Kirdi with Padlock

Accessorized with colorful beads and a padlock down her midriff, this doll is regarded as a powerful fertility fetish. Salihu Ibrahim carves the doll by hand of sese wood, detailing Dawayo stylizations as found in an ancient tribal palace. Known as Kirdi, the doll is dressed in a colorful kente cloth wrap.

The Dawayo women from Cameroon believed Kirdi dolls would eventually help them conceive. According to tradition, the village's blacksmith crafts the dolls for barren women, who must care for the doll the same way the would a newborn, including feeding and dressing them.