Fang Reliquary Guardian Figure Gabon

During migrations which took place in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the Fang people moved to their present area becoming part of a complex overlay of population of approximately 200,000, who stretch from southern Cameroon, through Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. The Fang organized their lives around the family lineage and venerated their lineage's ancestors at family shrines where memorials or reliquary boxes known as byeri, containing their bones were under the care of an elder known as the Esa. Containers made of either bark or woven basketry was surmounted by sculpted figures that guarded the remains of Fang ancestors.

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