Mossi Dolls - An African Fertility Fetish

Many Mossi women and children carry dolls throughout a big portion of their early life.  These dolls are made from wood and they are carved to show hair, faces, and patterns which symbolise a rite of passage into adulthood.  These dolls are given to young girls, and they are treated like small babies, being given food, carried around, washed, and tended to as if they were a real baby.  These dolls are given to girls so that they can practice taking care of a baby, for when they eventually grow up and have their own.  The doll is also used as a way to help its owner with fertility so that they can have many children throughout their life. The doll is also believed to be a way to communicate with ancestors and spirits whom may be called upon by a woman who is married but unsuccessful in having a baby, so that she can be blessed with fertility.  While a woman is unable to successfully have a baby, she may also use the doll as a substitute for a child, so that it may grant her fertility.

Mossi Dolls stay with their owner into adulthood, and it is believed that the better that the doll is looked after, the better that the woman should be at looking after her babies when they are born.  If the doll is looked after properly, when a woman has a child, the doll is supposed to make sure that the newborn baby and it’s soul are properly bound together. The mother first feeds the doll by dropping some of her breast milk onto it, before feeding her baby for the first time.  The doll can then be passed down to a younger female family member, and she will then take up the responsibility of looking after the doll.