Boli (power object)

Described as portable altars, boliw (plural) are understood as microcosms of the universe. Evocative of the dangerous hippopotamus, this form was deliberately opaque and impenetrable to the uninitiated eye. It would have only been handled by those members of the elite, all-male Komo association who had acquired the most rarified knowledge. As manifestations of spiritual and political energy in a physical form, boliw were critical to the maintenance of power in the Segu court (ca. 1712–1861). Such works have been the subject of ongoing iconoclastic campaigns since the nineteenth century. In a destructive act that is still profoundly felt by members of the Segu community, Islamic reformist Al-Hajj ʿUmar Tal destroyed the four great boliw controlled by the kings of Segu when he conquered the city in 1861.