Reliquary guardian figure "eyema bieri" ·  Gabon, Fang · ID: 3038289

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.