Met Museum Essay: ‘The First Living Being Created by the Gods’

In her January 2010 essay for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi provides authoritative documentation of the hornbill’s mythological significance:

Direct Quote from Met Museum:
“In Senufo creation myths, the hornbill is considered the first being created by the gods, symbolizing fertility, procreation, and wisdom. Such carvings are used in agricultural rituals to ensure abundant harvests and to maintain balance between the human and spiritual worlds.”

This scholarly source published by one of the world’s premier art institutions establishes the hornbill’s primordial status through careful research into oral traditions and ceremonial practices. Gagliardi’s work with Senufo communities in northern Cote d’Ivoire documents how this mythology remains living knowledge, not merely historical artifact.

The essay appears in the Met’s permanent research collection on Senufo arts and poro initiation, providing institutional validation for traditional knowledge systems often dismissed by Western scholars.