Fang Female Reliquary Guardian Torso

The sacra around the Ancestors cult rituals were the craniums of the lineage ancestors and the reliquary figures. The craniums were kept in a bark drum or box. Some container had a head attached, other a figure sitting on the rim of the bark box, most figures have a long stick between the legs or buttocks which goes into a hole of the box and holds the statue in place. This small female torso is outstanding in the corpus of Fang Reliquary sculptures, for its delicacy and refined details. The large round copper disks fixed by a brass rivet give hypnotic stare which in the original dimly lit hut, where the reliquaries were kept, and the torso as a guardian was undoubtly impressive. (Africa, The Art of a Continent 1999:323)