This authentic vintage Baule figure from Ivory Coast is one of many unique figures of this genre: the Baule believe that every person has a spirit mate/spirit spouse living in a parallel world, the spirit world. That person exercises critical control over all aspects of one's life. When a person needs to solve any problem in his/her life, he has only to commission the carving of that spirit mate and communicate with it in person. This figure belonged to a woman who used it exactly that way until she either died or she felt that this was no longer her one true mate and she got another one.