The kòtín, the accomplished ancestor

The kòtín is the 'accomplished ancestor' of the Lobi, the highest status the dead can attain. When a man dies his vital principle, his thil, is first gathered into a wooden cane set in the vestibule of his house. Only after his second funeral has been completed, and after years of waiting, may a dream announce to the head of the family that this father or grandfather aspires to become a kòtín — a great ancestor entitled to an anthropomorphic image. His figure is then carved, together with that of a female counterpart, and the pair takes its place among the elder ancestors in the sacred chamber of the household, where the lineage venerates them. Standing apart from the created spirits of the cosmos, the accomplished ancestor is a once-living human raised by funerary ritual into an enduring guardian of his descendants.

Domains

• ancestral veneration

Powers

• to watch over the descendants of the household as a great ancestor

Epithets

• kòtín

Sources

• Daniela Bognolo, Lobi, Visions of Africa series (Milan: 5 Continents Editions, 2007).
• Piet Meyer, Kunst und Religion der Lobi (Zürich: Museum Rietberg, 1981).
• Jack Goody, Death, Property and the Ancestors: A Study of the Mortuary Customs of the LoDagaa of West Africa (London: Tavistock; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962).