The bateba are the celebrated carved figures of Lobi art, but in religious terms they are far more than sculpture: each is a being poised between spirit and person, the embodied instrument of a thil. A tutelary spirit, speaking through the diviner, demands that a figure be carved and set upon its altar; once installed it belongs to the thil and acts on its behalf — guarding the compound, turning aside witchcraft, and in some cases taking sickness or grief upon itself in place of the family. The ethnographic literature distinguishes several functional kinds, among them the ordinary protective bateba phuwe, the aggressive or 'dangerous' figures of the bateba ti puo / thilbou type, the anomalous two-headed figures credited with sight in every direction, and the mourning bateba yadawura with hands raised to the head. Though grouped by these types, the Lobi hold that a figure's meaning depends on the particular thil and owner it serves rather than on any fixed iconographic code.