Reliquary guardian figure "eyema bieri" · Gabon, Fang · ID: 3038289
Lucas Ratton, Paris, France
Description
light wood, matt shiny dark brown patina, sitting posture, quadrangular arranged muscular arms, brass tag eyes, slightly dam., minor missing parts (eyes, nose, foot tips), crack (back of the head), rep. (breakage left thigh/leg), abrasion, metal plate;
ancestral cult of the Fang is always centred on the skulls of near relatives, especially the father, the mother or the fathers’ uncle. The skulls are unearthed weeks, if not months after the burial and then cleaned. Together with medicine and dry banana leaves they are placed in containers made of tree bark. A wooden figure is attached to the top of the container. These figures can be called ancestral figures according to Tessmann, even though they do not represent a particular person. The uninitiated, especially women, are forbidden to see the contents of the container. The skull containers and figures were sometimes placed in specially prepared sacred huts, but mostly they were simply left to stand in the corner of the owners hut.
L’objet Reliquary guardian figure “eyema bieri” avec l’ID d’objet 3038289 a fait partie de l’enchère 79th Tribal Art Auction en 21 mars 2015 pour la dernière fois le Zemanek-Münster Hôtel des ventes et avait le numéro de lot 356.
Vous trouverez d’autres Figures et autres types d’objets populaires sur nos pages thématiques associées. Notre page sur le thème Art africain pourrait également vous intéresser.