Impressive old relicary figure- Wood -"eyema-o-bieri" - Fang“Mvai" - Gabon

Provenance: Originally from the French collection of Jean Francois Parry, then Austrian collection. As a migrating people, the Fang had the tradition of collecting the bones and skulls of deceased chiefs and important members of their community (together with magical substances) in cylindrical bark containers, instead of burying them in graves. The containers are crowned by figurative wooden sculptures, which are assumed to represent guardian spirits of the ancestors whose remains are inside the containers; “ the physical representation of the life force of their ancestors”. These ancestral shrines are known as nsek bieri (also known as nsek byeri) , and the guardian figures that protected the shrines are called bieri (or eyema bieri, eyema-o-bieri or nlo bieri) . It is assumed that these shrines enabled the living to communicate with their ancestors in the ghost world through sacrificial offerings to the Nsek-bieri. Bieri figures were also consulted before important tasks were carried out. PLEASE NOTE: The Fang are a migrating people, which caused their style to change over time, as certain groups were influenced by the styles of new regions. This is also the case with the figure offered here, which is undoubtedly influenced by the Ntumu. Very beautiful age-related patina.