Neuberger Museum of Art

MALE RELIQUARY
GUARDIAN FIGURE
eyema bieri

Fang Peoples, Gabon

Late 19th-early 20th century

Wood, copal resin, and palm oil

27 1/2 x 6 1/2 x 4 3/4 inches (69.9 x 16.5 x 12.1 cm)

Collection Neuberger Museum of Art

Purchase College, State University of New York

Gift of Lawrence Gussman in memory of Dr. Albert Schweitzer (1999.06.47)

Provenance:

Paul Guillaume, Paris

Harold Rome, New York, 1970

Lawrence Gussman, New York, 1970-1999

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Their faces are strong, quiet, and reflective.
They are thinking about our problems and how to help us.
We see that they see.

Fang Elder (Thompson, 2002-2003: 71.)

The peoples known collectively as the Fang live dispersed throughout southern Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and northern Gabon. European explorers and colonial officials began collecting Fang reliquary figures in the late nineteenth century and continued until about 1930, when such figures seem to have disappeared from use; however, later carvings done in a more commercial style were documented in the 1940s and 1950s.

Fang reliquary guardian figures are among the ritual objects of bieri , an association devoted to the ritual honoring of ancestors in order to obtain their goodwill and ensure the continuity between the living and the dead. Figurative sculptures were placed on top of bark boxes containing the bones of revered individuals such as male founders of villages and women who have borne many children.

To the Fang, these figurative sculptures were replaceable, whereas what they guarded—physical presence of the ancestors such as bones and skulls—was irreplaceable. During the ritual practices of bieri, these figures were removed from their boxes and deployed almost like puppets in ceremonies that dramatized the raising of the dead.

Although these two figures with elongated torsos have slightly different facial details, they contrast extremely in the treatment of their surfaces. One displays a darkened surface resulting from the ritual application of copal resin and vegetable oils; the other a honey brown, polished surface due perhaps in part to alterations made by early collectors. Common to both figures is the projecting umbilicus or navel, a feature that is widespread on many figures in African art as a symbol of fertility, which on such figures reinforces the continuity between the ancestors and the future existence of the group.

Bibliography:

Extracted from Clarke, Christa, David Binkley et al. A Personal Journey: Central African Art from the Lawrence Gussman Collection. Purchase: Neuberger Museum of Art, 2001, cat. no. 3 and 4.

Thompson, Carol A. For this World and Beyond: African Art from the Fred and Rita Richman Collection. Atlanta: High Museum of Art, December 18, 2002-May 25, 2003.

Updated: 5/8/12