The Mossi call such dolls "biiga" = child (pl. komba). They were carried by young girls who gave them names and sometimes dressed them in pieces of old material. Newly married woman also carried them on their backs as a form fertility doll as well as protecting the newly born child from being returned to the land of the ancestors

Lit.: Ritus und Spiel - Puppen aus Afrika - Brigitte und Wolfgang Bofinger - pages 66 to 69
Isn't S/he a Doll? Play and Ritual in African Sculpture - page 64