Bateba anthropomorphic figure

Bateba (“remedies that murmur dark words”) are produced on prescription of priests and soothsayers who garner the will of nature spirits (thila) tied to a specific place. People turn to them when ill or in disgrace, to remedy any faults they may have committed towards the spirit. It is the spirit itself that dictates how to shape the figure it is demanding as reparation. These statuettes act as intermediaries between spirits and the community by protecting their owners, blocking the course of witchcraft and disease, and taking the burden of people’s pain, as in the case of bereavement.