Featured Namji doll

Good evening
I found this interesting doll on the weekend. I believe it is a Namji doll from Cameroon. Are there ways to date these? Do they still make this type of dolls? Any information would be appreciated.

Jannie

 

Apparently:
https://arttribal.com/collections/all/products/namji-guardian-yellow-and-multi-power-fetish
"Such figures can be purchased as new from a market or passed down from mother to child."

I have no idea

 

The Namji tribe is famous for their wooden dolls carved with geometric features and adorned with multi-colored bead necklaces, cowrie shells, coins, metal strips, fiber and leather. The dolls held by young Namji girls to play and to ensure their fertility, are considered among the finest and the most beautiful dolls in Africa. They are carved from solid hardwood. The doll would have a name, be fed, be talked to and be carried strapped to the back everywhere the child would go. The most popular place to carry ones' doll is strapped to the back the way real infants are toted around. This was the young girls' first baby. This was her responsibility. This doll helped prepare the young Namji woman for her role as mother. The dolls were also used for ritual use and as a protective figure and fertility figure. This would be a wonderful gift and be lovely as home decor as well.

credit... world of Bacara

 

The people who make these dolls are the Dowayo (also called Namji, Namshi, and other variations), living in northern Cameroon. They are not a particularly well known group. Some of the earliest fieldwork among them was done by British anthropologist Nigel Barley in the early 1980s. He published an account of his work there which he titled The Innocent Anthropologist: Notes from a Mud Hut.

Here is a doll in the British Museum which was collected by Barley in 1984 -

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1984-13-1

It is not easy to find examples with known histories to try to construct a chronology of styles. There may also have been variations between different subgroups, which are not well documented. Most of the ones I have found online are vaguely dated to the mid-20th century.

This one in the Smithsonian, quite different in style -
https://collections.si.edu/search/d...:true&q=doll&record=2&hlterm=doll&inline=true

3 in the Fowler Museum (UCLA) were collected in the early 1980s -
https://argus.fowler.ucla.edu/final/Portal/Default.aspx?lang=en-US
https://argus.fowler.ucla.edu/final/Portal/Default.aspx?lang=en-US
https://argus.fowler.ucla.edu/final/Portal/Default.aspx?lang=en-US

This one, sold by WorldofBacara, looks similar to yours but they do not suggest a date -
https://www.worldofbacara.com/listing/201282933/doll-hand-carved-wood-beaded-namji