The Senufo, like other ethnic groups in Africa, often depict motherhood in art in the form of large-breasted nursing women, whether in carved wood, lost-wax bronze, ivory, stone or terracotta.
The Senufo are farmers and herdsmen of animist or Islamic religion, who live between the Black Volta, Bagoe and Bani rivers (in Côte d'Ivoire, with 1.5 million, 10% of the population), in Mali (1.1 million, 10% of the population) and in Burkina Faso (200,000, 2%).
El taburete de cuatro patas, las escarificaciones faciales, del pecho y alrededor del ombligo, el prognatismo facial y el peinado con 3 o 4 trenzas son típicas del arte senufo. Estas estatuas son un avatar de la Diosa madre, «Katyeleo» y son accesorios del ritual del «Poro», sociedad iniciática cuya misión es integrar a los hombres senufo en la comunidad.
The theme of motherhood is universal and recurrent in art throughout black Africa. African maternity statues do not usually express the emotional bonds between mother and child, as they symbolise the fertility of women and the earth, belong to the domain of the sacred and are often displayed on an altar. The mothers are in a hieratic position, very well sculpted, while the child, often a small adult, is barely sketched, especially the body, and there are almost never any glances between mother and child.

In many African ethnicities, the left side of the body is associated with the sacred: in most black African maternity wards, the child is positioned to the left of the mother or suckling from the left breast.