Porpianong

Porpianong, identified with the Abyssinian ground hornbill, is a primordial being of Senufo cosmogony, one of the five first living creatures on earth together with the python, tortoise, crocodile, and chameleon. The great bird is said to have flown over the newly created world scattering the seeds of life, and for this reason it is honored as kasingele, 'the first ancestor', and as poropia nong, 'mother of the Poro child', the nurturing guardian of initiates in the men's Poro society. The monumental carved hornbill figures for which Senufo sculptors are famous depict the being with its long beak curved down onto a rounded abdomen, an image of fertility, the transmission of knowledge, and the unbroken continuity between the primordial past and the living community.

Domains

• primordial creation
• fertility

Powers

• to scatter the seeds of life over the newly created earth
• to nurture and protect the initiates of the Poro society as their symbolic mother

Epithets

• kasingele
• sejen

Relations

• companion: Fo

Sources

• Glaze, Anita J., Art and Death in a Senufo Village, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981.
• Goldwater, Robert, Senufo Sculpture from West Africa, New York: The Museum of Primitive Art, 1964.
• Gagliardi, Susan Elizabeth, Senufo Unbound: Dynamics of Art and Identity in West Africa, Cleveland Museum of Art / 5 Continents Editions, 2014.