Into Ancestorhood: Death as Continuity in Traditional West African Art

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Musical Instruments:

Instruments are central in the execution of funeral rites and can be viewed as "art" themselves.  In this royal drum we again see fish symbolism.  Here it presents itself in a half-man-half-fish who most likely represents the king -- a being who exists both in the watery world of the dead and the earthly world of humans.  

Click here for detail of fish/man carving