from rear, (c) angled view from front. Author’s collection.

Moreover, her neck bears three embossed rings separated by ornamental rows of bead-
like circular perforations, consistent with Gimbutas’ comment that the Neolithic
European bird-goddess “usually wears three or six necklaces.”320 The mouth is unusual
but not unprecedented; a vertical mouth opening can also be seen in Fig. 2.2. Other
features, such as the front and rear pouch/sling suspended by a collar harness, appear to
be typically African.

2.1.2 Qemant or Beta Israel?

The religion of the Qemant is Hebraic, but they retain far more animistic Agaw customs
than the neighbouring Beta Israel.321 However, the attribution of a terracotta figurine as a
Qemant idol cannot be correct, as the Qemant do not use any man-made sacred objects
apart from written amulets in leather pouches, which are worn as pendants.322 Moreover,
the Qemant do not make pottery, viewing the craft with abhorrence. Pottery manufacture
is in fact the province of women from the Beta Israel,323 some of whom have reportedly
produced black-fired clay figurines of animals and people to sell to foreigners since the

41
late 1940s.324 As the vendor of the figurine in Fig. 2.6 and Fig. 2.10 (ahead) is based in
Israel and sells pottery figurines attributed to both the Qemant and Beta Israel, but to few
other African groups, one can deduce that the bird-goddess figure, while not black-fired,
is actually a Falasha artifact. Subsequently, it emerged that some Ethiopians have claimed
to Western visitors that the Beta Israel figurines are actually Qemant artifacts,325 a point
to which we will return below (Section 2.4), and thereby probably created an enduring
source of confusion.

2.2 Ancient opportunities for diffusion of the bird-goddess cult to Ethiopia

As a member of a people that consider themselves derived from ancient Israel, it seems at
first glance plausible that a Falasha artisan might be able to fashion a fertility token that
closely resembles the prehistoric bird-goddess figurines of the Levant. However, in
contrast to similar studies on the Lemba (Section 1.4.2), genetic analyses have found little
or no evidence of an origin for the Falashas in Levantine Judaism.326,327 Their community
is likely to have had few, if any, Jewish founders from outside Ethiopia, with any such
input occurring over 2000 years ago.328,329 For the most part, it seems that the Hebraic
practices of the Falasha arose locally within the Ethiopic Christian church, in which an
Agaw-speaking subgroup chose to place an extreme emphasis on the already prominent
Judaic aspects of this branch of Christianity.330,331,332 The situation therefore begs the
question of how and when an awareness of the bird-goddess could have reached this
Ethiopian people.

One simple explanation arises from the fact that the ancestral Agaw, the indigenous
people of north and central Ethiopia, were in a direct spatial line of diffusion from the
Middle Eastern agricultural center, from which they received horticultural plants and
techniques around 3000 BCE.333 It is possible that an appreciation for the bird-headed
fertility goddess of the Ancient Near East accompanied the arrival of this new
horticultural technology.

Another possibility is that her cult might have been introduced to the Horn of Africa
from the Middle East some two millennia later. The indigenous languages of the Agaw
are members of the Cushitic sub-group of the Afroasiatic language family. However,
these non-Semitic tongues have largely been displaced by Amharic, a Semitic
language.334 Ethiosemitic, the precursor of Amharic, entered the Horn of Africa from
southern Arabia via a single introduction no earlier than 1800 BCE, most likely around
800 BCE.335 This transfer was not accompanied by a major corresponding gene flow,336
but rather seems to have resulted from small groups of people migrating, after 1000 BCE,
from southern Arabia to the Ethiopian highlands north of the Tekezé River (Map 2);337
accordingly, the people in Ethiopian Semitic language groups show slightly more genetic
influence from the Middle East than those in Cushitic ones.338 The resulting fusion of
south Arabian and ancestral Agaw culture produced the Ethiopic civilization.339 Clearly,
these developments could have seen a parallel import into Ethiopia of Semitic cultural
heritage from the Ancient Near East, which could have included an appreciation of the
bird-goddess.

42
 Fig. 2.7 Painted terracotta female figure, 29 cm high, ca. 3500-3400 B.C.E., Ma’mariya,
Egypt. Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 07.447.505, reproduced here
under Creative Commons License CC-BY 3.0. Image available online.340

A third possibility is that the Ethiopian awareness of the ancient bird-goddess might
not reflect the influence of the south Arabian peninsula on the Horn of Africa, but rather
be the result of a terrestrial diffusion of her cult southwards from the Mediterranean lands
of North Africa. The terracotta “Nile River Goddess” (as she is popularly known) from
ca. 3500 BCE, now in the Brooklyn Museum, New York (Fig. 2.7), potentially depicts an
Egyptian fertility bird-goddess; figures of this deity – here depicted with a beaked face
and raised wing-like arms – appeared in early predynastic times (ca. 4000 BCE) as a
funerary item.341 A beaked terracotta figurine lacking eyes or mouth, whose bilobed head
consists essentially of two huge flat ears (each a with a single perforation near the bottom)
is attributed to predynastic Egypt of a slightly later era, the late 4th to early 3rd
millennium BCE.342 Thus there seem to be very early examples of an ancient bird-
goddess in Egypt,343 whose cult could have diffused southwards through Sudan344 to
northern Ethiopia (Map 1). The arrival of animal husbandry in Ethiopia from Nubia
around 2000 BCE345 would have provided a perfect vehicle for such transmission. The
template survived in Egypt to at least the 4-6th centuries CE.346

43
2.3 A more recent introduction of the goddess to Ethiopia

2.3.1 Wolleka

The reality, however, is that none of the worthy proposals outlined in the previous section
provide the truth behind the existence of the figurine in Fig. 2.6 and Fig. 2.10 (ahead).
Rather, it appears that its conceptual origins lie in the main Beta Israel enclave of
Wolleka (sometimes Wollaqa; 12°38’N 37°29’E, Map 2), a village 6 km north-east of
Gondar, in the 20th century CE. In the early 1960s, Western residents, including aid
workers and Peace Corps volunteers,347 had encouraged Beta Israel women near Gondar
to apply their pottery skills, which hitherto had been used only for utilitarian purposes,
towards making figurines for sale to foreign residents and travellers. In this initial period,
their statues reflected not only scenes from everyday life in the village, such as women
carrying children, but also included forms based on photographs of “Primitive Art” that
were shown to the Wolleka locals in 1960 by Franz Rosa, the European wife of an
American doctor.348,349 The compilation apparently contained examples of West African
sculptures350,351 but also seems to have contained a selection of prehistoric artifacts,
which presumably included bird-goddess figurines from the Ancient Near East.

Thus prompted, the potters began to produce “rough clay models of cows, horses and
even fertility figures” which sold well as at the new Itegue Hotel in Gondar,352,353 where
they were billed as “Falasha idols.” By 1966, archaic female fertility figurines (Fig. 2.8a)
were plentiful in Wolleka, and possibly other Beta Israel settlements too.354 The figures
are distinguished by long necks (reminiscent of Figs. 1.9, 1.10 & 1.11b,c) marked with
multiple rings, a feature of bird-goddess effigies from as early as the 5th millennium
BCE.355,356,357 The “dolls” were often dressed in textile clothing (Fig. 2.8b, 2.9),358 and
the locals sometimes identified them to Westerners as children’s toys.359 Soon, however,
the Beta Israel women – following the lead of an elderly Wolleka potter named Takai
Elias – turned their attention to making distinctively Jewish artifacts, both as an
expression of self-identity and to appeal to the growing number of Jewish tourists visiting
the region, and the creation of primitive/prehistoric figures declined.360 The practice had
ceased entirely by 1980,361 and probably long before.

In 1984-5, during a period of famine, a covert air evacuation called “Operation

Moses” saw the airlifting to Israel of some 8000 Ethiopian Beta Israel people, using
airstrips near the Ethiopian/Sudanese border as departure points. In 1991, when Ethiopia
was threatened with dangerous political destabilization by Eritrean and Tigrean rebels,
another covert evacuation of Beta Israel was organized. “Operation Solomon” airlifted
most of the remaining Beta Israel population of Ethiopia to Israel.

2.3.2 A seductive misconception

In 1966, the primitive and Neolithic-style figurines were mistakenly identified as

traditional fertility idols of the Beta Israel by a German professor of Coptology at the

44
American University in Cairo, who published an academic paper on them.362 Formal
rebuttals followed considerably later,363 by which stage the myth of the statuettes as

Fig. 2.8 Female human figurines from the Beta Israel near Gondar, in the 1960s. (a) Effigy of a
pregnant woman described as a child’s doll, 14 cm high, 1963. British Museum Af1963,03.1,
image available online.364 (b) Female figurine with baby in carrier on back, 17 cm high, Gondar or
Simien Mts., pre-1972. British Museum Af1972,30.12, image available online.365 Both panels ©
The Trustees of the British Museum, reproduced here under the Standard Terms of Use.

Fig. 2.9 Collection of 20th-century Falasha dolls from Gondar and Simien Mts. Small pottery figurines of
mothers carrying infants, etc., made by Falasha woman mainly for sale to Western tourists; it includes the

45
dolls in Fig. 2.8. British Museum Af1972,30.10. © The Trustees of the British Museum, reproduced here
under the Standard Terms of Use. Image available online.366
modern survivals of ancient African customs had taken root. Indeed, it continues to
flourish even today; speaking of the fertility figurines, Kaplan & Rosen (1996) comment
that “their image as a traditional art form of considerable venerability has proven to be
surprisingly durable.”367 This is particularly true in Israel, where almost all of the Beta
Israel now reside, and where there is an ongoing socio-political hunger for any
anthropological data that appears to support an ancient Israelite origin for the “Black
Jews of Ethiopia.”

One outcome of this Israeli desire was a 1993 exhibition in Beer-Sheva (Map 1) in
which the Negev Museum of Art presented a selection of Neolithic-style Falasha
figurines as “traditional artistic Ethiopian ceramics and pottery with parallel objects
found in archaeological digs in Israel,”368 the latter mainly dating from the 7-8th centuries
BCE.369,370 The archaic figurines in the exhibition were apparently created spontaneously
by Beta Israel women during or soon after a pottery workshop held in Beer-Sheva in
1991.371 These artifacts are a uniform sandy-yellow colour,372 whereas the original
Ethiopian figurines were reportedly red-brown and sometimes accidentally blackened in
parts (e.g., Fig. 2.8, 2.9).373 Some are also executed more finely than the earlier Wolleka
sculptures.374 Given the golden colour, three-dimensionality and obvious sophistication
of the bird-goddess figurine that is the focus of our discussion (Fig. 2.6 & 2.10), as well
as the vendor’s proximity to Beer-Sheva, one must suspect that the sculpture was in fact
created by a Falasha potter in that part of Israel during the 1990s. One might also suspect
that the artist was inspired in her new homeland by additional exposure to archaeological
examples of the Middle Eastern bird-goddess.

2.4 Different ways of viewing this discovery

The episode of the archaic Beta Israel figurines must surely qualify as one of the most
bizarre in the annals of 20th-century anthropology. To begin with, we have an Ethiopian
Jewish group being encouraged by Westerners – some Jewish themselves – to defy the
Mosaic prohibition against making graven images and especially pagan idols (Exod 20:4-
5; Lev 26:1; Deut 27:15). These artisans then set about making bird-goddess statues of
ancient design, similar to the domestic Canaanite/Israelite fertility idols that were
undoubtedly a target of Moses’ injunction. They proved so adept that, just a few years
later, their craft was hailed in the anthropological literature as a modern survival of
ancient African cult practices. The figurines were sometimes misrepresented to Western
anthropologists as originating among the neighbouring Qemant people (Section 2.1.2),375
perhaps to deflect any accusations of idolatry away from the Beta Israel community. The
manufacture of Neolithic-style statuettes seems to have been short-lived in Ethiopia, but
it re-emerged some thirty years later among émigré Falasha potters working in Israel,
where once again the activity was taken to be an expression of indigenous Ethiopian/Beta
Israel culture. Specimens went on to be presented in museum exhibitions as evidence of
an ancestral link between the Falasha and ancient Israel, and the supposed connection is
still being promoted today.

46
Fig. 2.10 Additional views of the terracotta bird-headed goddess with child, Beta Israel people, shown in
Fig.2.6. (a) Front view, (b) left side view. Author’s collection.

In this way, an ancient goddess whose image was no longer crafted in her ancestral
homeland of Europe, the Mediterranean and Central Asia (other than by forgers making
fraudulent antiquities) suddenly found new expression in sub-Saharan East Africa, a land
adjacent to her original range. It is true, of course, that the Wolleka figurines were made
as artworks for sale to outsiders rather than as idols for veneration within the Beta Israel
community, but in Ethiopia the Falasha retained a substratum of animistic/pagan Agaw
belief that may have provided a sympathetic environment for such creations.376,377 The
activity was at least memorable and fulfilling enough to see its reprise among Beta Israel
women decades later, after the community’s relocation to Israel. Aptly described as
“archaeology come to life,”378 the latter event constitutes a modern resumption bird-
goddess handicraft in a central part of her ancestral homeland, albeit one motivated by
artistic appreciation, socio-political wish-fulfilment and commercial prospects379 rather
than religious sentiment. Suppressed for millennia by the strict monotheism of Judaism,
the creation of Astarte-like figurines defied all the odds and resumed, to public approval,
from the earth of modern Israel. But we should take care not to let the irony, confusion
and controversy surrounding these figurines detract from the innate merit that many of
them possess as works of art. In its mature form, the neo-Neolithic revival of the Beta
Israel resulted in sophisticated hybrid figurines of compelling vigour in which the
features of the bird-goddess of Old Europe and the Ancient Near East were blended

47
seamlessly with African attributes of fertility, fecundity and maternity (Fig. 2.6 &
2.10).380
2.5 Aesthetics of the neo-Neolithic

2.5.1 The Beta Israel bird-goddess

As a result of this fusion of Ancient Near East and modern East African sensibilities,
subtle aspects that are rare or only hinted at in surviving archaeological specimens
became manifest in the modern hybrids. For example, the importance of the Neolithic
bird-goddess’ coiffure and hair adornments was mentioned in Section 1.8.3; accordingly,
some goddess heads from the 6th millennium BCE appear to have tresses pulled tightly
back from the face, hair that may be restrained by a net, or an exaggerated bun at the
rear.381 The Beta Israel figurine has carefully braided hair that clearly is restrained so that
it projects backwards horizontally from her head in a wide bun (Fig. 2.10a,b). Moreover,
many ancient bird-goddess figurines have humps on their backs that may well be stylized
baby-sacks,382 and in the Beta Israel bird-goddess (Fig. 2.6 & 2.10) we see that feature
expressed in full. There are also obvious parallels between the conical frontal pouch of
the Beta Israel figurine and the conical food basket clutched to the chest of an Indus
Valley (Map 1) bird-goddess figurine from the 3rd millennium (Fig. 2.11). The open
frontal cone that funnels down to the groin of the Beta Israel figurine (Fig. 2.6 & 2.10a,c)
is also reminiscent of the anatomical distortions in some of the medieval Sheela-na-Gig
reliefs carved into stone church walls in the British Isles (e.g. Fig. 2.12), which preserve a
memory of the Neolithic goddess of childbirth and the regeneration of life.383

48
 Fig. 2.11 Sketch of an Indus Valley bird-goddess figurine with a
frontal food basket, 3rd millennium BCE (private collection).

Fig. 2.12 Síle-na-Gig carving from Church of St. Mary and St. David, Kilpeck,
Herefordshire, England. Photo credit: John Harding,384 reproduced here under Creative
Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported Licence. Image available online.385

2.5.2 A Beta Israel pillar figurine

Even more originality is seen in another Beta Israel figurine (Fig. 2.13). This sculpture,
obtained from the same vendor as the as the bird-goddess figurine discussed at length
above, was described as an Ethiopian “male pole idol” of early- to mid-20th century CE
Falasha provenance. This pillar figurine, while decidedly Neolithic in appearance, is
without an obvious precedent – it seems not to be a direct copy of a prehistoric template
so much as a refraction of a variety of themes in Eurasian prehistoric art. Its Beta Israel
provenance is confirmed by the presence of an inscription in Hebrew letters on the back
of the figure (Fig. 2.13d, close-up in Fig. 2.14b). Presumably this records the artist’s
name or her location; many of the letters are difficult to make out, but the writing appears
to commence with a ‫ ב‬and end with a ‫ ה‬, with the last letter spaced from the others as if it
stands alone.

The pillar figurine looks somewhat sinister, at least to Western eyes. This sense of
unease may derive from the similarity of its body-shape to that of unwelcome biological
forms such as the body louse (Fig. 2.15), a widespread parasite of both animals and
humans.386 It is also true that, to Western sensibilities, the figure appears to be male, in

49
that the “stag antler” protrusions from its upper body call to mind some form of horned
god or multi-pointed phallus.387 In contrast, however, the linear markings embossed into

Fig. 2.13 Beta Israel pillar figurine. Panels (a)-(f) show the figure sequentially rotated
clockwise; (a) is a full frontal view, (d) is a full view of the back, showing faint Hebrew lettering.
Author’s collection.

50
Fig. 2.14 Incised markings on the pillar figurine. (a) Front of figure
photographed in raking sunlight to emphasise the embossed patterns. (b) Close-up
of faint Hebrew writing on back of figure. Author’s collection.

51
 Fig. 2.15 Stylized shape of the body louse, an insect parasite of animals and
humans. Credit: 3drenderings/Shutterstock.com.

the terracotta are recognised goddess symbols. Most of the decorations consist of trilinear
markings, which in Neolithic figurines are associated with the bird-goddess;388 for
example, the fluid meander/stream markings such as those found on the back of this
figure’s skirt are similar to those found on Vinča bird-goddess and animal figurines.389 It
is the frontal markings, however, that are the most informative. First, the chest is marked
with crossed chest bands (X) (Fig. 2.14a), a motif distinctive of the bird-goddess,390
which here have been encompassed by a rough circle. The resulting composite forms a
“wheel cross” (⊗), an ancient symbol that began to appear at the threshold of the Bronze
Age and originally (as ⊕) denoted the highest power and the sun, the but which later
evolved to mean the earth and the land.391 Second, we find below the waist on the front of
the figure a large vulva-shaped motif whose central opening is depicted by a deeply
incised triline (Fig. 2.14a).392 Thus, while the pillar figurine has male aspects to its
morphology, it is actually marked as a female – a gender ambiguity not unlike the phallic
female template encountered in Section 1.

While original in execution, the Beta Israel statuette’s outline is conceptually

suggestive of a “psi figurine” (Fig. 2.16), i.e. a Mycenaean (Map 1) bird-goddess figurine
from ca. 1450-1100 BCE,393 albeit one with four upraised arms/wings rather than the
usual two; it is as if the breasts have elongated, and then migrated upwards and outwards
to form a high collar or second short pair of arms (cf. Fig. 1.13a,b; also Fig. 1.14). The
upraised arms, upward tilt of the head and flattened headdress394 all match the common
template for psi figurines, while the painted stripes on the Mycenaean figurines are
replaced in the unpainted Beta Israel sculpture by the curvilinear embossings that we
have already discussed. Altogether, it remarkable to encounter such a kaleidoscopic

52
 Fig. 2.16 Psi figurines. (a) Terracotta statuette of a goddess wearing a long skirt and a flat head-dress
- psi type, 13 cm high, ca. 1300-1200 BCE. British Museum 1864,0220.32, © The Trustees of the
British Museum, reproduced here under the Standard Terms of Use. Image available online.395 (b) Psi
figurine of woman, port of Minet el-Beida, Ras Shamra, imported from Mycenae. Musée du Louvre
AO 14837, © 2006 Photo RMN / Franck Raux, reproduced here under the Standard Terms of Use.
Image available online.396 Both panels show a front view (left image) and side view (right image).

refraction of Eurasian Neolithic and Bronze Age sensibilities in a piece that is probably
less than half a century old and was fashioned, so organically and unpretentiously, by
Ethiopian hands.

2.6 Conclusion to Section 2 - Beta Israel bird-goddess

The conceptual origins of the Ethiopian “Astarte figurine” (Figs. 2.6 & 2.10) lie in the
main Falasha/Beta Israel enclave of Wolleka, a village a few kilometres north-east of
Gondar, in the early 1960s. Encouraged by outsiders who had shown them photographs
of prehistoric artifacts and sculptures from other African countries, the Wolleka potters
began to make statuettes – including “prehistoric” female fertility figurines – for sale to
foreign visitors. Their craft was subsequently hailed in the anthropological literature as a
modern survival of ancient African cult practices. While production died out in Ethiopia,
a small-scale resurgence occurred after the Beta Israel community’s relocation to Israel,
seemingly prompted by a 1991 pottery workshop in Beer-Sheva. The neo-Neolithic
revival of the Beta Israel in Israel resulted in sophisticated hybrid figurines in which the
features of the ancient Eurasian bird-goddess were blended seamlessly with African
attributes of fertility and maternity. This Levantine renaissance also resulted in other
archaic-style sculptures (e.g. Figs. 2.13 & 2.14) in which Afro-Eurasian syncretism seems
to have led to even more unusual outcomes.

53
3. Concluding remarks

Both types of figurine examined in this paper raise interesting questions about
“authenticity.” The Gudza dolls (Section 1) appear to be genuine tribal objects, but the
lack of documentation in the ethnographic and anthropological literature leaves open the
possibility that they are a recent development, and possibly an innovation – or a
borrowing from southern Africa – made with the primary intention of sale to
Westerners.397,398 One might then expect them to be visible in travellers’ online
photographs of Turkana and Samburu artifacts laid out for sale, which they do not seem
to be. In 1990, Esther Dagan observed that “in Kenya, beautiful dolls of various types can
be found mainly in the markets of Nairobi and Mombasa (Map 2). They are bought by
local women as toys or by tourists as souvenirs.”399At worst, one can imagine a scenario
where all of the Gudza figurines are the work of a single artisan resident in one or other
city who supplies its tourist-oriented galleries with dolls based on an archetype
indigenous to southern Africa.400 However, the crowning of the figurines’ heads with
powdered red ochre (which readily rubs off during transport) and their subsequent
unsightly anointment with white pigment argue against their creation solely as tourist
souvenirs.

Even if the Gudza dolls do prove mainly to be trade items, we should remember that,
in Africa, “the distinction between authentic and commercial or old and new dolls is
blurred and complex.”401 In the words of Dora Ross, “Rigid oppositions of real/fake,
traditional/modern, and old/new are as problematic as the distinction between a doll and a
ritual object in Africa. […] On some of these issues, academic opinion is out of step with
popular belief. […] Regrettably, academia […] all too often passes on the narrow and
distant traditions while the believers pass on the larger and more diverse traditions. And
the newest traditions.”402 In the complex and highly dynamic cultural environment of
Africa, we find that dolls made for sale to tourists can still enjoy ritual use in their
countries of origin,403 and that even mass-produced Western dolls can be incorporated
into ritual practice;404 in other cases, we can find that time has altered the perception and
use of indigenous ritual statuary so that “the outward form has survived whilst the
original meaning has been forgotten – a familiar process in the evolution of material
culture.”405

Irrespective of an African artisan’s motivation for making a traditional doll, their

knowledge of the design and skill in executing it – or flair in adapting it, in the case of
some “re-created dolls” bound for the marketplace – can result in a cultural artifact that
inspires and enchants the viewer, whether fellow citizen or foreign connoisseur.406
Whatever the reason for their creation, the Gudza dolls still conform exquisitely to a
“gender paradox” template that has resurfaced time and again since the Paleolithic era
and is manifest in the fertility dolls innate to a number of African tribal cultures. Their
phallo-feminine chic is a timeless visual pun of deep mythic significance that here has
been executed with grace and style.

The Beta Israel statuary (Section 2) raises even more complex issues. Clearly these
artifacts are not authentically Neolithic, in that they are less than 60 years old, nor are

54
they authentically African, insofar as at least the bird-headed maternity figurine was
almost certainly crafted in Israel. While the “neo-Neolithic” style of pottery was never an
innate expression of Beta Israel, Agaw, Ethiopian or African culture, some of the
resulting pieces do have an undeniable cachet as works of art. One can either marvel at
the un-selfconscious resurrection of ancient motifs and “channelling” of a Neolithic
mind-set in this new and unexpected context, or view the pieces as cautionary examples
of just how easy it is to see signs of the Neolithic goddess in the features and decoration
of any “primitive” pottery figurine, no matter when, where or why it was made.

© Lloyd D. Graham, 2013: Text (excluding quotations), Figs. 1.2-1.5, 1.7, 1.18-1.20, 2.6, 2.10, 2.13-2.14,
& graphic abstract. v08_10.12.19.

Throughout the main text, endnotes that merely provide bibliographic details are given by black superscript
numerals, while those that include additional information or qualifying comments are given by dark red
superscript numerals.

Keywords: Gudza, African fertility doll, terracotta figurine, East African sculpture, phallic Goddess, phallic
female, Amlash, Schroda, bird goddess, Astarte figurine, Samburu, Turkana, Lemba, Venda, domba,
mwana, milayo, nungu, Bantu expansion, lost tribes of Israel, Beta Israel, Falasha, Qemant, Wolleka,
Wollaqa, Tudor Parfitt, Marija Gimbutas, color symbolism, Jungian theory, psi figurine, Baba Yaga, neo-
Neolithic, tribal authenticity, gender studies, thealogy, Swyer Syndrome, Klinefelter Syndrome, soapstone
birds

Cite as: Lloyd D. Graham (2013) “Terracotta fertility figurines of prehistoric Eurasian design from modern
East Africa,” online at
http://www.academia.edu/4685518/Terracotta_fertility_figurines_of_prehistoric_Eurasian_design_from_m
odern_East_Africa

1
In this paper, East Africa will be used to denote not just the sub-region defined by the United Nations but
to include the eastern part of South Africa as well.
2
As there is no single adjective that encapsulates the cultural activities of anatomically modern humans up
to (approximately) the BCE/CE divide, the term “prehistoric” is used in this paper to fulfil this
purpose. In this broader sense, “prehistoric” does not exclude the time periods corresponding to the
European and Near Eastern Bronze and Iron Ages, even though these periods do not predate written
records.
3
Gerald W. Hartwig (1978) “Sculpture in East Africa,” African Arts 11 (4), 62-65.
4
Yvonne Winters (1998) “Mpondo – Did the Mpondo people have dumbbell-shaped dolls? In: Evocations
of the Child: Fertility Figures of the Southern African Region, Johannesburg Art Gallery/Human &
Rousseau, Cape Town, p.193-205.
5
Veliswa Gwintsa (1998) “Double talk – Problems of translation, interviewing and secrecy,” In:
Evocations of the Child: Fertility Figures of the Southern African Region, Johannesburg Art
Gallery/Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, p.29-33.
6
Jean-Marie Dederen (2010) “Women’s power, 1000 A.D.: Figurine art and gender politics in prehistoric
southern Africa,” Nordic Journal of African Studies 19 (1), 23-42, at 29.
7
Elisabeth L. Cameron (1996) “Playing with dolls,” In: Isn't S/He a Doll: Play and Ritual in African
Sculpture, Elisabeth L. Cameron & Doran H. Ross (eds.), UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History,
Los Angeles, p.18-41, at p.20.
8
Gillian M. Morriss-Kay (2010) “The evolution of human artistic creativity,” Journal of Anatomy 216,
158-176.

55
9
Randy P. Conner (2003) “Sexuality and gender in African spiritual traditions,” In: Sexuality and the
World’s Religions, ed. David W. Machacek & Melissa M. Wilcox, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, p.3-30.
10
Turkana Basin Institute, “Time of human origins,” accessed 21 Sep, 2013, online at
http://www.turkanabasin.org/research/paleoanthropology/.
11
For a recent paper with new finds from this species at the same site, see Meave G. Leakey, Fred Spoor,
M. Christopher Dean, Craig S. Feibel, Susan C.Antón, Christopher Kiarie, Louise N. Leakey (2012)
“New fossils from Koobi Fora in northern Kenya confirm taxonomic diversity in early Homo,” Nature
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Dennis O’Neil (2009-2013) “Early human evolution: Homo ergaster and erectus,” online at
http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo/homo_2.htm, accessed 21 Sep, 2013.
13
Talk.Origins Archive, “KNM-WT 40000, Kenyanthropus platyops,” accessed 21 Sep, 2013, online at
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/wt40000.html.
14
C.V. Ward, M.G. Leakey, A. Walker (2001) “Morphology of Australopithecus anamensis from Kanapoi
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BBC Science and Nature – “Mother of man - 3.2 million years ago,” , accessed 21 Sep, 2013, online at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/human/human_evolution/mother_of_man1.shtml.
16
Marija Gimbutas (1999), The Living Goddesses, University of California Press, Berkeley, p.3.
17
Arrows depicting the Bantu expansion are adapted from an image by Mark Dingemanse, released under
the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license. Accessed 1 Oct, 2013, online at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bantu_expansion.png
18
Charles M. Nelson (2008) “Notes on the Jarigole Pillar site,” accessed 21 Sep, 2013, photos online at
http://www.chaz.org/Arch/Turkana/Jarigole/Figurines/Figurines.html.
19
Stanley Ambrose (2001) “East African Neolithic” Encyclopedia of Prehistory, vol. 1 (Africa) Peter N.
Peregrine & Melvin Ember (eds.), Springer, p.97-109, at p.100.
20
Nigel Pavitt (1997) Turkana: Kenya's Nomads of the Jade Sea, Harville/Harper Collins, London, p.11-13.
21
Nigel Pavitt (1991/2006) Samburu, Kyle Cathie, London, p.14
22
Rough Guides, “Samburu-Land,” accessed 21 Sep, 2013, online at
http://www.roughguides.com/destinations/africa/kenya/north/turkana/samburu-land/#ixzz2ULzvsgcY.
23
Pavitt, Samburu, p.13; also Africa Imports, “The Samburu,” accessed 21 Sep, 2013, online at
http://africaimports.com/samburu-people-group.asp.
24
Pavitt, Samburu, p.204-205.
25
From the documentary Umoja, le village interdit aux hommes. Accessed 1 Oct, 2013, image online at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Femme_Samburu_%C3%A0_la_Rose.jpg
26
Accessed 1 Oct, 2013, image online at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_woman_wearing_traditional_tribal_beads_in_Turkana,_K
enya,_October_2012_(8405274783).jpg
27
Pavitt, Samburu, p.197.
28
Pavitt, Samburu, p.70, 99-100, 164 & 174.
29
Pavitt, Samburu.
30
Pavitt, Samburu, p.163-194.
31
Africa Imports, “The Samburu,” online at http://africaimports.com/samburu-people-group.asp, accessed
21 Sep, 2013.
32
Pavitt, Samburu, p.41
33
Pavitt, Turkana.
34
John Lamphear (1988) “The people of the grey bull: The origin and expansion of the Turkana,” Journal
of African History 29 (1), 27–39.
35
Pavitt, Turkana, p.42.
36
Anthony Barrett (1998) Sacrifice and Prophecy in Turkana Cosmology, Paulines Publications Africa,
Nairobi.
37
Pavitt, Turkana, p.111; also Jens Finke (2000-2003), “Turkana – Society,” accessed 21 Sep, 2013, online
at http://www.bluegecko.org/kenya/tribes/turkana/society.htm
38
Pavitt, Samburu, p.14
39
E.D. Emley (1927) “The Turkana of Kolosia District,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of
Great Britain and Ireland 57 (Jan-Jun), 157-201, at 161.

56
40
David McKenzie & Lillian Leposo (2012), “Police: 38 Kenyan officers killed in ambush involving cattle
rustlers,” CNN, Nov 14, online at http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/13/world/africa/kenya-ambush,
accessed 21 Sep, 2013.
41
J. Terrence McCabe (2004) Cattle Bring Us to Our Enemies: Turkana Ecology, Politics, and Raiding in
a Disequilibrium System. Human-environment interactions, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
42
Accessed 28 May, 2013, online at http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-KENYA-SAMBURU-CLAY-DOLLS-
/161005276289?nma=true&si=BoxTNKDV8r7seBSxpmqIAFByQUQ%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc
&_trksid=p2047675.l2557.
43
Piet Lepelaar (2013) “Gudza dolls, Turkana, Kenya,” accessed 21 Sep, 2013, online at
http://www.tribalartfinder.com/product.php?productid=364.
44
Galerie Bruno Mignot, “Poupee cultuelle Gudza - Turkana – Kenya,” online at http://www.bruno-
mignot.com/galeries/poupees/659-poupee-cultuelle-gudza-turkana-kenya.html, accessed 21 Sep, 2013.
45
Online at http://www.tribalartfinder.com, accessed 1 Oct, 2013.
46
Online at http://www.tribalartfinder.com/product.php?productid=364, accessed 1 Oct, 2013.
47
AMICA Library, “Doll (Ngide),” accessed 21 Sep, 2013, online at
http://amica.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/AMICO~1~1~10789~201187:Doll--Ngide-.
48
Elisabeth L. Cameron & Doran H. Ross (eds.) Isn't S/He a Doll: Play and Ritual in African Sculpture,
UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles, p.86-87.
49
Cameron, “Playing with dolls,” p.30.
50
Pavitt, Turkana, p.62; Cameron, “Playing with dolls,” p.31 & 86.
51
Cameron, “Playing with dolls,” p.31.
52
Alan Donovan (1988) “Turkana Functional Art ,” African Arts 21 (3), 44-47.
53
Gallery Ezakwantu (2002-2013) “Phallic Dolls of the Turkana,” In: African Dolls - Fertility Dolls: Child
Figures from Southern Africa, accessed 21 Sep, 2013, online at
http://www.ezakwantu.com/Gallery%20African%20Dolls%20-%20Fertility%20Dolls.htm.
54
Online at http://amica.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/AMICO~1~1~10789~201187:Doll--Ngide-,
accessed 3 Oct, 2013.
55
Accessed 3 Oct, 2013, online at
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?searchText=
turkana&images=true&ILINK|34484,|assetId=494408&objectId=3131635&partId=1.
56
Accessed 3 Oct, 2013, online at
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?searchText=
turkana&images=true&ILINK|34484,|assetId=1088042&objectId=3416717&partId=1
57
E.g. Cameron & Ross (eds.) Isn't S/He a Doll, p.86; Gallery Ezakwantu, “Phallic Dolls of the Turkana.”
58
Encyclopaedica Iranica (2011) “Amlaš (ii) Excavations,” accessed 21 Sep, 2013, online at
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/amlas-a-small-village-in-southeastern-gilan-which-since-1959-
has-given-its-name-to-a-large-assortment-of-archeological-artifacts-derived-from-illegal-clandestine-
exeavations-in-ihe-nearby-valleys-of-the-alborz-range.
59
Online at http://m.bonhams.com/auctions/16777/lot/194/, accessed 3 Oct, 2013.
60
Encyclopaedica Iranica (2012) “Ethiopia,” online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ethiopia,
accessed 21 Sep, 2013.
61
E.g., see Tudor Parfitt (1992/2000) Journey to the Vanished City: the Search for a Lost Tribe of Israel,
2nd ed., Random House, New York, p.336-339.
62
Online at http://www.galerie-puhze.de/4.74+M52087573ab0.0.html, accessed 3 Oct, 2013.
63
Tudor Parfitt (2008) The Lost Ark of the Covenant: Solving the 2,500-Year-Old Mystery of the Fabled
Biblical Ark, HarperOne, New York, p.202 & 228-229. The Yemeni town identified as the most likely
origin of the Lemba forefathers (described later in the main text of this subsection) was populous only
until its dam burst sometime in the 9th-12th centuries CE. If the Lemba exodus had not already
occurred, this event is likely to have served as a trigger.
64
Tudor Parfitt (2013) Black Jews in Africa and the Americas, Harvard University Press, p.x; Parfitt,
Journey to the Vanished City, p.12 & 355. Genetic analyses, however, do not support any connection
between the Lemba and the Beta Israel; see Section 2.2.
65
H.A. Junod (1908) “The Lemba,” Folklore 19 (3), 276-287; Parfitt, Journey to the Vanished City, p.162,
285-315 & 339; see also Shavei Israel “Lemba (Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa),” online at

57
 http://www.shavei.org/category/communities/other_communities/africa/lemba-zimbabwe-malawi-
south-africa/?lang=en, accessed 21 Sep, 2013.
66
Magdel le Roux (2003) The Lemba: A Lost Tribe of Israel in Southern Africa?, UNISA Press, Pretoria;
Parfitt, Journey to the Vanished City.
67
Parfitt, Journey to the Vanished City; Parfitt, The Lost Ark of the Covenant p.228.
68
A. B. Spurdle & T. Jenkins (1996) “The origins of the Lemba ‘Black Jews’ of southern Africa:
Evidence from p12F2 and other Y‐chromosome markers,” American Journal of Human Genetics
59 (5), 1126‐1133; Parfitt, Lost Ark of the Covenant, p.233‐245.
69
K. Skorecki, S. Selig, S. Blazer, R. Bradman, N. Bradman, P.J. Warburton, M Ismajlowicz & M.F.
Hammer (1997) “Y chromosomes of Jewish priests,” Nature 385, 32; M.G. Thomas, K. Skorecki, H.
Ben-Ami, T. Parfitt, N. Bradman & D.B.Goldstein (1998) “Origins of Old Testament priests,” Nature
394, 138-140; M.G. Thomas, T. Parfitt, D.A. Weiss, K. Skorecki, J.F. Wilson, M. le Roux, N.
Bradman & D.B. Goldstein (2000) “Y chromosomes travelling south: The Cohen Modal Haplotype
and the origins of the Lemba – the ‘Black Jews’ of southern Africa,” American Journal of Human
Genetics 66 (2), 674-686.
70
F.L. Mendez, T.M. Karafet, T. Krahn, H. Ostrer, H. Soodyall & M.F. Hammer (2011) “Increased
resolution of Y chromosome haplogroup T defines relationships among populations of the Near
East, Europe, and Africa,” Human Biology 83 (1), 39‐53.
71
Parfitt, The Lost Ark of the Covenant, p.14.
72
Skorecki et al., “Y chromosomes of Jewish priests”; Thomas et al., “Origins of Old Testament priests;”
Thomas et al., “Y chromosomes travelling south;” Parfitt, Journey to the Vanished City, p.349-353.
73
S. Tofanelli, L. Taglioli, S. Bertoncini, P. Francalacci, A. Klyosov, L. Pagani (2014) “Mitochondrial and
Y chromosome haplotype motifs as diagnostic markers of Jewish ancestry: a reconsideration,”
Frontiers in Genetics 5, e384. See also J.E. Ekins, E.N. Tinah, N.M. Myres, K.H. Ritchie, U.A.
Perego, J.B. Ekins, L.A.D. Hutchison, L. Layton, M.L. Lunt, S.S. Masek, A.A. Nelson, M.E. Nelson,
K.L. Pennington, J.L. Peterson, T. Tolley, S.R. Woodward (2005) “An updated world-wide
characterization of the Cohen Modal Haplotype,” American Society of Human Genetics 2005 Meeting,
Salt Lake City, Utah; poster #1045, online at
http://www.smgf.org/resources/papers/ASHG2005_Jayne.pdf, accessed 20 Aug, 2013.
74
Mendez et al., “Increased resolution of Y chromosome haplogroup T.”
75
W.D. Hammond Tooke (1937, reprinted 1974) The Bantu-speaking Peoples of Southern Africa,
Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, p. 81-84 & 115-116.
76
Parfitt, Journey to the Vanished City, p.62
77
John A. Shoup (2011) Ethnic Groups of Africa and the Middle East: An Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO,
Santa Barbara, p.165.
78
Parfitt, Journey to the Vanished City, p.334-341.
79
Parfitt, Journey to the Vanished City, p.330.
80
Eretz Yisroel, “The Jewish kingdoms of Arabia 390-626 CE decimated by the rise of Islam,” online at
http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/arabia.html, accessed 17 Aug, 2013.
81
Marilee Wood (2002) “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,” In: Sculptured in Clay – Iron Age
figurines from Schroda, Limpopo Province, South Africa, J.A. van Schalkwyk & E.O.M. Hanisch
(eds.), National Cultural History Museum, Pretoria, p.81-93 [+frontispiece p.80], at p.92 (note 1).
82
Phallic pre-Columbian Valdivian “Venus” figure, from Ecuador, ca. 3500 - 2000 B.C. Elongated
cylindrical redware pottery figure without arms, with slit eyes and mouth, wearing a head covering
with incised detailing. Artemis Gallery Ancient Art; accessed 23 Jun, 2013, online at
http://www.antiques.com/classified/Antiquities/Ancient-South-America/Antique-Valdivian-
Terracotta-Venus-Figure.
83
Date range 4500-2350 BCE; online at http://www.flickr.com/photos/hongshan_jade/7947268702/ and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hongshan_jade/7947268580/in/photostream/, accessed 23 Jun, 2013.
84
Esther A. Dagan (1990) African Dolls for Play and Magic, Galérie Amrad African Arts, Montreal, p.5
Fig. 3. The reference to Caraya is puzzling, as it does not seem to be the name of a people or a place
of significant size.

58
85
Edwin Hanisch (2002) “Schroda: The archaeological evidence,” In: Sculptured in Clay – Iron Age
figurines from Schroda, Limpopo Province, South Africa, J.A. van Schalkwyk & E.O.M. Hanisch
(eds.), National Cultural History Museum, Pretoria, p.21-39.
86
Roger F. H. Summers (1957) “Human figures in clay and stone from Southern Rhodesia and adjoining
territories,” Occasional Papers of the National Museum of Southern Rhodesia 3 (21A), 61-75.
87
Edward Matenga (1993) Archaeological Figurines from Zimbabwe, [Studies in African Archaeology 5],
Uppsala University, Sweden, and Queen Victoria Museum, Zimbabwe, p.10-11, 16 & 26-33.
88
Edwin Hanisch (2002) “Classification of the Schroda clay figurines,” In: Sculptured in Clay – Iron Age
figurines from Schroda, Limpopo Province, South Africa, J.A. van Schalkwyk & E.O.M. Hanisch
(eds.), National Cultural History Museum, Pretoria, p.47-67, at p.51-52.
89
Matenga, Archaeological Figurines from Zimbabwe, p.13.
90
Hanisch , “Classification of the Schroda clay figurines,” p.51.
91
A. de Mortillet (1906) “Deux curieuses pièces de la grotte du Placard,” Bulletin de la Société
Préhistorique Française 3 (10), 431-434.
92
Jean P. Delcourt & Giovanni F. Scanzi (1987) Potomo Waka – Fionde Lanciapietre Africane del
Popolo Baule, Milanos, Italy. See left hand page of 12th two-page spread, accessed 1 Oct, 2013, online
at http://www.vub.ac.be/BIBLIO/nieuwenhuysen/african-art/african-art-books-1987.html.
93
H. Delporte (1979) L’Image de la Femme dans l’Art Prehistorique, Picard, Paris, p.142.
94
Gimbutas, The Living Goddesses, p.37 Fig. 31.
95
The creation of 2D and 3D art forms de novo has its origins in Africa and this capability predates the
worldwide dispersal (perhaps 125,000 – 60,000 BCE) of anatomically modern humans. Proto-
figurines from the Levant and Morocco attributed to Homo heidelbergensis date from 400,000 –
250,000 BCE, but are modifications of naturally suggestive pieces of stone. European female fertility
carvings or “Venus figurines” date back to at least 35,000-40,000 BCE, as evidenced by a recent find
at Hohle Fels cave in Germany, whose corpulent form has enormous breasts, wide hips, stumpy
(almost conical) legs, and a suspension loop for a head. Morris-Kay, “Evolution of human artistic
creativity.”
96
Other variants are also widespread, e.g. anthropomorphic phallic figurines without any female
characteristics are prevalent in SE Asia.
97
Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,” p.80
98
Persian pottery of the 9-10th century CE has been found as far south as the Bazaruto Archipelago of
Mozambique; see Paul Sinclair (1982) “Chibuene — An early trading site in southern Mozambique,”
Paideuma 28 [From Zinj to Zanzibar: Studies in History, Trade and Society on the Eastern Coast of
Africa], 149-164. Moreover, the Iron Age occupants of Schroda are known to have traded with
Arabic/Islamic traders on the east coast; see Edwin Hanisch (2002) “Schroda: The archaeological
evidence,” p.33.
99
For a map of the network, see Tom Huffman (2002) “Archaeological background,” In: Sculptured in
Clay – Iron Age figurines from Schroda, Limpopo Province, South Africa, J.A. van Schalkwyk &
E.O.M. Hanisch (eds.), National Cultural History Museum, Pretoria, p.9-19, Fig. 6.
100
Brigitte Pakendorf, Koen Bostoen & Cesare de Filippoa (2011) “Molecular perspectives on the Bantu
expansion: A synthesis,” Language Dynamics and Change 1, 50–88.
101
Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,” p.88.
102
Griffin Art Gallery Travelogue, “Part 4 – Samburu National Reserve, Kenya,” online at
http://griffinartgallery.com/wordpress/2011/04/10/part-4-samburu-national-reserve-kenya/, accessed
22 Sep, 2013.
103
Tom Huffman, “Archaeological background,” p.10.
104
David K. Jordan (2013) “The Bantu expansion - An overview for college students,” online at
http://weber.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/resources/clarifications/BantuExpansion.html , accessed 22 Sep,
2013.
105
Summers, “Human figures in clay and stone,” p.73.
106
Note that the East Bantu, with whose expansion we suggest the phallic female template migrated
throughout eastern Africa, hold a patrilineal ideology of procreation and recognize hereditary male
leadership; see Huffman “Archaeological background.” However, eastern Bantu women retain their
own clan name throughout their lives; see Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited.”
107
Dagan, African Dolls for Play and Magic, p.17 Fig. 5 & p.49 Fig. 4.7.

59
108
Friedrich Fülleborn (1906) “Das Deutsche Njassa- und Ruwuma-Gebiet, Land und Leute, nebst
Bemerkungen über die Schire-Länder,” In: Deutsch-Ost Afrika: Das Deutsche Njassa- und Ruwuma-
Gebiet (Atlas), Vol. IX, Dietrich Reimer, Berlin, Table 72, Images 29-31.
109
Wilhelm Waldeyer (1900) “Über die Darstellung der ‘Lebensformen’ bei den Eingeborenen im Süden
der Deutsch-Ostafrikanischen Colonie,” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 32, 511-534, at 531 Fig. 49.
110
Kurt Krieger (1990) Ostafrikanische Plastik, Berlin Museum fur Völkerkunde, Figs. 484-487.
111
Patricia Reis (1986) “The mysteries of creativity: Self-seeding, death and the Great Goddess,”
Psychological Perspectives: A Quarterly Journal of Jungian Thought 17 (1), 11-33, at p.18 & Figs.
1-2.
112
For schematics, see Fig. 13C,D in Duncan Caldwell (2009) “Palaeolithic Whistles or Figurines? A
preliminary survey of pre-historic phalangeal figurines,” Rock Art Research 26 (1), 65-82, at 73; for
photographs, see Randall White (2006) “The women of Brassempouy: A century of research and
interpretation,” Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 13 (4), 251-304.
113
Reviewed by Jane Peterson (2010) “Domesticating gender: Neolithic patterns from the southern
Levant,” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29, 249-264.
114
Peterson “Domesticating gender,” 259 Fig 6.
115
Lynn Meskell & Carolyn Nakamura ÇatalHöyük 2005 Archive Report, accessed 23 Sep, 2013, online at
http://www.catalhoyuk.com/archive_reports/2005/ar05_29.html, first photo, right hand panel.
116
Ellen H. Belcher (2014) Embodiment of the Halaf: Sixth Millennium Figurines from Northern
Mesopotamia, PhD Dissetation, Columbia University, p.446 (Cat. DT11). Thesis online at
https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/download/fedora_content/download/ac:203052/content/Belc
her_columbia_0054D_12386.pdf, accessed 6 Sep, 2019.
117
Marija Gimbutas (1992) Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, University of California Press, Berkeley,
p.152 & p.217; Reis, “The mysteries of creativity,” p.20.
118
Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, p.153-154.
119
Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, p.153.
120
Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, p.220 & Fig. 169.
121
In possible parallels, some Amlash figurines (such as Fig. 1.9) have a vertical dorsal groove; one phallic
female figurine from Schroda has a well-defined dorsal channel highlighted by coloring with red
ochre [Hanisch, “Classification of the Schroda clay figurines,” p.51], and some phallic pendants from
Mashonaland (Zimbabwe) are decorated so as to leave clear a narrow “central channel” [Matenga,
Archaeological Figurines from Zimbabwe, p.72 Fig. 29 (objects 205, 209)].
122
Diane L. Bolger (1992) “The archaeology of fertility and birth: A ritual deposit from Chalcolithic
Cyprus,” Journal of Anthropological Research 48 (2), 145-164, at 149 & Fig. 5 (object KM 1451).
123
Gimbutas, The Living Goddesses, p.206.
124
Stella Richards (2004) “Baba Yaga and the Great Phallic Goddess,” San Francisco Jung Institute
Library Journal 23 (1), 54-66, at 61-62.
125
Diane Bolger (1996) “Figurines, fertility, and the emergence of complex society in prehistoric Cyprus,”
Current Anthropology 37 (2), 365-373, at 369 & Fig. 3.
126
Matenga, Archaeological Figurines from Zimbabwe, p.13.
127
T. N. Huffman (1988) “Southern Africa to the south of the Zambezi,” In: Africa from the Seventh to the
Eleventh Century [Africa from the Seventh to Eleventh Century, vol. 5: General History of Africa],
Muḥammad Fāsī & Ivan Hrbek (eds.), UNESCO, p.665.
128
Hanisch, “Classification of the Schroda clay figurines,” p.51 & 55.
129
Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,” at 88-90.
130
Summers, “Human figures in clay and stone.” Some artifacts are redrawn in Wood, “Poupée de fertilité:
An interview revisited,” p.82-3 Fig 1.
131
Summers, “Human figures in clay and stone,” p.62.
132
Summers, “Human figures in clay and stone,” p.70.
133
There called Bambandyanalo. See Summers, “Human figures in clay and stone,” p.64-65 & 70.
134
Roland A. Oliver & Brian M. Fagan (1975) Africa in the Iron Age: c.500 BC-1400 AD, Cambridge
University Press, p.103-104.
135
Summers, “Human figures in clay and stone,” p.70-71 & 74.
136
Sketch in Summers, “Human figures in clay and stone,” Fig. 3.2.

60
137
Photo in Pierre Roumeguere & Jacqueline Roumeguere-Eberhardt (1960) “Poupées de fertilité et
figurines d’argile. Leurs lois initiatiques,” Journal de la Société des Africanistes 30 (2), 205-223, plate
II C, 2nd from left.
138
For illustrations of six such objects, see Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,” p.89 Fig. 3.
139
Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,” p.91-92
140
Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,” p.90-91. On the other hand, undecorated phallic
stands are in many ways similar to the clay projectiles called ndale which are used by boys in a game
of skill; the ndale are thrown skywards and fall into water, with a particular type of entry into the
water being desired. See K.R. Robinson (1988) “Clay Figurines from South-Western Zimbabwe: A
closer look in the light of recent evidence,” South African Archaeological Bulletin 43 (147), 49-52.
141
Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,” p.88; Matenga, Archaeological Figurines from
Zimbabwe, p.26-33.
142
Matenga, Archaeological Figurines from Zimbabwe, p.26-27.
143
Matenga, Archaeological Figurines from Zimbabwe, p.51, 126 & 144.
144
K.R. Robinson (1988) “Clay Figurines from South-Western Zimbabwe: A closer look in the light of
recent evidence,” South African Archaeological Bulletin 43 (147), 49-52, at Fig. 2.
145
Matenga, Archaeological Figurines from Zimbabwe, p.145-146.
146
S. Terry Childs & David Killick (1993) “Indigenous African metallurgy: Nature and culture,” Annual
Review of Anthropology 22, 317-37, at p.326-327; Emma G. Ross (2002) “The Age of Iron in West
Africa,” In: Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; online
at http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/iron/hd_iron.htm, accessed 25 Sep, 2013.
147
Peter S. Garlake (1973) Great Zimbabwe, Thames & Hudson, London, p.123.
148
Summers, “Human figures in clay and stone,” p.72.
149
M.A. Murray (1934) “Female fertility figures,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great
Britain & Northern Ireland 64, 93-100.
150
Murray, “Female fertility figures.”
151
Jesse Bering (2013) “Apotemnophilia: A cut above the rest (of the sexual deviancies),” Scientific
American blog, 1 Aug, accessed 28 Sep, 2013, online at http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-
mind/2013/08/01/apotemnophilia-a-cut-above-the-rest-of-the-sexual-deviancies/.
152
Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,” p.90.
153
Hanisch , “Classification of the Schroda clay figurines,” p.55.
154
Matenga, Archaeological Figurines from Zimbabwe, p.26.
155
Hanisch , “Classification of the Schroda clay figurines,” p.55, central panels of category H3 figure.
156
Gallery Ezakwantu, “Phallic Dolls of the Turkana.”
157
Dagan, African Dolls for Play and Magic, p.28.
158
See online at http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/artgallery/images/shangaa/108.jpg; photo 38/144 at
http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/artgallery/artist.asp?artist=shangaa&exhibitID=58, accessed 1 Oct, 2013.
159
A composite representation of several examples; Arnulf Stössel (1984) Afrikanische Keramik:
Traditionelle Handwerkskunst Südlich der Sahara, Hirmer, Munich, p.360-361 Figs. 361, 362, 364.
160
Dagan, African Dolls for Play and Magic, p.29.
161
Dagan, African Dolls for Play and Magic, p.42 Fig. 3.1.
162
International Auctioneers [Lempertz, Brussels, 22 Jan, 2013, Lot 166], accessed 25 Sep, 2013, online at
http://www.internationalauctioneers.com/#/lot/show/768718/A_RARE_TERRACOTTA_KISI_FIGU
RE.
163
Waldeyer, “Über die Darstellung der ‘Lebensformen,’” 530-1.
164
Fülleborn, “Das Deutsche Njassa- und Ruwuma-Gebiet,” Vol. IX, Table 72, Images 29-31.
165
Krieger, Ostafrikanische Plastik, Figs. 484-487.
166
Karl-Ferdinand Schädler (1994) Lexikon Afrikanische Kunst und Kultur, Klinkhardt & Biermann,
Munich/Berlin, p. 227.
167
Other online examples are at http://www.tribal-art-auktion.de/en/catalogue181/d10_101/, accessed 25
Sep, 2013.
168
Fülleborn, “Das Deutsche Njassa- und Ruwuma-Gebiet,” Vol. IX, Table 72, Images 29-31.
169
Waldeyer, “Über die Darstellung der ‘Lebensformen,’” 530-531.
170
Arnulf Stössel (1984) Afrikanische Keramik: Traditionelle Handwerkskunst Südlich der Sahara, Hirmer,
Munich, p.360-361 Figs. 361-366.

61
171
Zemanek-Münster, 73rd Tribal Art Auction, lot 86, online at http://www.tribal-art-
auktion.de/en/catalogue181/d10_81/; also http://www.tribal-art-
auktion.de/en/all/search_tanzania/d10_251/, object 3029162; both accessed 25 Sep, 2013.
172
Gary van Wyk (2013) “A Brief History of Tanzania before 1914,” In: Shangaa – Art of Tanzania, Gary
van Wyk (ed.), QCC Art Gallery, City University of New York, p.15-22, at p.20-21 (Fig. A.6).
173
László Vajda (1953) “Zum Religionsethnologischen Hintergrund des ‘Nongo’ in Kilimandscharogebiet,
“ Acta Ethnographica: Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 3 (1-4), 185-232.
174
Kathleen Stahl (1964) History of the Chagga people of Kilimanjaro, Mouton & Co., The Hague.
175
Barbara Thompson (2013) “Transformation in the sacred arts of healing in Northeastern Tanzania,” In:
Shangaa – Art of Tanzania, Gary van Wyk (ed.), QCC Art Gallery, City University of New York,
p.161-185, at p.178-181.
176
H. Cory (1956) African Figurines: Their Ceremonial Use in Puberty Rites in Tanganyika, Faber &
Faber, London, p.20-25 & 34.
177
Cory, African Figurines, p.9-10 & 25.
178
Cory, African Figurines, p.20.
179
Cory, African Figurines.
180
Cory, African Figurines, p.162.
181
Cory, African Figurines, p.97-98 (item 81) & p.162.
182
Cory, African Figurines, p.109 (item 102) & p.165.
183
Cory, African Figurines, p.102 (item 90) & p.163.
184
Cory, African Figurines, p.116-117 (item 113).
185
On sexual and other interpretations of three-legged animals, see Lloyd D. Graham (2011) “Three-legged
animals in mythology and folklore,” accessed 29 Sep, 2013, online at
https://www.academia.edu/444355/Three-Legged_Animals_in_Mythology_and_Folklore.
186
Cory, African Figurines, p.104 (item 93).
187
Cory, African Figurines, p. p.150 (item 163).
188
Cory, African Figurines, p.34.
189
Karen Harber (1998) “Venda and Pedi – Clay initiation figures for the domba and khomba ceremonies,”
In: Evocations of the Child: Fertility Figures of the Southern African Region, Johannesburg Art
Gallery/Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, p.111-117, at p.111
190
Cory, African Figurines, p.147-149 (item 160) & p.90 (item 71).
191
Anitra Nettleton (2002) “Materials, meanings, matano: Venda initiation figures,” In: Sculptured in Clay
– Iron Age figurines from Schroda, Limpopo Province, South Africa, J.A. van Schalkwyk & E.O.M.
Hanisch (eds.), National Cultural History Museum, Pretoria, p.95-111, at 101-102.
192
Cory, African Figurines, p.150 (item 163).
193
Anitra Nettleton (1998) “Musidzana wa tshirova: The girl who has a medicated rod – Gender
ambiguities and the Venda thahu,” In: Evocations of the Child: Fertility Figures of the Southern
African Region, Johannesburg Art Gallery/Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, p.193-205, esp. p.175.
194
Cory, African Figurines, p.106-107 (item 98). “The punished lover returned to the house of his parents
who were very sad. How pleased they would have been with a daughter-in-law, even if she were ugly
as a pig.” The figurine of the bride has a pig-like tail to indicate her unattractiveness.
195
Nettleton, “Materials, meanings, matano,” p.102-103. “Tshingudzini […] is ugly, but he has a large
penis and can produce a lot of sperm. Ugly men help a lot to get girls pregnant. [… Khaku] is much
more handsome than Tshingudzini, but as he has a small penis, he does not produce good sperm and is
useless.”
196
In addition to Cory’s groups in Tanzania, the display figurine/aphorism format is common to other
Bantu peoples, including the Venda and Shona of South Africa and Zimbabwe [Wood, “Poupée de
fertilité: An interview revisited,” p.86], the Bemba of Zambia, and the Cewa of Malawi [Nettleton,
“Materials, meanings, matano,” p.98]
197
Nettleton, “Materials, meanings, matano,” p.97.
198
Cory, African Figurines, p.150-151 (item 163).
199
Cory, African Figurines, p.147-149 (item 160).
200
Cory, African Figurines, p.41-42 (item 4) & p.154. Cory stresses the supreme value and secrecy placed
on this bird-carving by the tribe. Called the ndeghe, the species of bird that it represents is either not
known or too secret to disclose. Cory remarks that it “shows a certain archaic quality as compared

62
 with the other figurines. It looks as if the form of the carving was fixed before the didactic
possibilities of figurines and their use in initiation rites became popular.”
201
Thomas N. Huffman (1985) “The soapstone birds from Great Zimbabwe,” African Arts 18 (3), 68-73.
202
Hanisch , “Classification of the Schroda clay figurines,” p.62-64 (category B1-B4), also close-up large
frontispiece, p.46.
203
Harber, “Venda and Pedi – Clay initiation figures,” p.111.
204
Zimtastic, “So what in the world is ‘gudza,’” Jacaranda Stories, accessed 25 Sep, 2013, online at
http://jacarandastories.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/so-what-in-world-is-gudza.html.
205
Dederen, “Women’s power, 1000 A.D.,” 25-26.
206
Marilee Wood (1998) “The sorghum child – Nguana modula: South Sotho child figures,” In: Evocations
of the Child: Fertility Figures of the Southern African Region, Johannesburg Art Gallery/Human &
Rousseau, Cape Town, p.35-51, at p.43 & SSFig. 3.
207
Roumeguere & Roumeguere-Eberhardt, “Poupées de fertilité et figurines d'argile,” Plate IIA.
208
Sketch in Summers, “Human figures in clay and stone,” Fig. 2.2; redrawn in Wood, “Poupée de fertilité:
An interview revisited,” p.83 Fig.1f.
209
Harber, “Venda and Pedi – Clay initiation figures,” p.112-113.
210
Nettleton, “Materials, meanings, matano,” p.100 & 110.
211
Subia clay figurines may be children’s toys or used for instruction during initiation; see Summers,
“Human figures in clay and stone,” 69.
212
Roumeguere & Roumeguere-Eberhardt, “Poupées de fertilité et figurines d'argile,” Plate IIB.
213
Frank Jolles (1998) “Children of Earth – Zulu clay dolls,” In: Evocations of the Child: Fertility Figures
of the Southern African Region, Johannesburg Art Gallery/Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, p.99-109,
esp. photos C/ZU Ill. 1 & C/ZU Fig. 1.
214
Gallery Ezakwantu, “Ba Tonka Clay Dolls,” In: African Dolls - Fertility Dolls: Child Figures from
Southern Africa, accessed 21 Sep, 2013, online at
http://www.ezakwantu.com/Gallery%20African%20Dolls%20-%20Fertility%20Dolls.htm.
215
Roumeguere & Roumeguere-Eberhardt, “Poupées de fertilité et figurines d'argile,” 220 & Plate IIA.
216
Nettleton, “Materials, meanings, matano,” p.95 & 97-98.
217
Accessed 1 May, 2013, online at http://www.comune.milano.it/craai.
218
Accessed 1Oct, 2013, online at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raccolte_Extraeuropee_-
_Passar%C3%A9_00272_-_Statua_Zaramo_-_Tanzania.jpg and
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raccolte_Extraeuropee_-_Passar%C3%A9_00271_-
_Statua_Zaramo_-_Tanzania.jpg
219
Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,” p.84.
220
Rayda Becker (1998) “‘Ku veleka vukosi…’ To bear children is wealth… – Tsonga figures,” In:
Evocations of the Child: Fertility Figures of the Southern African Region, Johannesburg Art
Gallery/Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, p.119-129, at p.121 & 99; Cameron & Ross (eds.) Isn't
S/He a Doll, p.95.
221
Normally the figurative clay dolls that form the matano (“exhibits”) for the Venda domba (the initiatory
show-and-tell ceremony) are unfired; these private artifacts instruct female initiates in the sexual
functions of the body, and are thrown back into the river after use [Harber, “Venda and Pedi – Clay
initiation figures,” p.111]. Since these are typically abstract forms with phallic heads and exaggerated
genitalia/breasts/buttocks [Nettleton, “Materials, meanings, matano,” p.101], they seem to overlap
with the fired-clay mwana mentioned by the Roumegueres and discussed in Section 1.9. It is possible
that, in the past, some statuettes related to domba figurines were fired [Nettleton, “Materials,
meanings, matano,” p.97-100]. The recent Venda doll whose outline is shown in Fig.1.16c, and which
is fired and painted, is described as a domba figurine [Harber, “Venda and Pedi – Clay initiation
figures,” p.113] because the person who made it – Lemba woman Phophi Malingana – said she had
previously made similar figurines for domba, although this remains uncorroborated [Nettleton,
“Materials, meanings, matano,” p.100 & 110]. Nowadays, the same woman makes fired-clay figurines
of a more naturalistic appearance, and wearing Western dress, for sale on the souvenir and fine art
market [Nettleton, “Materials, meanings, matano,” p.100-101, and Harber, “Venda and Pedi – Clay
initiation figures,” p.112-113 & CL/NO Figs. 7 & 9].
222
Marc L. Felix (1990) Mwana Hiti, Fred Jahn, Munich; Cameron & Ross (eds.) Isn't S/He a Doll, p.29 &
91.

63
223
Cameron & Ross (eds.) Isn't S/He a Doll, p.82-83.
224
Cameron & Ross (eds.) Isn't S/He a Doll, p.95.
225
Elizabeth Dell (1998) “Introduction,” In: Evocations of the Child: Fertility Figures of the Southern
African Region, Johannesburg Art Gallery/Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, p.17.
226
Becker, “‘Ku veleka vukosi…’ To bear children is wealth… – Tsonga figures,” p.119-129.
227
Wood, “The sorghum child,” p.46 SSFig. 6.
228
Cameron & Ross (eds.) Isn't S/He a Doll, p.89.
229
Esther A. Dagan (1987) Man and His Vision – The Traditional Wood Sculpture of Burkina Faso,
Galerie Amrad, Montreal, p.55.
230
Caldwell, “Palaeolithic Whistles or Figurines?,” 65-68.
231
Caldwell, “Palaeolithic Whistles or Figurines?,” 71-72.
232
Caldwell, “Palaeolithic Whistles or Figurines?,” Fig. 2B.
233
Caldwell, “Palaeolithic Whistles or Figurines?,” 68-70.
234
Caldwell, “Palaeolithic Whistles or Figurines?,” 69.
235
Cameron & Ross (eds.) Isn't S/He a Doll, p.62.
236
Dagan, African Dolls for Play and Magic, p.96 Fig. 1.
237
A. Tiérou (1992) Dooplé, the Eternal Law of African Dance, Harwood Academic, Chur, Switzerland.
238
Herbert E. Roese (2000) “Interpreting African sculpture,” accessed 26 Sep, 2013, online at
http://www.afrosculptures.250x.com/africa3.htm.
239
Gary O. Rollefson (2011) “Review of Sha’ar Hagolan 3 by Garfinkel et al.,” Bulletin of the American
Schools of Oriental Research No. 364, 87-90.
240
G. Elliot Smith (2003) The Evolution of the Dragon, Kessinger Publishing (reprint of book published in
1919), p.26-59 & 142-227.
241
Dagan, African Dolls for Play and Magic, p.5 Fig. 3 legend.
242
Caldwell, “Palaeolithic Whistles or Figurines?,” 71-73.
243
Cory, African Figurines, p.147 (item 160).
244
Cameron & Ross (eds.) Isn't S/He a Doll, p.32.
245
Elisabeth L. Cameron (1997) “In search of children: Dolls and agency in Africa,” African Arts 30 (2),
18-33, at 32-33 & Figs. 20-22.
246
Dederen, “Women’s power, 1000 A.D.,” 26.
247
Roese, “Interpreting African sculpture.” In the early differentiation of fertility figures into three
categories (Universal Mother – Isis type, Divine Woman desired by men – Ishtar type, or personified
female genitalia – Baubo type), the attributes of youth place the figurines in the Ishtar group. See
Murray, “Female fertility figures.”
248
Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,” p.85.
249
Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,” p.85.
250
Dederen, “Women’s power, 1000 A.D.,” 27 & 35.
251
Richards, “Baba Yaga and the Great Phallic Goddess,” 61.
252
Marija Gimbutas (1991) The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe, HarperCollins, New
York, p.231 & 269-275; Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, p.54-55.
253
Marija Gimbutas, The Civilization of the Goddess, p.231 & 272.
254
Marija Gimbutas, The Civilization of the Goddess, Fig. 7·77.
255
Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, p.120 Fig. 83-84.
256
Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, p.272 Fig. 130.
257
Matenga, Archaeological Figurines from Zimbabwe, p.33.
258
Waldeyer, “Über die Darstellung der ‘Lebensformen,’” 530-531.
259
Johan van Schalkwyk (2002) “Metaphors and meanings: Contextualizing the Schroda clay figurines,” In:
Sculptured in Clay – Iron Age figurines from Schroda, Limpopo Province, South Africa, J.A. van
Schalkwyk & E.O.M. Hanisch (eds.), National Cultural History Museum, Pretoria, p.69-79, at 75-78.
260
Nettleton, “Materials, meanings, matano,” p.109.
261
Victor W. Turner (1967) The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual, Cornell University Press,
New York, p.66 & 88-89.
262
Vincent Mazel, Vincent Richardin (2006) “Patines de la statuaire dogon: première approche analytique,”
Technè: La Science au Service de l'Histoire de l'Art et des Civilisations 23, 69-73.
263
Gimbutas, The Living Goddesses, p.58.

64
264
Gary van Wyk (1998) “Fertile flowers of femininity – South Sotho fertility figures,” In: Evocations of
the Child: Fertility Figures of the Southern African Region, Johannesburg Art Gallery/Human &
Rousseau, Cape Town, p.53-67, at p.61.
265
Dell, “Introduction,” p.17; Nettleton, “Musidzana wa tshirova: The girl who has a medicated rod,”
p.175
266
Karel Nel & Nessa Liebhammer (1998) “Evocations of the child,” In: Evocations of the Child: Fertility
Figures of the Southern African Region, Johannesburg Art Gallery/Human & Rousseau, Cape Town,
p.219-231, at p.226.
267
Nel & Liebhammer “Evocations of the child,” p.225.
268
“Ornamentation and dress,” accessed 30 Sep, 2013, online at
http://www.sslmit.units.it/crevatin/Documenti/Turkana/tesi/ORNAMENTATION%20AND%20DRE
SS.htm.
269
Metropolis TV transcript, accessed 30 Sep, 2013, online at
http://www.metropolistv.nl/data/XML_VIDEO/breasts-kenya-en(2).xml
270
Pavitt, Samburu.
271
Kwekudee (2012) “Trip down memory lane – The Samburu people: Kenya’s traditionally flamboyant
“Butterfly Dancing Tribe,” 20 Dec, accessed 1 Oct, 2013, online at http://kwekudee-
tripdownmemorylane.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/the-samburu-people-kenyas-traditionally.html
272
Pavitt, Samburu, p.192.
273
Tepilit Ole Saitoti & Carol Beckwith (1991) Maasai, Harvill/HarperCollins, London.
274
Nor does the ochred coiffure of the Gudza dolls closely resemble the hairstyle of women from any other
African group in the region. On a related note, other African groups do produce dolls with red coiffure;
for example, the Tonga/Yao peoples of Zimbabwe make a three-lobed doll from a gourd and adorn the
hair region of the peanut-shaped figure with a dense covering of scarlet seeds. See Cameron & Ross
(eds.) Isn't S/He a Doll, p.94; Karel Nel (1998) “Tonga child figures – the protogenic forms of the
Tonga child figures,” In: Evocations of the Child: Fertility Figures of the Southern African Region,
Johannesburg Art Gallery/Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, p.181-185, at p.182-3.
275
Peter Schmidt (1998) “Reading gender in the ancient iron technology of Africa,” In: Gender in African
Prehistory, S. Kent (ed.), AltaMira, CA, p.139-162, at p.150 & 158.
276
Maria Mina (2008) “Figurin’ out Cretan Neolithic society: Anthropomorphic figurines, symbolism and
gender dialectics,” In: V. Isaakidou & P. Tomkins (eds.), Escaping the Labyrinth: The Cretan
Neolithic in Context [Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology 8], Oxbow, Oxford, p.115-135, at
p.126.
277
Roslyn A. Walker (2009) The Arts of Africa at the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art/Yale
University Press, New Haven & London, p.172.
278
Nettleton, “Materials, meanings, matano,” p.109.
279
van Schalkwyk, “Metaphors and meanings,” p.75.
280
Nettleton, “Materials, meanings, matano,” p.104; similarly, p.107.
281
Singular of milayo.
282
Dederen, “Women’s power, 1000 A.D.,” 29.
283
Nettleton, “Musidzana wa tshirova: The girl who has a medicated rod,” p.175.
284
Pavitt, Samburu, p.90-91.
285
Saitoti & Beckwith, Maasai, p.241-242.
286
Aluka Digital Library, “Maasai warrior with white chalk paste called ‘enturoto’ painted on his body,
Kenya,” accessed 30 Sep, 2013, online at
http://www.aluka.org/action/showContentImage?doi=10.5555/AL.CH.DOCUMENT.BFACP1B1003
2
287
Nettleton, “Materials, meanings, matano,” p.110 note 35.
288
Rand African Art (2004-2013) “Yombe maternity figure - Pfemba or Phemba,” online at
http://www.randafricanart.com/Yombe_maternity_figure_examples.html, accessed 30 Sep, 2013.
289
Nelson, “Notes on the Jarigole Pillar site,” jackal/dog/badger head and bird head.
290
Carla Weber, Hunter Gather, Los Angeles, http://www.etsy.com/au/shop/huntergathererbiz; sales
description for dolls in Fig. 1.2 & 1.3, online at http://www.etsy.com/listing/127837007/african-clay-
dollsculptures, accessed 3 May, 2013.
291
Reis, “The mysteries of creativity.”

65
292
Stella Richards (2005) “Stella Richards responds to Peter Tatham,” San Francisco Jung Institute Library
Journal 24 (1), pp. 13-16.
293
Stella Richards, “Baba Yaga and the Great Phallic Goddess,” p.59.
294
Stella Richards, “Baba Yaga and the Great Phallic Goddess,” p.59. Other interpretations of circumcision
are of course possible. For example, some propose that the attendant blood-letting is a symbolic male
equivalent of the first menstrual period, similarly marking the end of childhood; see Rosemary
Romberg (1985) Circumcision – The Painful Dilemma, Bergin & Garvey, Massachusetts, p.10.
295
K.C. Knower, S. Kelly & V.R. Harley (2003) “Turning on the male – SRY, SOX9 and sex
determination in mammals,” Cytogenetic & Genome Research 101 (3-4), 185-198.
296
D. Denschlag, T. Clemens, M. Kunze, G. Wolff & C. Keck (2004) “Assisted reproductive techniques in
patients with Klinefelter syndrome: A critical review,” Fertility and Sterility 82 (4), 775-779.
297
Y.-S. Chen, J.D. Racca, N.B. Phillips & M.A. Weissa (2013) “Inherited human sex reversal due to
impaired nucleocytoplasmic trafficking of SRY defines a male transcriptional threshold,” Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences USA, epublished ahead of print September 3, 2013, accessed 1
Oct, 2013, doi:10.1073/pnas.1300828110.
298
Chen et al., “Inherited human sex reversal.”
299
Dederen, “Women’s power, 1000 A.D.,” 36-37.
300
Cameron & Ross (eds.) Isn't S/He a Doll, p.95; Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,”
p.84.
301
Cameron & Ross (eds.) Isn't S/He a Doll, p.95; Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,”
p.84.
302
Pierre Roumeguere and Jacqueline Roumeguere-Eberhardt (1962) “Human clay figurines and fertility
dolls: their initiatic laws,” Proceedings of the 1st International Congress of African Culture, The
National Gallery, Salisbury, Rhodesia [now Harare, Zimbabwe]; Roumeguere & Roumeguere-
Eberhardt, “Poupées de fertilité et figurines d'argile;” Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview
revisited,” p.84-86; Cameron & Ross (eds.) Isn't S/He a Doll, p.95.
303
Roumeguere & Roumeguere-Eberhardt, “Poupées de fertilité et figurines d'argile,” 220; Wood, “Poupée
de fertilité: An interview revisited,” p.86.
304
Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,” p.86.
305
E.g., Gimbutas, The Living Goddesses, p.6-8 & p.44-45.
306
Wood, “Poupée de fertilité: An interview revisited,” p.87.
307
Gimbutas, The Living Goddesses, p.3-54.
308
Nikos Chausidis (2012) “Mythical Representations of ‘Mother Earth’ in Pictorial Media,” In:
Archaeology of Mother Earth Sites and Sanctuaries through the Ages – Rethinking Symbols and
Images, Art and Artefacts from History and Prehistory, BAR International Series 2389, Archaeopress,
Oxford, p.5-19, at p.13. Copy (accessed 1 Oct, 2013) available online at
http://www.academia.edu/3086116/Mythical_Representations_of_Mother_Earth_in_Pictorial_Media
309
Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, p.132; Gimbutas, The Living Goddesses, p.14.
310
Another archetypal embodiment of the Neolithic goddess takes the form of a snake [Gimbutas, The
Living Goddesses, p.14-15]. Rightly or wrongly, one can readily perceive parallels between the
snake-adorned vessels and chimeric snake-human figurines of Old Europe and the snake-laden vessels
and figurines from the Djenné-Djéno civilization in Mali, West Africa, ca. 750-1000 CE [e.g., Karl-
Ferdinand Schaedler (1997) Earth and Ore: 2500 Years of African Art in Terra-cotta and Metal, trans.
G.P. Burwell, Panterra/Minerva, Munich, p.52-53].
311
A pair of wooden dolls fitting this description was sold at the Zemanek-Münster 67th Tribal Art Auction,
2011, Lot 471; online at http://www.tribal-art-auktion.de/en/catalogue175/d10_471/, accessed 1 Oct,
2013.
312
British Museum, accessed 03 Oct, 2013, online at
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?assetId=936
400&objectId=224686&partId=1
313
Musée du Louvre, accessed 03 Oct, 2013, online at
http://cartelen.louvre.fr/cartelen/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=19533&langue=en.
314
Musée du Louvre, accessed 03 Oct, 2013, online at
http://cartelen.louvre.fr/cartelen/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=19582&langue=en.

66
315
British Museum, accessed 03 Oct, 2013, online at
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=41
7408&partId=1&searchText=bird+goddess&images=true&page=1.
316
British Museum, accessed 03 Oct, 2013, online at
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=31
5029&partId=1&searchText=hittite&images=true&page=2
317
In relation to the bird-goddess, the term Neolithic will be taken in this paper to include subsequent
Bronze Age and Iron Age figurines that are modelled on the Neolithic template.
318
Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, p.137-142; Gimbutas, The Living Goddesses, p.6-7.
319
Interestingly, a not dissimilar clay figurine (in terms of grooved hairstyle, beaked nose, sideways-facing
eyes and long pendulous breasts) was used in the early 20th century CE to depict a pregnant woman
for Shambaa female initiation rites in Tanzania. See Cory, African Figurines, p.61 (item 32) & p.157.
320
Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, p.137
321
Frederick C. Gamst (1969) The Qemant: A Pagan-Hebraic Peasantry of Ethiopia [Case Studies in
Cultural Anthropology], Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York.
322
Gamst, The Qemant, p.54
323
Gamst, The Qemant, p.53
324
Rita Pankhurst & Richard Pankhurst (2004) “Ethiopian figurines from Mugar Monastery in Shawa,”
African Arts 37 (3), 42-47 & 90.
325
Otto F.A. Meinardus (1966) “Fruchtbarkeitsidole der Abessinischen Juden (Falaschas),” Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie 91 (1), 127-130.
326
E.g., Gérard Lucotte & Pierre Smets (1999) “Origins of Falasha Jews studied by haplotypes of the Y
chromosome,” Human Biology 71 (6), 989-993.
327
Behar, Doron M.; B. Yunusbayev, M. Metspalu, E. Metspalu, S. Rosset, J. Parik, S. Rootsi, G. Chaubey,
I. Kutuev, G. Yudkovsky, E.K. Khusnutdinova, O. Balanovsky, O. Semino, L. Pereira, D. Comas, D.
Gurwitz, B. Bonne-Tamir, T. Parfitt, M.F. Hammer, K. Skorecki, R. Villems (2010) “The genome-
wide structure of the Jewish people,” Nature 466 (7303), 238-242.
328
C.L. Campbell, P.F. Palamara, M. Dubrovsky, L.R. Botigué, M. Fellous, G. Atzmon, C. Oddoux, A.
Pearlman, L. Hao, B.M. Henn, E. Burns, C.D. Bustamante, D. Comas, E. Friedman, I. Pe'er, H. Ostrer
(2012) “North African Jewish and non-Jewish populations form distinctive, orthogonal clusters,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109 (34), 13865-13870.
329
Harry Ostrer & Karl Skorecki (2013) “The population genetics of the Jewish people,” Human Genetics
132 (2), 119-127.
330
Steven Kaplan & Chaim Rosen (1996) “Created in their own image: A comment on Beta Israel
figurines,” Cahiers d'Études Africaines 36 (141/142), 171-182.
331
Steven Kaplan (1992) The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia: From Earliest Times to the Twentieth
Century, New York University Press, NY & London.
332
Parfitt, The Lost Ark of the Covenant, p.247-248.
333
Gamst, The Qemant, p.11.
334
Kaplan, The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia.
335
A. Kitchen, C. Ehret, S. Assefa, C.J. Mulligan (2009) “Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Semitic
languages identifies an Early Bronze Age origin of Semitic in the Near East,” Proceedings of the
Royal Society B 276 (1668), 2703-2710.
336
Kitchen et al., “Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Semitic languages.”
337
Gamst, The Qemant, p.12.
338
Behar et al., “The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people.” Interestingly, the Beta Israel (who until
recently spoke Cushitic languages) cluster with the Semitic language-speaking groups from their
region rather than with the dominant Cushitic language group in Ethiopia, whose heartland lies further
south.
339
Gamst, The Qemant, p.12.
340
Brooklyn Museum, accessed 03 Oct, 2013, online at
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/4225/Female_Figure/set/0fc43bbf38780c1ee
b176b99bf37acdd?referring-q=bird+goddess+egypt
341
Cone-faced male figurines from the same period of Egyptian prehistory (ca. 3500 BCE) are also known,
some of which have curved raised arms. Currently, the academic trend is to interpret all such figures

67
 as human celebrants, for whom the “beak” may be an exaggerated nose (symbolic of the breath of
life). Diana Craig Patch (2011) “The human figure,” In: Dawn of Egyptian Art, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, p.97-136, at p.113 & p.128-130.
342
Archived online at http://gchess.bizland.com/Bird%20research%20III.htm, accessed 1 Oct, 2013.
343
Michael Everson (1987) “Predynastic goddess figurines and the Old European Bird Goddess,” accessed
09 May, 2016, online at http://www.evertype.com/misc/egyptgoddess.html.
344
Figurines related to the Egyptian “bird-women” have in fact been found to the south in Nubia. Patch
(2011), “The human figure,” p.112.
345
Gamst, The Qemant, p.11.
346
David Frankfurter (2015) “Female figurines in early Christian Egypt: Reconstructing lost practices and
meanings,” Material Religion 11 (2), 190-223, at Fig. 8b.
347
Shortly before the Peace Corps came to Gondar, Marjorie G. Paul (a USAID nurse/instructor at the
Gondar Health College) had encouraged the Falasha women potters at an unnamed village a few
kilometres north of Gondar (and thus close to Wolleka) to make small animal sculptures to sell to
tourists who regularly visited Gondar [Richard Lyman (2012) “Peace Corps Diary: Ethiopia 1962-
1964, Part 5,” International Policy Digest, 22 Jan, accessed 20 May, 2013, online at
http://www.internationalpolicydigest.org/2012/01/22/peace-corps-diary-ethiopia-1962-1964-part-5/].
Marjorie’s records of her aid work overseas are housed at the University of Utah, USA [accessed 20
May, 2013, see online at http://uda-db.orbiscascade.org/findaid/ark:/80444/xv78152].
348
Kaplan & Rosen, “Created in their own image,” 173.
349
Some older Wolleka potters claim that there was an earlier precedent for this in the 1930s, where one or
more foreigners (presumably Italians, given the era) showed them small sculptures which they asked
them to replicate. As the tourist trade grew, the potters stopped working on a commission basis and
began to produce figurines in advance for sale to souvenir-hungry visitors. See Frederick C. Gamst &
Maximilian C. Baldia (1980) “Uber die sogenannten ‘Fruchtbarkeitsidole’ der Falascha von
Abessinien,” Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie 105 (1/2), 134-145.
350
Gamst & Baldia, “Uber die sogenannten ‘Fruchtbarkeitsidole’ der Falascha.”
351
Frederick C. Gamst (1992) “Zur zufälligkeit der entstehung neuer kunststile: Ergänzungen zum aufsatz
über die sogenannten ‘Fruchtbarkeitsidole’ der Falascha von Abessinien,” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie
117, 117-118.
352
Simon D. Messing (1982) The Story of the Falashas: “Black Jews” of Ethiopia, Balshon, Brooklyn,
p.30; Gamst, “Zur zufälligkeit der entstehung neuer kunststile.”
353
Dr. Daniel Harel and his wife Vered made Falasha handicraft items available to the large foreign
community in Gondar in order to help finance the school in a village named Ambover [Richard
Lyman (2012) “Peace Corps Diary: Ethiopia 1962-1964, Part 5,” accessed 1 Oct, 2013, online at
http://www.internationalpolicydigest.org/2012/01/22/peace-corps-diary-ethiopia-1962-1964-part-5/]
Numerous Neolithic-style statuettes are visible in Dr. Vered Harel’s short documentary film Falasha
62, with a still image from the 1960s at 14m33s and some examples still in Vered’s possession shown
at 14m49s. The movie was published online in 2012 by Nadav Harel, available at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXllI0-SD60, accessed 1 Oct, 2013.
354
Meinardus cites locations including Quara, Dagossa, Dembea, Belesa, Begemeder, Woggera,
Armatschoho, Wolkait and West of Lake Tana [Meinardus, “Fruchtbarkeitsidole der Abessinischen
Juden”], but Gamst & Baldia deny that the figurines were produced outside of Wolleka [Gamst &
Baldia, “Uber die sogenannten ‘Fruchtbarkeitsidole’ der Falascha”].
355
Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, p.137 and Plates 124 & 131. Gimbutas interprets the
grooves as channels to accommodate necklaces.
356
For an 8th century BCE terracotta goddess from southern Italy with such a neck, see online at
http://www.museumfrancavilla.com/index.php?module=9&action=showProduct&groupID=18&produ
ctID=79&lang=en, accessed 1 Oct, 2013.
357
As remarked by Gamst & Baldia [Gamst & Baldia, “Uber die sogenannten ‘Fruchtbarkeitsidole’ der
Falascha”] multiple neck-rings feature prominently in Akan figurines from Ghana, West Africa [e.g.,
Schaedler, Earth and Ore, p.176-179 & 186], including the well-known akua’ba fertility doll, and in
figurines from other African cultures such as the Dan and Ashanti, as well as in the Benin bronzes.
While the grooves of the akua’ba may depict metal neck-coils [e.g., accessed 1 Oct, 2013, online at
http://imagesearch.library.illinois.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/tdc&CISOPTR=1134], it

68
 is now thought more likely that they represent rings of fat associated with a good nutritional status
[e.g., online at http://uima.uiowa.edu/ghana-asante-peoples/ and
http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/50004860, accessed 1 Oct, 2013].
358
Some figures in the 1996 Negev Museum of Art exhibition were similarly attired; Galia Gavish (2012)
“The Sheba Connection” [PowerPoint slide show], accessed 1 Oct, 2013, online at
http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=%22The%20Sheba%20Connection%22%20museum%
20negev&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.icom.org.il
%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2F%25E2%2580%258F%25E2%2580%258FTHE%2520SHEBA%25
20CONNECTION.ppt&ei=0VmZUcH-
BKuviQfe6IGADw&usg=AFQjCNH92H3xW7Du4EbbRSpp5y9cSkRsgg&bvm=bv.46751780,d.aGc
359
Meinardus, “Fruchtbarkeitsidole der Abessinischen Juden.”
360
Kaplan & Rosen, “Created in their own image,” 173.
361
Gamst & Baldia, “Uber die sogenannten ‘Fruchtbarkeitsidole’ der Falascha.”
362
Meinardus, “Fruchtbarkeitsidole der Abessinischen Juden.”
363
M. Schoenberger (1975) The Falasha of Ethiopia: An Ethnographic Study, Cambridge University M.A.
dissertation), p.132-136; Gamst & Baldia, “Uber die sogenannten ‘Fruchtbarkeitsidole’ der Falascha;”
Gamst, “Zur zufälligkeit der entstehung neuer kunststile.”
364
British Museum, accessed 03 Oct, 2013, online at
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image
_gallery.aspx?assetId=54283&objectId=585380&partId=1.
365
British Museum, accessed 03 Oct, 2013, online at
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image
_gallery.aspx?assetId=54306&objectId=584489&partId=1.
366
British Museum, accessed 03 Oct, 2013, online at
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image
_gallery.aspx?assetId=54310&objectId=584491&partId=1.
367
Kaplan & Rosen, “Created in their own image,” 175.
368
Cited in Kaplan & Rosen, “Created in their own image,” 175.
369
Galia Gavish (1993) “The Sheba Connection: Traditional Artistic Ethiopian Ceramics and Pottery with
Parallel Objects Found in Archaeological Digs in Israel as Displayed in the Negev Museum, Beer
Sheva,” Negev Museum, Israel.
370
Gavish (2012) “The Sheba Connection” [PowerPoint].
371
Gavish (2012) “The Sheba Connection,” In: Commodifying Culture? Cultural Villages and Living
Museums, Abstracts of the ICME-ICOM Annual Meeting, Windhoek, Namibia, 12-14 Sep.
372
Gavish (2012) “The Sheba Connection” [PowerPoint].
373
The colour range was reported in Gamst & Baldia, “Uber die sogenannten ‘Fruchtbarkeitsidole’ der
Falascha.”
374
Gamst & Baldia comment at length on the crudeness of the Wolleka figurines relative to contemporary
West African sculptures [Gamst & Baldia, “Uber die sogenannten ‘Fruchtbarkeitsidole’ der
Falascha”].
375
Meinardus, “Fruchtbarkeitsidole der Abessinischen Juden.” The Beta Israel village of Wolleka, where
“fertility idol” production began, is adjacent to the Qemant town of Karkar [Gamst & Baldia, “Uber
die sogenannten ‘Fruchtbarkeitsidole’ der Falascha”].
376
Steven Kaplan (1992) “Indigenous categories and the study of world religions in Ethiopia: The case of
the Beta Israel (Falasha),” Journal of Religion in Africa 22 (3), 208-221.
377
Frederick C. Gamst (1995) “The Ark of the Covenant in Africa,” American Anthropologist 97 (2), 361-
362.
378
Gavish (2012) “The Sheba Connection” [Abstract].
379
In relation to the 1996 exhibition of the Beta Israel potters’ craft at the Negev Museum, curator Galia
Gavish writes “One very important result that followed [the exhibition] was that people started to buy
their products. The whole community was so proud of their traditions and that they were shown to
all.” Gavish (2012) “The Sheba Connection” [Abstract].
380
The placement of the tiny terracotta infant is reminiscent of that seen in the watoto wa udongo or
“earthen children” figurines of the Tabwa people (Dem. Rep. Congo), about half of whom have a

69
 baby tucked into their wrappers, typically at the back. See Cameron, “In search of children,” p.30 &
Fig. 5; Cameron & Ross (eds.) Isn't S/He a Doll, p.84 & Fig. 111.
381
Gimbutas, The Civilization of the Goddess, p.269-273; Figs. 7-69, 7-70 & 7-78.
382
Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, p.142.
383
Gimbutas, The Living Goddesses, p.29-30.
384
Online at www.sheelanagig.org, accessed 04 Oct, 2013.
385
Online at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SheelaWiki.jpg, accessed 04 Oct, 2013.
386
Compare also Fig. 2.13 with the caterpillar-like figurines of the Tanzanian Chaga (Section 1.7.2, Fig.
1.14).
387
Compare, for example, with the six-pointed multi-pointed phallus (Category P1) of Iron Age Schroda,
South Africa, a site discussed in Section 1.5.1 & 1.6.2; Hanisch, “Classification of the Schroda clay
figurines,” p.66. Compare also with Matenga, Archaeological Figurines from Zimbabwe , p.45 Fig. 18
(object 40).
388
Gimbutas, The Living Goddesses, p.14, 81, 86, Fig. 75 & Plate 87.
389
Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, p.118 & Plates 78-79, 82 & 90; Gimbutas, The
Civilization of the Goddess, p.230-231.
390
Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, p.117, Fig. 78-81.
391
Carl G. Liungman (1991) Dictionary of Symbols, W.W. Norton & Co., New York & London, p.328-329.
392
Cf. Gimbutas, The Living Goddesses, p.27-30.
393
E.g., see W. Hommel (2007) “Mycenaean Terracotta Figurines,” accessed 2 Oct, 2013, online at
http://suite101.com/article/mycenaean-terracotta-figurines-a19381
394
Some Zulu fired clay dolls of women, of a pre-1960 type, also wear a large flattened head-dress, which
– in contrast to the convex Beta Israel headgear – is either flat (for married women) or concave (for
mature but unmarried girls) [Jolles, “Children of Earth – Zulu clay dolls,” p.104-106 & C/ZU Figs. 8
& 10]. Pedi/North Sotho (South African) figurines of females for the khomba ceremony can also have
a large flat hairstyle [Harber, “Venda and Pedi – Clay initiation figures,” p.115, CL/NO Fig. 8 &
p.117 CL/NO Ill. 1], as can figurines for the Venda domba [Nettleton, “Materials, meanings, matano,”
p.99-103].
395
British Museum, accessed 03 Oct, 2013, online at
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?searchText=
psi&images=on&ILINK|34484,|assetId=851187&objectId=462281&partId=1
396
Musee du Louvre, accessed 03 Oct, 2013, online at
http://cartelen.louvre.fr/cartelen/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=21331&langue=en.
397
If so, the doll would be “an evocative but dislocated form;” see R. Becker (1987) “Observations on two
dolls,” De Arte (September issue) 8. On the changes in some southern African doll styles in response
to the interest of Westerners, see Hazel Friedman (1998) “Ntwane gimwane – Ntwane grass figures,”
In: Evocations of the Child: Fertility Figures of the Southern African Region, Johannesburg Art
Gallery/Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, p.131-137; Elizabeth A. Schneider (1998) “Ndebele
umndwana – Ndebele dolls and walls,” In: Evocations of the Child: Fertility Figures of the Southern
African Region, Johannesburg Art Gallery/Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, p.139-149.
398
The evolution of some non-doll Samburu souvenirs is presented by Sidney Littlefield Kafsir (1999)
“Samburu souvenirs – Representations of a land in amber,” In: Unpacking Culture: Art and
Commodity in Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds, R.B. Phillips & C.B. Steiner (eds.), University of
California Press, Berkeley, p.67-83.
399
Dagan, African Dolls for Play and Magic, p.133.
400
This could explain the resemblance of the name “Gudza,” provisionally ascribed to this type of doll, to
place-names in southern Africa (Section 1.7.3).
401
Dagan, African Dolls for Play and Magic, p.38.
402
Dora H. Ross (1996) “Akua’s child and other relatives: New mythologies for old dolls,” In: Isn't S/He a
Doll: Play and Ritual in African Sculpture, Elisabeth L. Cameron & Doran H. Ross (eds.), UCLA
Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles, p.43-57, at 56.
403
Dagan, African Dolls for Play and Magic, p.36.
404
Cameron, “Playing with dolls,” p.36.
405
Jolles, “Children of Earth – Zulu clay dolls,” p.99.
406
Dagan, African Dolls for Play and Magic, p.37-38.

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