Iran (spirit / shrine figure)
Carved wooden figure serving as the material seat of a personal or lineage spirit among the Bidjogo of the Bissagos archipelago, used in ongoing relational ritual practice.
The term iran designates both the spirit entity itself and the carved wooden figure through which it is addressed and maintained. Among the Bidjogo, iran relationships are individual as well as collective: a person may inherit a specific iran from a deceased relative, or a diviner may prescribe the commissioning of a new figure in response to illness or misfortune. The iran otibodo — a seated, frontal effigy typically 20–45 cm in height — is the most frequently encountered form in institutional and private collections. Accumulated libation residue, including oil staining, kaolin deposits, and sometimes feather or cloth attachments, is the primary indicator of genuine shrine function.
The iran category resists simple classification as either "ancestor figure" or "fetish", terms that impose external frameworks poorly suited to Bidjogo ontology. Scholarly consensus holds that the figures are better understood as relational objects that mediate ongoing communication between living persons and spirit entities across generations, with the figure's efficacy dependent on continued attention rather than on any fixed ritual moment of consecration.