African Congo Wooden Headrest

A hand-carved standing female figure with hands placed in front of the figure and wearing arm rings. 930 grams, 48 cm



From Equatorial Guinea, West Coast of Central Africa. From an old Bristol, UK, ethnographical collection. From the property of a late Lincolnshire, UK, gentleman.

The people that are called “Fang” in the geographic or ethnographic literature number 800,000 and constitute a vast mosaic of village communities, established in a large zone of Atlantic equatorial Africa comprising Cameroon, continental Equatorial Guinea and nearly the whole north of Gabon, on the right bank of the Ogowe River. The Fang practice a cult devoted to ancestor lineages, the bieri, whose aim is to both protect themselves from the deceased and to recruit their aid in matters of daily life. Bieri are reliquary figures placed by the Fang upon their bark boxes to personify the tribal soul, containing the skulls and skeletons of prominent deceased persons. The bieri also served for therapeutic rituals and, above all, for initiations of young males during the great so festival. The rites included consumption of a plant with stimulant properties, which induced a trance lasting for several hours, and the “resuscitation of the ancestors,” in which figures detached from the reliquaries were moved somewhat playfully from behind a raffia screen as puppets.

Each penannular in form with opposed conical finials, one with radial twist to the shank. 53 grams total, 47-55 mm



From Nigeria, West Africa. From an old Derby, UK, specialist collection. From the property of a late Lincolnshire, UK, gentleman.

Carved with tubular eyes, a wide mouth with metal plate teeth, a broad nose and raffia hair around the whole mask. 1.15 kg, face long: 28.5 cm



From Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia, West Africa. From an old Newbury, UK, ethnographic collection. From the property of a late Lincolnshire, UK, gentleman.

Masks are owned by families and used by individual lineage members in contexts of social control, boy’s circumcision camps, and entertainment. Most We masks were created to frighten with the gaping jaws and tubular eyes. Modern ethnology puts the Wobe and Guere together under the name We, despite the fact that the people themselves use the old names.