Guardian figure of reliquary ensemble "byeri" ·  Southern Cameroon, Fang, Mabea · ID: 3044817

Description

wood, rep., base

The Mabea are a Fang subgroup that settled along the coast of southern Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon.

Present figure served as guardian figure and was fixed on receptacles containing the reliquaries of venerated ancestors.

They should remind of the faded person and should prevent people who were not allowed, to have a look into such boxes. They presented a kind of protecting house spirit as well, they should keep away evil and bad spirits.

At the moment of ritual, for example propitation or initiation, the skulls, bones and wooden statues were smeared with several different unguents with precise and secret symbolical functions.

The object Guardian figure of reliquary ensemble “byeri” with the object ID 3044817 was last part of the auction 90.I Tribal Art and 90.II Contemporary Native American Art at November 17, 2018 on Zemanek-Münster Auction house. The object with the lot number 227 achieved a sales price of EUR 6,000.

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