Description
This belt may have belonged to a diviner whose skills derived from a close relationship with a wilderness spirit. Special training allows diviners to work in concert with such spirits to reveal the sources of human illness and trouble. Wilderness spirits often ask the people they possess to have unique objects like this elaborate belt, or weapons [see 1999.380], made for them, to be displayed during a diviner’s public trance performances.
Provenance
Reginald Groux, Galerie Noir d’Ivoire, Paris, or Robert Duperrier (died 1996), Paris; sold to Damon Brandt, New York, N.Y., between 1987 and 1992; sold to Douglas Dawson Gallery, Chicago, Ill., 2000; sold to unnamed owner, Ariz., 2000; consigned to Douglas Dawson Gallery, Chicago, Ill., 2007; sold to E. Carl Douglas [as promised gift to the Art Institute], 2010; given to the Art Institute, 2011.
Accession Number
207325
Medium
Leather, fur, gourd, shell, and wood
Dimensions
24.2 × 90.2 × 12.7 cm (9 1/2 × 35 1/2 × 5 in.)
Classification
leather
Credit Line
Gift of E. Carl Douglas and Family