The Lobi number around 160,000 (but have been reported to be as many as 250,000) and live in Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Ghana. THey migrated into Burkina Faso from Ghana in it 1770's, and over the following century into Ivory Coast in search of uncultivated lands. Their living compounds have narrow openings and fairly high walls, due to their formerly warlike nature, even among themselves. Primarily agriculturalists, growing millet, sorghum adn corn in the fields around their compunds. The men are responsible for the clearing of the lands, while the women do most of the sowing and harvesting.These compunds are led by one elder, a family head, and can house from as little as a dozen to as many as eighty people of an extended family.
Spiritually they revere spirits known as Thil, associated with the land, and the people of the Lobi live under the rules, protection and benificence of this diety. According to Lobi legend, at one time in a metaphorical Garden of Eden at one with god, but with the increase in their population, men started fighting with each other over women. As a result, God turned his back on them, but not wanting them to be completely forlorn, he sent to them the Thil, to take care of his people. Each family compound has at least one presiding Thil, to which a shrine is built under the direction of a diviner, housing vessels, absract iron figures and Bateba, stone and wood figures which are believed to embody the Thil spirits. The Bateba thus act as an intermediary between the family ommunity and the spirits.
Lobi carvers are poorly paid, and it is even believed that they can be adversely affected by the Thil spirits if they accept money for the carving of a Bateba. Resultingly, the Bateba vary considerably and can be anywhere from 2" to 3 feet in size. Typically they have bent legs, roughly carved feet and a smooth or groved coiffure on an enlarged head. The enlarged head is believed to assist the work of the god to be more effective.
A Lobi belief is that evil spirits are attracted by states of weakness and can harm a person through their hair, thus at first sight, shaving the head would appear to be response to a state of physical or mental weakness. The hair is believed to be the strongest part of an individual. In the event of disease, cutting off the hair is seen to act directly on the thuu (vital principal) to protect it more closely and thus cure that personwhen beset by negative energies.
